Tag: Aubrey Peeples

Jem and the Holograms

I expected to hate Jem and Jem and the Holograms going into the screening. That is why I picked it! I make an end of the year worst movies list, and based on the trailers alone, this one seemed like it could maybe even contend for the number one spot. Those trailers were awful. I didn’t even watch the cartoon show of the same name, but I could tell it was nothing like the cartoon.

It looked like it wanted to be a made for TV movie on ABC Family, only a step above a Lifetime original film.

So yeah, the film had a lot of work in front of it before it even began, which is a shame. But hey, maybe Jon M. Chu, famed director of such film classics like, Justin Beiber: Never Say Never, Justin Bieber’s Believe, G.I. Joe: Retailiation, and some shitty Step Up movies could be its saving grace.

Face
Don’t look at me with those disbelieving eyes.

Jerrica (Aubrey Peeples) is your average 18 year old girl. About to finish high school, living with her aunt (Molly Ringwald), sister Kimber (Stefanie Scott), and two foster sisters, Shana (Aurora Perrineau) and Aja (Hayley Kiyoko). Okay, so she isn’t normal. But they all like to sing and play music so that is something fun. To bad Jerrica is super shy and would never do anything about it.

Until, you know, she does. After getting all emotional about the fact that they may lose their home, Jerrica puts on make up, a wig, and writes a song about loneliness under the stage name Jem. Her sister tricks her and uploads the performance to the YouTubes and somehow it goes viral. It goes so viral that Erica Raymond (Juliette Lewis), CEO of a made up big record company is offering her a small contract to play a few shows. She is super interested in her mysteriousness and plans to exploit it for maximum monetary viral wealth!

The girls are fine with it, transporting them all the way to LA where they have to learn how to be “rock stars”. It is important to note that their dad (Barnaby Carpenter) died when Jerrica was around 7 or 8. He was working on building a robot called 51N3RG.Y (pronounced Synergy), and he left it unfinished due to his sudden death. She likes to carry it around and stuff.

We need more dudes in this movie, which is why we have Ryan Guzman playing their “caretaker” and watcher to make sure they don’t get into trouble while in LA, Nathan Moore as a driver/bodyguard like person, and Ryan Hansen as a cameo as a security guard.

Band
I have been told that Woody Allen cameo’s as the keytar.

Jem and the Holograms was not the worst movie of the year. Was it bad? Certifiably in every way. But it wasn’t a full on 100% cringefest.

First of all, the movie had no idea what it wanted to be. It goes from teenage sudden stardom film, to a long scene involving the Synergy, looking like it was taken directly from Earth To Echo. The scenes with the robot become a strange Sci-Fi Mystery throughout LA. Other parts of the movie literally seem to be almost identical to Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. I of course recognize that because I actually saw that concert doc. The plot is like a bad mash up of Hannah Montana and Josie and the Pussycats. Lewis overacted and was playing a non funny Parker Posey in that film I just mentioned.

That’s not all. It awkwardly referred to the band as a rock band, but they only sang pop songs. The song that went viral had absolutely no reason to go viral, realistically it would have never happened. They should have made it a much bigger deal. The fans she gained from the song would have hated every other thing she did, because the few songs after were nothing a like and very fake feeling.

A character says he hates newer bands because they are all auto tuned crap. The response? They sing a song a capella, but it also is processed and you can tell it doesn’t sound remotely real. Literally this happens right after the complaint about that. How can they do that to us? Related, another moment during the movie in a song, they lose power and finish it again, without instruments. The awkward echo during the song is still somehow apparent, although it doesn’t make sense to be sung.

Guzman
Here is a picture of an attractive male to break up my bitchin’.

One more major annoyance, this one is a SPOILER. Part of the plot to get out of the bad contract that breaks up the friends involves a will a character never knew existed. They steal the will and when it becomes apparent, without even showing it, they just mention part of it, and suddenly everyone changes what they were doing and they win the day. Not actually proving anything, just saying vague things. The bad character says something like, “You don’t even have the will, only I do!” The whole movie (and for years) it was in a safe, but for some reason she was randomly carrying the packet in her hands at that moment? Similarly, the dialogue was generally always terrible.

But it DID have some moments. Miraculously, out of no where, I found myself crying at a beautiful moment. I blame my newborn baby on that. Every time recently a film has had any sort of emotional “Father Daughter” moment, it affects me deeply. Also, there were some good songs. “Way I Was” was pretty damn good and the only thing similar to the original viral hit.

This movie is objectively bad. But, damn it, it has its moments.

1 out of 4.

Rage

Rage starring Cage.

I think that was the reasoning behind this entire movie. It is a tagline that I don’t think anyone ended up using though. Come on guys, it was right in front of you.

Nick Cage has been in a lot of movies, always. He is the type of guy who never says no, going for the intense indie numbers like Joe, and for the straight to DVD shitty action movies like…well, a lot more of his recent stuff.

So why did I watch Rage? Well, I needed to watch a movie and wanted something about 90 minutes. One of the first random ones I saw on Netflix at all. Knew nothing about it outside of my fictional tag line, so I was ready to be surprised either way.

Face
The good news is we still get some intense new CageFaces.

This story is about Paul Maguire (Cage), an honest business man who cares about an honest days of work. He earned an empire starting a construction business in Alabama and is pretty successful now. Good job! But of course he had mob help. He used to be in the mob with his buddies Danny (Michael McGrady) and Kane (Max Ryan). They got a lot of cash from the Russians, thanks to some thievery, and he used it to help finance his business a few years later.

Well, on a night out, a couple of thugs break into his house. His daughter Caitlin (Aubrey Peeples) is taken (not like the movie), and her two friends (Jack Falahee, Max Fowler) were beat up and left behind to tell the tale. Shit. Look’s like Paul’s past has caught up with him. Now he has to figure out if the Russians finally figured out what he did or not, before his daughter pays the price!

Just kidding, they later find his daughter dead. Too late. No, this is not a rescue mission like Taken. This is a revenge flick.

So Cage is mad, and he won’t let anything stop him from getting revenge. Not his wife (Rachel Nichols), not his former boss (Peter Stormare), not the Russian mob boss (Pasha D. Lychnikoff), and not even Danny “Getting Too Old For This Shit 27 years ago” Glover.

Glare
His face just looks like an angry plastic mask the entire film.

Ah, see. This isn’t just an action shoot em up revenge movie. There is a some drama/thriller stuff too. And twists and turns! And mob warfare.

And it is still incredibly boring. The plot twists I couldn’t see coming, mostly because they were pretty fucking stupid. Strong words, strong opinions. All true.

Man, was this movie stupid. I couldn’t believe how much of a waste of time this 90 minutes felt to me. It offered nothing new and had some shitty action. It also had some shitty backstory plots.

So why not a 0? Because of one dang scene. Cage was yelling at a friend and being all intense about things. I felt real emotion from Cage during this one scene and thought it would have taken a lot of takes to get that sort of intensity. That one scene saved this boring as fuck movie.

1 out of 4.