Tag: Bella Thorne

On the second night of Fantastic Fest my screeners gave to me, a film with a non-descript title!

Girl premiered on Friday, September 25, the second night of Fantastic Fest, but the review is coming late (despite me watching it early) because I wanted to also be able to link a review with the director. That interview is here.

Girl is unique in that out of all the movies coming out this week for the festival, it already has a publisher (out in November) and actually has some actors your are likely to recognize! And that probably makes it the most hyped up film of the festival.

This is the most non-descript Thorne has ever looked. Girl (Bella Thorne) travels home. Girl has letter. Girl mad at someone? Girl mad at daddy. Girl want kill daddy!

Girl in small town. Girl don’t remember others. Girl go to house. Girl can’t find daddy. Girl eventually find daddy. Daddy dead! No! Girl want kill daddy! Daddy already dead. 🙁

Girl tell cop (Mickey Rourke). Girl tell others. Girl fend off Charmer (Chad Faust). Girl sleuth. Girl figure out mystery. Girl find daddy killer.

Also starring Lanette Ware, Glen Gould, and Elizabeth Saunders.

A lot of zoomed in faces, what is this, Les Miserables? Girl gives off a real small town vibe in a few ways. One, small amount of locations. Two, the locations used are run down. And three small amount of characters.

Speaking of characters, they all are not given names that are given to us, but referred to by other things like Girl, or Charmer. It gives a unique “everywhere” feel to the film, and lets you insert your own character names into the roles if you’d like. It also makes the IMDB page for these actors look like they did when they first were getting roles in tv and film.

The story for this movie is really simple, but one that has emotional weight. This is all mostly due to Thorne in the lead role. I know she has a lot of flack lately for various reasons, but she does nail this role.

Given the simplistic nature, I did want something a bit more overall still. I personally could never feel attached to the store and only maintained a small interest in its resolution. I needed some other hook to really go hard with the emotional journey they went on.

It definitely is a film with promise and does a lot with its presumed limited resources at the disposal. And worth it for those fans of Thorne.

2 out of 4.

Generally, if you throw the word babysitter in a movie title, it now seems to allude to sexy stuff. Maybe that is because of the film a decade ago, The Babysitters, about sexy underage stuff.

But The Babysitter still has a similar theme going on. Attractive ladies, people who want to bone them, and sacrifices to the dark lord.

Oh wait wait, that last part is a bit different. Although, ritual sacrifice in film usually, strangely, comes with an air of sexual tension too.

The only film to go against this trend is Adventures in Babysitting, which thankfully, is very unsexy.

This scene looks photoshopped.

Cole (Judah Lewis) is too old for a babysitter, and yet, he has one anyways. Seriously, he is now in high school. A freshman, but still in high school. His parents (Leslie Bibb, Ken Marino) sometimes take extended weekend trips to stay in hotel rooms in order to rekindle their relationship, and don’t trust their son alone. And he is a total straight up nerd, not like he would throw a rager.

But Cole doesn’t care too much either, because his babysitter is a total babe. Bee (Samara Weaving) is like a perfect human, with confidence, humor, looks, you name it. She is also down to earth and treats Cole like a real goddamn person, and not some burden. Sure she gets paid to hang out with him, but she seems to be the type to still find him to be a friend.

Convinced by his friend to stay up past bedtime to find out if she ends up having sex with a boyfriend when he sleeps, he instead finds a whole gang of people in his house. Normal, teenage stuff is mostly going on, until one of the group gets stabbed in the head, his blood collected, an unwilling sacrifice.

Holy shit. They are making deals with the devil. They also need the blood of someone pure, which of course means him. This is not how Cole saw his night going. He loved Bee!

Also starring Robbie Amell, Hana Mae Lee, Bella Thorne, Emily Alyn Lind, Andrew Bachelor, and Doug Haley.

Best friends, no romance at all? They should kiss.

The Babysitter is a very chaotic film and going for a specific audience: one that just wants to have a lot of fun. And honestly, it does feel like a lot of fun.

The film isn’t that long and it feels like it takes awhile to get to the point. But it is filled with dynamic and fun camera angles, making seemingly (and actually) boring events early on feel a bit more special. This is a throw back to the 80’s in terms of plot, but really it didn’t go 80’s enough. I mean, if you are going to do a ritual sacrifice for power to the devil, can we get a little bit of devil? Come on.

Instead we get upper aged teenagers having to carry out most of the evil deeds. Once this aspect of the film starts, it gets crazy and stays chaotic until the very end. It was highly entertaining, watching them try to get our main kid, dying in horrific ways, while also not just outright trying to kill him back.

I mean, these real people have some standards, you know?

Amell was the most hilarious of the group, totally doing better than many of his other recent works. Maybe it is just because he had his shirt off the whole time, and that appealed to my senses.

The Babysitter takes awhile to get really going, isn’t a great movie at all, but it is very, very fun once it fully embraces its plot.

2 out of 4.

Oh you didn’t hear about the super new, ultra fresh, Netflix Original movie everyone is talking about? No, I’m not talking about Okja, I’m talking about You Get Me!

You Get Me was released on Netflix on 06-28-17, which happened to be the same day they also released Okja. And I was very excited to watch Okja on that day, I had it all planned out, and when I got to the computer around 7:30am, Okja wasn’t there. I looked it up, and it just said the release date (which was the right day!) and no link to the movie. Oh no!

So instead I said fuck it, I came to watch a movie and a movie would be watched. And advertised in front of me was You Get Me, a movie where I might not even know most of the people involved, but it was new, and it needed someone to watch it. So why not make that someone me?

I believe this was a ploy by Netflix to get me to watch a bad movie instead. You get me, Netflix.

Tyler Hanson (Taylor John Smith) is a high school boy who wants one thing. Sex. And attention. And love. And a stable home life. Okay that is a lot. He is about to be a senior, his dad is dead, and his mom travels a lot, so he sort of takes care of his younger sister on his own. Sort of weird.

He has a girlfriend, Ali (Halston Sage), whom he loves a lot, but they don’t do the sex. And it turns out, before she moved there she had a lot of sex and drinking. Hopefully that wasn’t that long ago because you know, high school. Tyler gets upset, they fight, they break up. Tyler meets Holly (Bella Thorne). She likes to party, likes Tyler, they have a weekend of hanging out and fun and yes, the sexy time.

But it is just a small fling, she is just here for the summer, and he ends up reconnecting with Ali and they fix their relationship. Hooray! Of course, it turns out Holly is now here at the school for real, she has moved here with her mom. It makes things awkward, but to make it less awkward, Tyler doesn’t tell the secret, and Holly befriends the fuck out of Ali. Like quick, BFFs. Ah joy.

She comes into the friends circle, she starts getting angry that her love is not being fulfilled, and oh yeah, we got a jealous angry ex movie.

Also starring Nash Grier and Anna Akana as other best friend characters.

“Oh. My. God. I am so annoyed at everyone right now.”

It is a bit weird to see a sexual thriller from a still in high school perspective. But not too weird, because high schoolers have sex. What is weird is its rating. I don’t know if it officially has a rating, but it is clearly just a PG-13 movie, so a sexual thriller about teenagers, for teenagers, that doesn’t go as far as most movies in the genre. This is a gateway film for young adults to get into sexual thrillers, a niche film you didn’t know needed to exist.

My thoughts on Thorne are all over the place. She is in so many movies and things, at the time of writing 65 acting credits despite being 19 years old. At this point, if there is a movie with high school students, I assume she will be in it, even if she doesn’t have a big role. Sometimes she is a bitch, sometimes nice, but if you have seen enough of these films, you realize her range isn’t really there.

So to have her as this main antagonist, this deranged character, who gets all revengey and wants to hurt a boy who has wronger her. And you know what, he kind of did. He pushed her away after a good weekend. So she has a reason to be angry, not a reason to get all close to killing, but still angry.

This is a predictable film. If you’ve seen one sexual thriller, you’ve seen this one. And this is a bad one, in a genre that generally is pretty bad.

0 out of 4.

At first I thought it had been awhile since I saw a Tyler Perry Madea movie. My last one was A Madea Christmas. That was at the end of 2013. I had to assume that I had missed a few, because these used to come out all the time.

But technically the only one I missed was Madea’s Neighbors from Hell, but that is one of the plays and I am not rushing off to start reviewing plays. Especially those plays.

So technically, Boo! A Madea Halloween is the first of these sort of films in three years. And unfortunately for me, it means I have not missed a few, but I am still on track. Damn.

But hey, this one has other old people so that should mean more…uhh, ranting I guess.

This film of course takes place around Halloween, specifically he day of. We have some local fraternity trying to plan the sickest party yet, led by Jonathan (Yousef Erakat), Quinton (Andre Hall), and Horse (Brock O’Hurn). They catcall some girls who walk by. You know, Tiffany (Diamond White) and her three friends (Lexy Panterra, Liza Koshy, and Bella Thorne). They agree to come later and check it out.

But you know, they are high school girls. And some of them live in strict houses. Tiffany specifically wants to go and party, but she has an over controlling father (Tyler Perry). He has to do…something, so he asks Madea (Tyler Perry) is she can stay at their house and watch her, to make sure nothing funny happens. Madea brings along Aunt Bam (Cassi Davis), Hattie (Patrice Lovely), and Joe (Tyler Perry).

Needless to say, the gaggle of old people in her house annoys Tiffany, but she sneaks out anyways. Madea and gang end up breaking the party after some shenanigans,so the girls and frat work together to play pranks on them, hoping to scare them out of the house.

This would be the trick part of the trick or treat, of course.

This picture accurately represents how much Bella Thorne is actually in this movie.

Some of the times, I can find something worthwhile in these Madea movies. A really good joke. An okay plot. Something. This one doesn’t have any of that. Literally the most amusing scene is just a couple of people talking about a fat kid and stealing his candy in front of their mom.

An excessive amount of conversation in this film is about beating their kids to get them to listen. A whole lot of it involves very low level scares. The pranks feel authentic, in that I believe a bunch of drunk college students came up with them. Because they are shit. The movie should get rid of authenticity in this level and actually give me something entertaining.

Boo! isn’t funny. It isn’t scary. And it is a waste of time. Perry is running out of ideas.

0 out of 4.

Let’s talk about voice actors. Robin Williams ruined everything when he did Aladdin and FernGully. Before that, you just had no name voice people for your animated films. They were legit voice actors though, so the voice work was top notch.

But then we got someone big and famous for his comedy, and now he was doing voice work. And yes, he kicked butt, because Williams had an amazing voice. But not every celebrity has a distinct enough voice or is good at doing the job. Rio is led by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway. Why? Because of star power.

So these poor voice actors are now out of a job, or stuck doing just television shows. Because they’d rather have Eisenberg.

The point I am trying to make is, this is Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. There is no reason for any of the six chipmunks to be famous people, because they are all sped up, literally anyone could do it and it would basically be the same. Literally anyone. Which is why when I saw that Eleanor, the green Chipette. No one thinks about her. But Amy Poehler used to voice her, and now Kaley Cuoco does. An incredibly small role, and now two big celebrities have spent a few hours doing half-assed work for it.

It just doesn’t make any sense.

I should also mention I am just happy Jason Lee is finding some occasional work, body and voice.

The chipmunks are finally taking a break from touring the world. Alvin (Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), and Theodore (Jesse McCartney). I am also contractually obligated to mention all of the Chipettes, Brittany (Christina Applegate), Jeanette (Anna Farris) and Eleanor (Cuoco). It feels weird, because they are barely in the movie at all, but oh well.

Things are changing for Dave (Jason Lee). He is getting older, becoming a more responsible person, and starting to produce music instead of play it. He helped make a whole album with pop star Ashley (Bella Thorne) and she has her big record launch party in Miami! But Dave cannot bring the Chipmunks, because he only has a +1, and apparently that includes Chipmunks. Kind of fucked up the guy who made the record can only bring one person, really. Instead he brings his girlfriend, Shira (Kimberly Williams-Paisley).

And he is also bringing a ring. Oh man. That is serious. Too serious. The chipmunks think that Dave will abandon them and start a new family. Mostly because Shira has an older son, Miles (Josh Green) who told them that. He is also a big jerk to them, and they don’t want to be his brother! So of course they hatch a plan to just go down to Miami and stop the engagement. Wonderful friends, I tell ya what.

Also featuring Tony Hale as our bad guy (and not David Cross, yay!), Eddie Steeples as a small cameo/role from My Name Is Earl, and Flula Borg with an even smaller cameo. Also Jennifer Coolidge.

That is incredibly unsafe. Dave should have them taken away for not wearing seat belts.

Did I mention that the voice acting news pissed me off? It would make sense if they actually elevated Eleanor to a bigger role, but along with Jeanette they barely had any screen time, with Brittany having only a hair more.

I was hoping this movie would be Theodore’s time to shine. He does have a few good moments and is heroic in one of them, but it didn’t feel like enough. Not at least to the same level that Simon was given in Chipwrecked.

But what is even worse about this film is how many songs there are. Overall, there is a lot of music. They go to a lot of parties and music is basically everywhere. However, most of these songs are just…real songs. Some very current, some maybe new. I don’t know. The problem is, maybe only 4 or 5 songs were actually song by high voiced characters.

Like, isn’t that the point of this type of movie? To sell merchandise and CDs? How can they do that when they barely have any songs at all? The main song of the film was Uptown Funk, a small part of Baby Got Back and the next most famous was Iko Iko, which is old as fuck. Then 2-3 other songs I didn’t know, maybe one was original. Or it might have been something else. I have no idea. I just now all the other films had a lot more fun songs and this one was severely lacking.

The plot is already terrible. The kid actor for the son was bad. Hale was too over the top and ridiculous to even enjoy him in the slightest. I wanted Cross back! And the shenanigans were bad. But no, they didn’t even give me a lot of chipmunk music to ignore the badness.

1 out of 4.

Whenever I read the title of this movie, I imagine the adds for The Dump furniture store. And I put it in the voice of Duffman from the Simpsons.

Hopefully you just did that too.

The DUFF might be the final January movie of the year for me to watch. Sure it came out end of February, but you can tell by looking at the poster that it wanted to come out in January, but too much suck existed in that month so it got pushed back.

Who would delay us from watching this cheaply made porno movie for so long?

Bianca Piper (Mae Whitman) is a DUFF, but she doesn’t know that and doesn’t even know the acronym. It stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend, which every group of girls and guys has. You don’t have to be literally fat or super ugly, you just have to be less than all the other friends. This way your group of hotter thinner friends have a sort of gateway to them. If you are DUFF, you are easy to talk to and can give information about your better friends, for hook up purposes or whatever. Steven Lynch sang a song about them before they had a fun acronym.

Either way, Bianca has Casey (Bianca A. Santos) who is good at computers, hot, and good at sports and Jess (Skyler Samuels) who is into yoga, smart, and journalism. Well, they are all into journalism. Although they are totally real friends, they are also so totally DUFFing her.

She learns about the term from her next door neighbor, Wes (Robbie Amell), who is now totes max hunk but still talks together since they have been friends for so long. So once she finds out, she bails on her friends and decides to change things. She is going to be awesome on her own. She is going to unDUFF herself. But she doesn’t know how. So she works with Wes. He will help her get better and be able to talk to Toby (Nick Eversman), and she will help him pass Chemistry (so he can get scholarships, go to college, shit like that).

But wait! There is also Queen Bitch, Madison Morgan (Bella Thorne), who wants to be a future reality star and is working on being a youtube star first. She wants to ruin things and muck things up. That seems like an important plot point.

What is not important are the parents and teachers. Allison Janney is Bianca’s single mom, who is now a self help guru about getting over divorce! Chris Wylde and Ken Jeong play teachers and Romany Malco the principal.

The DUFF, in all reality, is a made for TV movie that for some reason someone put in theaters. There is nothing exceptional about it in any way. It is a comedy, but it doesn’t make you laugh. It is a high school movie, but it doesn’t offer anything new. Here is the IMDB description:

A high school senior instigates a social pecking order revolution after finding out that she has been labeled the DUFF

Social pecking order revolution? That means she is going to turn the school on its heels, probably with her sweet journalism skills, to make the DUFFs the cool kids? What? No where close? It is literally her just trying to make herself seem cooler to talk to a boy? Oh. Okay. Well that is kind of…two thirds of every high school story. Fuck.

I mean, the social pecking order revolution story line would have been just some angry kids wish fulfillment fantasy in real life, but at least it would have attempted to do something not normally done outside of Revenge of the Nerds. Instead this was just…boring if I had to say anything. And it had a couple of people involved I actually know of. I liked Mae in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Parenthood. She just doesn’t do much of anything in this movie.

1 out of 4.

When I heard they were making a movie version of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, I didn’t have a good or bad impression. I was more indifferent about how the quality might be. Instead, I was worried about typing out the title, or getting the adjectives all out of order accidentally.

These are the fears that I run into most often in my daily lives. And getting imprisoned incorrectly. Just those two things.

But hey, technically I have read this book before. Technically I own it. But I think, for the most part, I won’t let the book plot line bias my thoughts on the movie version. There should be differences. Should be TONS of differences. The book is just a kid, maybe 8, complaining about his day, then it getting better. I think. Sounds correct, but it has been awhile. Very simple plot. The only difference is, it looks like everyone in Alexander’s family is about to get royally fucked up by a day. So if anything more slapstick shenanigans than the book.

But maybe also a few more life lessons on how to not be an asshat?

Lesson #1: Do not drug the peter pan cast member into believing the kids in the play are actually teddy bears.

Alexander (Ed Oxenbould) is about to turn 12 years old. He has a lot of shitty days. He is generally grumpy and complains a lot too, so it is a wonder no one wants to be around him. To make matters more Terrible for Alexander, his family is perfect. His dad (Steve Carell) is an Astophysicist or something, PhD and all, but currently being a stay at home dad. His mom (Jennifer Garner) is heading out to be VP of her publishing company if this new baby book launch goes well. His brother (Dylan Minnette) is a popular junior in High School, dating a babe (Bella Thorne) and heading to prom! And his sister (Kerris Dorsey) is the lead in the Peter Pan play and just generally successful.

So Alexander is grumpy. He also found out some dick kid is throwing a birthday party the same night as his, but better with blackjack and hookers, so no one will show up to his. And there his family stands. Perfect and happy. So at midnight, he has a tiny cake with a candle and wishes his disease upon his blood.

Seemingly, the little twat has devil magic in him or something, because sure enough the family have a Horrible Day. Car problems. Oversleeping. Very Bad. Sickness. Typos. Animals. Flames. Babies. Destruction of property. No Good.

But Alexander doesn’t have a bad day. So I guess he has that going for him!

And of course there are other people! Donald Glover, Megan Mullally and Jennifer Coolidge!

What a smug as fuck look Alexander has, despite wishing he could be his brother.

OH NO THIS MOVIE DOESN’T FOLLOW THE BOOK DIRECTLY WHAT THE FUUCUCUUCCUCCKKKKK.

Just kidding. But on a related note, there was one big huge problem with this movie. Alexander. Not just the actor, who I could ignore for the most part. He was completely average, bland and annoying. Probably an actual 11/12 year old. The more annoying fact is that in this movie, he doens’t have the bad day. Just his family. Does this make the title wrong? No. But he should be having a shitty day too. Instead of having a shitty day, he becomes a weird silent observer throughout the day, every once in awhile giving a shocked face, while the rest of the movie deal with their problems and have zany adventures.

In this way, it feels like Alexander is the 5th or 6th most important person in a movie about him, allegedly. So the family? They are all pretty good. There are some good amusing parts, good clean fun for the family. Well thought out disasters for them to conquer. And Alex is a smug motherfucker just existing. Unfortunately, it ends with the birthday, which is a good experience for everyone, the bad day basically over. So it also ends with a lame feel good fest and kind of a boring note.

I am just saying. This movie already barely features Alexander. Might as well cut his role out entirely. Makes the title shorter too. Instead, we get to see a movie about rich as fuck people having a bad day. Which I am pretty sure is the plot line for lots of films anyways.

2 out of 4.

I can say for certain that I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Blended. It looked like feel good trash. This is like the fifth movie in a row where Adam Sandler is playing a father like figure, and the third time he has had Drew Barrymore as the love interest.

It kind of just felt like a money grab from the start, where the jokes are mostly just Africa jokes with a shitty plot behind it.

But yet at the same time, something compelled me to watch this movie as soon as I could.

Basic plot time! Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Barrymore) are on a blind date. Lauren is recently divorced due to her husband cheating on her (Joel McHale). Jim unfortunately is recently widowed. But also, Jim seems to be a dick, taking his date to Hooters and stuff. Both are awkward. It is a bad blind date, they don’t want to see each other again.

Until they do. A lot. Mostly on accident. They are very similar. And due to strange circumstances, they are both able to take their families on a vacation to Africa! But they are also sharing a romantic getaway package. One meant for families made up of step-children/parents, half-whatevers. You know. Blended shit.

So now they are on a zany adventure, both in each others lives, with each others kids, and hey, maybe they will learn to love and trust again too?

Jim has three daughters (Belle Thorne, Emma Fuhrmann, Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Lauren has two sons (Braxton Beckham, Kyle Red Silverstein).

Who else do we got? Well, we got Shaquille O’Neal as a best friend and Wendi McLendon-Covey as a different best friend. Kevin Nealon is a guy on the trip, with his son Zak Henri who becomes a love interest to the older girl.

And last but not least, Abdoulaye NGom as the vacation host, and Terry Crews as a lead singer of an African A Capella group to serenade us the whole movie. Also, countless other guest stars, some from most of Adam’s movies and some that were only in one before.

Basically, here is most of the cast outside of a couple kids and best friends.

Sandler is such a jerk. He can do pointless ass movies involving as many cheap celebrity cameos as possible now, or a movie that actually has some heart behind it. I blame the director. The director did Click, The Waterboy, and The Wedding Singer before this. He knows how to make a decent Adam Sandler movie. Although this one didn’t have me cry like that sneaky movie Click, it did have a lot of touching moments behind it. All the asshole-ish behavior on both sides seem to get explained away with great excuses and reasons, and you can’t help but feel sorry for both sides.

But that is the surprise drama element of the movie! You don’t want that, you want the comedy promised to you in the trailers! Well, here are actually a decent number of laughs. I am a bit disappointed in how much of the funnier moments in the movie ended up in the trailers. Mostly since a lot of them were based on a surprise/sudden action. But thankfully the film had a few more surprises up its sleeve.

Funniest movie ever? No. Great drama/comedy? Debatable. Definitely at least decent. Crews was really awesome in his role, dude always gives it the 100%.

I am mostly thrilled this movie actually had a plot and a jokes derived from the plot and characters, and not just 50 sight gags with African related scenery. They have some, but a lot more is available than the “Random jokes” that I was afraid the whole movie would end up being.

Is it better than the last two collaborations between the two? Arguably not, but eh, it was still a pretty good experience on its own.

3 out of 4.