Tag: Anthony Head

Upgraded was watched early as a screener. It is being released on Amazon Prime Video on February 9th, 2024.

Ana (Camila Mendes) is a woman just trying to make her way into the art industry! Does she have an Art History degree? You know it. But she also lives with her sister and her SO, and she is taking up space. She can’t afford rent, her job hasn’t gotten her anywhere yet. But now things are going to change.

You see, there is going to be a big art auction for the company she works for, under Claire (Marisa Tomei), and if she can impress her, she can get on the fast track to success and eventually have her own art gallery and be rich. The good news is, she unconventionally has a success, and gets to go on a trip to London to help out with a big event! But because of bullying and plot, she has to take a later plane by herself. But don’t worry, her seat is randomly upgraded (that’s the movie name!).

That is where she meets William (Archie Renaux). You know, a rich British guy. And because of silly reasons, like Ana actively lying, William thinks she is the CEO of the company, and is impressed, she is so young and knowledgeable. And then she gets introduced to the parents, and so many things get awkward, lying about what she does, and of course it will effect her job and her love life at the same time.

Also starring Aimee Carrero, Anthony Head, Fola Evans-Akingbola, Lena Olin, and Rachel Matthews.

That face is how they first intended the creepy people to look like in the Smile movie PR campaign.

If I described the movie in a sentence, instead of paragraphs, it would be enough for you. You got the whole picture. You know the movie. You know how it ends. Honestly. Knowing where a movie is going isn’t inherently a bad thing. Not at all. Like, I can assume in a super hero movie, that the good guys eventually win. Sure. But then the journey really, really, matters.

So the journey needs to matter for Upgraded. And the journey here does nothing. Honestly, it follows a playbook to the letter. Our main character doesn’t really learn anything, because she comes out on top, better off than she was before. And so I guess the whole thing was worth it in the end!

Honestly, feels a bit icky. The main character uses the love interest, lies constantly, and then like, gets to rich and successful at the end? Okay.

Upgraded is honestly one step above a Hallmark movie. It has a bigger budget, and that is about it. This film is entirely forgettable, and I wish it was a good RomCom, I honestly do. But Upgraded will be off my radar within a week. Complete out of sight, and out of mind.

The Unbeatables, aka Underdogs, aka Metegol. You might know this movie by one of its names.

It was of course first called Metegol in Argentina, where the film was made and released back in July of 2013! It had the distinction of being the most expensive Argentinian film ever at $21 million, and most expensive animated film in all of Latin America. Given the American budgets on these things, that is a pretty crazy fact.

Needless to say, it did well enough to release internationally. The Unbeatables came out in the UK in August of 2014, same plot and everything, just nice English voices to make the populace happy.

And that is why I am watching this version of the movie. Despite being available for a long time, it isn’t hitting USA theaters until mid August 2015, a whole year after the British counterpart. It was pushed back several times over a year. Well, screw that. If I can legally watch and buy a movie already out, many months before it comes out here with just more American voices instead of British voices, there is really no reason to wait.

No matter the nationality, we can all agree on their fabulous hair.

In a small village in, I dunno, let’s say Mexico, there is a boy who really loves foosball. Young Amadeo (Rupert Grint) works at a small cafe/bar where he cleans and plays foosball all day long. In fact, he got pretty dang good at it. He can score in so many ways, can flip the ball through the air, and you know, other shenanigans. Others do not share his passion, so he gave all of his players a name and personality and often puts them in their own soccer based stories.

Then he met Laura (Eve Posonby), who likes things, and likes foosball, and even maybe likes Amadeo. Then he met Flash (Anthony Head), a pompous boy who never loses and is a soccer star. Well, he sees Laura and also wants to impress her, so he challenges the loser Amadeo. And sure enough, Amadeo wins. This is Flash’s first real loss in anything, so he runs from the town.

Now years later, the town is close to dying, but Amadeo is still there playing foosball and Laura is about to leave. WAIT JUST A SECOND. Flash is back, now a world famous soccer star. The BEST star. Rich beyond imagination. Rich enough to buy his birth town and build the biggest stadium ever there.

Well, the villagers don’t want their town to get demolished. And so eventually Amadeo challenges Flash to a game. If Amadeo wins, he will leave the town forever. Great! Just they aren’t good at real soccer which is what Amadeo has demanded to enact his revenge.

If only…if only there was some nice tear magic out there, that would bring his foosball players back to life, and help him solve his many problems and save the day. If only.

Featuring the voice work of Rob Brydon, Ralf Little, Alistair McGowan, Peter Serafinowicz, and Alex Norton.

Basically, everyone is Pinocchio, but no where close to being real men.

“You can trust me I used to work with FIFA.” That’s an actual quote from this movie and it really made me laugh. I know there has been talk about FIFA being corrupt for years, with the Qatar mess, but it still feels even better to hear that joke after all of the indictments.

The trailers for the US version, Underdogs, are shit. I have seen two of them and they made me immediately hate the film. The animation was odd, the plot was pretty dumb, and, well, yeah. It was very stupid sounding, no way around those words. Surprisingly and thankfully, there was a lot more to the movie than the trailers showcased. That is usually the case, but there are also trailers who show everything and it really felt like one of those moments.

The animation at first bugged me as well, but while watching it, they had clear distinction between the foosball players and people, making them both feel unique in their world. The players had a completely different clunky style that made their existence a bit jarring, but something that made a lot of sense in the film.

Again, a lot more happens in this film than just the “play soccer for the town”, and I am a bit worried some of the other side plots or jokes will get cut from the American version of the story. I might edit this review in the future after watching the new version to see if it deserves the same grade, so as for now, The Unbeatables and not Underdogs is surprisingly worth a watch.

This just in. The director of Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters is named Thor Freudenthal. What a bad assname.

He has done a few kids movies before (Hotel For Dogs, Diary of a Wimpy Kid), but that is it. Hopefully directing this movie is a sign of changes for this man. With a name like that, I want him involved in most action movies from now on.

Back to the movie, I am pretty excited for this sequel. I actually enjoyed Percy Jackson, The Lightning Thief. As an undergraduate, one of my majors was Ancient History, which of course gave me a love of mythology as well.

No, I don’t hate that these films change the Greek Mythology meaning and stories around. Because this is just another case of a movie not being identical to the source material. If I am fine with what happened in Iron Man 3, I will be fine with whatever they can throw at me here.

Besides, these mythologies are basically dead. I love it when anything can attempt to spice them up a bit. This one is promising to add a whole sea of monsters! Hooray!

Look! There is one right now! It looks nothing like a rainbow version of The Water Horse, either!

Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is no longer a big deal in the demigod camp after the first film, as teenagers are fickle. Who cares if he just saved Olympus/the world. What has he done for them lately? For fucks sake, Percy.

His friends, Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover the Satyr (Brandon T. Jackson) believe in him, but everyone is else is obsessed with Clarisse (Leven Rambin), daughter of Ares. She wins all the events and challenges at camp.

Don’t remember her from the first movie? Well, presumably she was there somewhere. Maybe she just sick the two or so days that Percy visited in the first film, since at that point, Annabeth was the best warrior in the camp. Maybe they can’t handle two great female fighters at the same time.

Well, it turns out the protective barrier around their camp is falling, and it is all thanks to Luke (Jake Abel), son of Hermes, villain from the first film. Of course! He wants to do the unthinkable, and resurrect Chronos, the Titan, so that he can kill all the gods and ruin the world.

Classic villain strategy.

But that is not as important. They just want to restore the barrier to their camp, and to do that they have to find the Golden Fleece! Anything else is just gravy.

Oh, Percy also has a new half-brother Tyson (Douglas Smith), a young cyclops. His dad Poseidon just gets lonely sometimes, I suppose. Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades do not make any actual appearances this movie, but we do get Hermes (Nathan Fillion, technically a recast), and Dionysus (Stanley Tucci), who for some reason didn’t get to drink wine. Chiron is also back in this movie as the camp mentor, but he is played by Anthony Head (of Buffy fame), and not Pierce Brosnan. Boo recasts.

I would have raged the hardest if Brandon T. Jackson was replaced.

I would say that overall, Sea of Monsters is not as good as The Lightning Thief. But one major improvement was getting rid of the “& The Olympians” part out of the title. That title was long enough to be comical.

Here is one of my biggest issues. Luke as a villain doesn’t make a lot of sense in this movie. To resurrect Chronos, he also needs the Golden Fleece. Unless he didn’t think he could get it himself with his band of mighty demigod soldiers, it is silly to break the camp barrier, causing them to go after the fleece as well. Instead, he could have not done that, and succeeded in his plan as no one even knew he was alive.

Instead we have a movie where there is a ton of buildup for the great and powerful Chronos, who then gets easily “defeated” in a matter of minutes. It happens in a lot of fantasy films. I am surprised more people don’t get angry when they are teased about the destroyer of the world coming, but when he finally does, its a whimper. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is another recent example of that.

It does have a lot of cool effects still. Caribdis was gorgeous and they had a manticore! However, the manticore went out in a single hit. Caribdis ended up being comparable to the whale from Pinocchio. I didn’t feel scared for any character, because the solution was always immediate or obvious. Plus, you’d think there would be more monsters in the sea of monsters. At least more than one. Maybe.

They did have some good attention to detail for the minor mythologies though. I loved the gas in the Oracle scene. There are many references to The Odyssey. Just showing Caribdis without bringing up Scylla is unique. Tyson the cyclops seemed like a horrible addition early on, due to the awkwardness of his CGI’d eye, but I got over it, and he became a funny/sweet character.

Overall on its own, it is a decent family movie. Minor continuity issues arose, but they can be ignored easily by most movie goers. The ending was cliffhanger-ish, which generally feels tacky when used in movies.

I mean, what if we started allowing cliffhangers in everything? Like songs, movie reviews, and

Wooo. Here is something I have been putting off for awhile. Repo! The Genetic Opera.

I like musicals. And well, this is still something different. But I figured I was going to watch Repo Men soon (maybe), so why not watch this also soon. I knew this wasn’t a normal movie, probably something made with the intention of being a “cult classic” right off the bat. But damn it, Giles is in it, so I had to watch it.

Only took me like, two years.

Singing and gore. Pretty standard today.

In this futuristic world (2050s) Organ Donation is now being treated like a car loan. Great offers, most people can get a heart when they need it, no money down. But they have to pay their bills. If they don’t keep up with payments? Well, their organs will get repossessed back.

Also lots of plastic surgery too.

Head of the company GeneCo. is Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) but he is dying soon. He has three children, Pavi (Nivek Ogre) who wears a different face on his face, Luigi (Bill Moseley) who has anger problems, and Amber (Paris Hilton) who is addicted to surgeries and the painkillers involved. Anyways, bad and evil family, and he doesn’t trust his kids. They do shady contracts with their organs too.

The Repo Man (Anthony Head) is forced into killing others and taking their organs for GeneCo, because he is being blackmailed by Rotti Largo. The killing and organ stealing is also legal. The Repo Man thinks he killed his wife before child birth, trying to cure a disease for her, but he was set up by GeneCo.

Because of all of this, and his shame, he has trapped his daughter in his house for her whole life, making her think she had the same disease and that she could die if she goes outside. Shilo (Alexa Vega) goes outside anyways, causing a lot of problems. Rotti Largo was only mad because he was dating her mom before she left him for the Repo Man. Operas are dramatic.

There is also Blind Meg (Sarah Brightman) who is no longer Blind, thanks to GeneCo! She is a singer, and thinks that she can retire and it just be okay. There is another character called The Gravedigger (Terrance Zdunich), who I felt was pretty much a narrator like character.

But yes. Main plt? Rotti Largo is still pissed, and wants to get more revenge before he dies.

And the gravedigger is also a pill pusher.

So, this was definitely a weird movie.

As it is more of an opera than a musical, a lot more singing happens instead of just normal talking. Singing transitions between actual songs. None of the songs I can really even think of how to sing. Very…well, weird.

It is also not the finest display of singing talent. It had its moments, but a lot of it was just talk/singing.

This was another movie where I wasn’t sure what I thought about it after I watched it. Was it just okay while being super weird, or did the super weirdness make me like it a lot? Definitely didn’t hate it. I loved the little things they did to create their world, and the comic book back story telling of certain events.

It felt weird to be over “so soon” at the end though. Felt like a TV show worth of potential plot, and its obviously just a one shot movie. I also liked the ending, or at least what was left available for the viewer.

Ahhh, fuck it. Originality gives it the higher rating.