Tag: Andy Samberg

Oh heck yeah, it is October now! That means we get some Halloween themed movies, and of course, an increase in horror films. I am not as excited about those, but it comes with the territory.

I was a bit apprehensive about Hotel Transylvania at first. Is this just another quickly made CGI movie with a group of characters going on a journey? They have a lot of those. But then I found out it was being made by Genndy Tartakovsky, who brought us Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack. This can only lead to good things.

Like in real life, diversity in friendships is expected, with only one of each type of creature/race allowed.

Dracula (Adam Sandler) is a pretty big deal. But now he finds himself a single father, with his wife being killed by those gross mean humans in the 1800s. Well, he vowed to never let the mean old humans mess with his daughter or friends ever again. So he decides to build an enormous fortress, hidden from society. Heck, if he can also scare his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) into staying there forever, it’d be perfect. He also decides to run this place as a hotel, a premier destination that has never seen the likes of a human since its creation!

The movie takes place in modern times, the eve of Mavis’ 118th birthday! She was told she could go out and see the world at that time, which Dracula lets happen. But he sets up a fake village to scare her into believing him about the horrors of humans, which works very successfully! Unfortunately, it also gets the eye of Jonny (Andy Samberg), a human hiker (stoner?) who is able to stumble upon the Hotel and ruin its perfect streak.

Dracula has to go into a panic! He can’t just go and kill him, that would set back monsters hundreds of years, they are over that stuff. Instead he has to hide him, eventually in plain sight as a Frankenstein like monster. Too bad he is also the only one “around Mavis’ age”, and she kind of falls for him. Whoops. Can he hide the human and protect his hotel’s record, while lying to his daughter and guests? Huge cast of people at the hotel, including his friends the Mummy (CeeLo Green), the Wolfman, wife and kids (Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon), Frankenstein and wife (Kevin James, Fran Drescher), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz).

You can’t even handle the amount of celebrity voice actors!

Goods news, adults who read this (because I clearly have a large child readership base), you won’t be bored by this family movie! That is always a plus. It also isn’t full of fart jokes, only about one, which is strange for something with Sandler involved.

It had a lot of things working for it. The quick Dracula explosions, the voice acting (most characters you couldn’t identify right away their actor, except for Invisible Man), the animation, the plot. All pretty decent. I didn’t like the Jonny character at all, his voice annoyed me and his actions. I was kind of hoping Dracula would just hide him in a dungeon the whole time and be good to go, but eh, it happens. Was just a bad stereotypical modern hippie traveler.

The only other issue for me is that I just know I never really want to see it again. I don’t think it will be interesting a second viewing. Very strange, I know. But I think its just a one and done type of deal. So if you are going to go see it, might as well wait til closer to Halloween. Worth a gander, but not a buy.

I think most people would agree that the quality in Adam Sandler movies has been in a decline for some time. But I think part of that is also just nostalgia. How different is a Jack and Jill movie compared to a Happy Gilmore really? I guess more gags in the former, but the same guy making silly jokes. But That’s My Boy has the potential to be very different. It is rated R. Uh oh, that means titties and bigger jokes.

His last R movie was Funny People, but that was not really his movie. So who knows where this will go.

And really, this movie is a love story deep down at its roots. Heh.

Donny (Sandler) was the coolest kid in middle school. For whatever reason, his teacher Miss McGarricle (Eva Amurri Martino) became infatuated with him, he got his sex on, became really good, and then they were caught. She was sent to prison for 30 years for showing no remorse, but she was pregnant. Donny didn’t like his dad, was aggressive and mean, so he promised to be the complete opposite, a fun dad. Who cares if they were only ten to thirteen years apart. Once he got full custody, he was gonna kick some ass.

He had lots of success too, and sold his story for a made for tv movie, of him trying to raise his kid! But he wasted a lot of it. And his son, Han Solo (Andy Samberg) moved out at 18, fat and annoyed and hasn’t spoken to him since. But now he owns $45,000 in back taxes, or else he goes to prison in a week. Shit. Well his son is super successful, he could ask, but that’d be dickish. Instead he can get paid as long as he reunites his son with his wife in prison and him, sounds good! Too bad that same weekend he is apparently getting married.

So why not crash the party, pretend to be an old old friend, maybe develop a relationship with his son again, and maybe not go to prison. Won’t be hard to convince them all that he is just a friend, since he lied to say his dad died in an explosion. Leighton Meester plays the bride to be, Milo Ventimiglia her brother, Blake Clark and Meagen Fay as her parents, and Tony Orlando is his boss looking for a new partner.

Want more?! There is also work mates (Will Forte) random drunk rednecks (Nick Swardson) and Vanilla Ice (Vanilla Ice) as himself.

SHOTS. SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS. SEXY TIME.

There is a lot to potentially dislike about this movie. They rely on a lot of slapstick, poop joke like humor. Fat strippers, sex with old people, a different sex act that is arguably very very gross (which is a funny thing to say, if you knew what it was). And Adam Sandler doing an annoying voice. But there is a bunch that you could like too.

It seemed like the character was trying to rekindle the bond that used to exist, to fix his past wrongs, to be known for something other than banging a hot teacher. It did feel pretty heartfelt at points, from both sides, with enough Vanilla Ice to make everyone excited.

I enjoyed watching it, laughing out loud on multiple occasions, but I doubt it’s going to be a film I seek out to buy anytime in the near future.

Hooray! Another Super CGI movie based on a kids book. Only remotely of course. At least this kids book had a real plot, so making a movie made sense, unlike some others.

Fingers crossed that Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is more than just a random kids movie!

Although it might be his goal, dude should watch out. Burger might cram itself right in that mouth.

Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is a scientist in Swallow Island, or something like that. But no one likes his inventions, think they all suck! Like Spray on Shoes. But he also just makes a mess. Well, while he was a kid the local sardine can factory went out of business, meaning the town lost its prosperity. They then had to pretty much eat only sardines because of no tourists. His dad (James Caan) doesn’t really approve, show little emotion, and has the most killer moustache / unibrow combo ever.

Well no worries! The mayor (Bruce Campbell) and the Sardine factory mascot (Andy Samberg) are opening up Sardineland to get tourists and prosperity back. But after a tussle between Flint the local police guy (Mr. T), his new invention that turns water into food (kind of sick of sardines) blasts off into atmosphere…and destroys most of Sardineland. Unfortunately this is all also reported on a national weather news channel, by Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), so they are a laughing stock agian.

But eventually, burgers rain from the sky. Everyone is happy! They taste so good! But can it be repeated?

Yes. It can. 3 meals a day (or more), and everyone can be happy! Not the dad though. Thinks it is wasteful. Oh well, scientist becomes the talk of the day. They change the town to ChewandSwallow (from the book) and people even start to like his monkey (Neil Patrick Harris). Blah blah, eventually bad things happen, have to fix, learn lessons, also junk food is bad.

But the coolest person in the movie is this guy, Joe Towne. He is in almost every scene (small town?) and pretty hilarious. Voiced by Will Forte, and he deserves his own spin off.

So the plot was predictable, more or less. Morals and what not. The first half was a bit better than the second half (which seemed “too long” post disaster). But the dialogue was killer. A lot of the lines in the movie are hilarious. A movie parents wont also mind watching. At one point when he makes it snow “ice cream” and has admitted he has never been in a snowball fight. So once he figures it out? A great scene of him destroying so many kids right in the face. Hilarious.

I laughed a lot more than I expected. Not just at Flint’s inability to be social, but they made fun of a lot of things, including normal disaster movie tropes. Also, cutscenes when he was doing “Science!” were very well done indeed.

I know what you are thinking. “This is just some dumb Romantic Comedy. What’s Your Number? What is with movies that ask questions in the title!?” Or something like that. But probably not. Probably just never heard of the movie. That is the simpler guess!

But hey, it also has enough T&A for the fellas and the ladies, so even if you are shallow you are covered.

Covered. Like a hand towel.

Anna Faris is a dirty dirty whore. Or at least that is what she thinks of herself after reading in some magazine that at most, most women sleep with 10 guys. Women who sleep with 20 or more have a high percentage of living alone! Shit! She has slept with 19 guys, more than all of her friends. The self esteem issues she faces even drives her to get a boob job (Oh wait. No, that was real life). Doesn’t help that she seems to change everything about herself when she meets a guy too, instead of being herself (Ending moral alert).

Her sister is getting married (Ari Graynor) and so she gets the great idea to try and see if any of her ex-boyfriends are awesome now, and try to reconnect with him. That way she doesn’t push the number over the “limit”. With the help of her equally (or more) promiscuous neighbor Chris Evans, she sets off to find the people on her list, to see if she can save herself!

Its amazing how many famous people she ended up seducing/dating/spending one night with. Including Zachary Quinto, Joel McHale, Andy Samberg, and Chris Pratt (which is a great side story), and even Aziz Ansari (Who we only get to hear on the phone, but its obvious it is him).

Also, Alcohol is involved in a lot of her decisions.

I won’t say how it ends, because you know how it ends. But I actually guessed it would end a slightly different way than how it actually did, so bam, I got owned.

I think Anna Faris spent a lot of work trying to make sure the movie was funny (and might have done it because she wanted to be in Bridesmaids but didn’t make a cut? I cant remember). Something about woman power. But I did laugh a bunch, mostly at stupid stuff, but I found it funny. Not at all close to any sort of typical RomCom. Of course one disadvantage is that if you hate her voice, you will hear it a lot, and it will suck. But she is a mostly likable star, and has good chemistry with Evans (who is a bit less Douchey than he normally appears).

But hey. Slackers rejoice. And I will rate this as I feel fit!