Tag: Dan Aykroyd

I miss Chris Farley. I don’t know a single person, outside of future review comment trolls, who hated the guy. He had some of the best sketches on SNL, was always full of energy.

Sure, his movies are hit and miss. Sometimes terrible. But they helped elevate David Spade way more than he could on his own. Sure, he mostly wasted it after the fact, but he tried, damn it.

I wanted to see I Am Chris Farley, which yeah, is a made for TV documentary. It aired on Spike TV. I was curious about Farley before he was big on SNL, and since they interviewed tons of his former friends and coworkers, it would feel great to hear some behind the scenes stories of some of the bigger sketches.

Shit, they were even able to get Lorne Michaels to do an interview, and I assume that dude is super busy.

Maybe it isn’t a “traditional documentary” on a “respected channel” that is worthy of a “Review” but I am “writing” it anyways.

This is a short post because there isn’t a lot to talk about. I learned about Farley’s earlier life. I learned about how he played Rugby in college, how he got into sketch comedy and eventually SNL.

The highlight of course would be the stories about and dealing with Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker. And the stories we hear are told by Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Dan Aykroid, David Spade obviously, Bob Odenkirk, Bob Saget, Christina Applegate, his brother Kevin P. Farley, Pat Finn a college friend, and more actors of course.

As a suggestion, you might want to have a copy of the SNL: Best of Chris Farley on hand, because you are going to want a lot more Farley than the documentary can give you and want to see the sketches without tons of interruptions from his friends telling stories. Pure. Unadulterated. Farley.

But if you are cheap, just watch Tommy Boy instead. It will get you through the urges I suspect, but not fully satisfy them.

What is going on with Chadwick Boseman?

For the most part, he is relatively new to the movie scene. He has had a bunch of temporary roles in TV shows, mostly one offs. But then he got to play Jackie Robinson in 42. Then he got to play a highly sought after draft pick in Draft Day. And now? Now he is doing another biography, but this time not an athlete.

He is going to play James Brown, because of course, Get On Up is his story.

Damn Chadwick. James Brown and Jackie Robinson? Who will he play next, Oprah Winfrey?

James mother fucking Brown (Boseman). A cultural icon from the 1900s, a man who seemingly was around and performing forever, and in the news for sometimes less than glorious reasons. He came from humble beginnings, living in a small shack in the woods with his mom (Viola Davis) and dad (Lennie James). After that, he was working for Ms Honey (Octavia Spencer), a madame. After that? Prison.

That is where he met Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), not a prisoner, but a local singer, and James impressed him with his own unique sound. Next thing you know, he is part of a gospel group dabbling in that R&B, and eventually the dabble takes over and James Brown and the Famous Flames become a thing. The rest? Well, you know. Drugs. Wars. Marriage. Kids. Drugs. Friendships. Drugs. Egos. The story basically writes itself.

Featuring a bunch of people, who I will try to write in order of importance: Dan Aykroyd, Jill Scott, Craig Robinson, Fred Melamed, Brandon Smith as Little Richard, and two small cameos with Allison Janney and John Benjamin Hickey.

And this isn’t even his final form.

When I left Get On Up, I felt good. I didn’t know that I would. I felt nice too. Not sure how to describe the nice feeling, maybe sugar and spice? Hard to say.

Either way, if I can say anything about Get On Up it is that it is certainly entertaining. A lot of energy was put into the film, especially early on where it seems to go everywhere hard and fast. The movie isn’t told in a linear order, splicing in scenes from his childhood through a slight narrative of events, and finishing those events when the film felt like it. It also featured some breaking of the 4th wall, allowing Brown to narrate his own story to the audience and explain things.

But the real stars of the film are, well, the stars of the film. Chadwick Boseman and Nelsan Ellis. Holy shit. First off, Boseman, knocked it out of the park (its a baseball metaphor, get it?). When he was Mr. Robinson, I thought he did okay, but it didn’t seem like a lot of acting going on. He acted the shit out of James Brown though. He had the voice, he had the moves, he had the charisma. I was a little bit skeptical, but he did a really amazing job.

Nelsan Ellis? I don’t watch True Blood, so I don’t know a lot about him, but the amount of heart in his role was incredible. He looked so sincere about everything and my emotions tended to match whatever he was feeling versus Brown’s emotions.

Some aspects of the film were disappointing of course. All of the music in the film is actual James Brown recordings, so no we don’t get to hear Boseman try out that voice. Probably impossible, I guess.

It didn’t go a lot into his troubles with the law in the last decades of his life, but gave you enough to figure it out.

This film doesn’t make out James Brown to be a saint (probably because everyone knew he wasn’t) and mixes the good with the bad and a whole lot of soul.

There was not a lot of build up to Tammy compared to other recent McCarthy based films such as The Heat and Identity Thief. Those films got their trailers played over and over again, to increasingly annoying levels. Tammy? Nah. It had a strange teaser trailer a few months ago, decently funny, and then a regular trailer like, a month ago and that was it.

Good. It really sucks hating a movie before it comes out due to bad trailers or overplaying those trailers.

In fact, the teaser trailer of Tammy robbing the store? Pretty amusing. So there were definite hopes for this film. Especially when I found out that Melissa McCarthy co-wrote the movie with her husband / director Ben Falcone. So presumably they will flesh stuff out and not just give us the same roles she has now been type casted to.

See? She looks calm in this picture. She is never calm in any other movie.

This is a movie about a lady named Tammy (McCarthy). Tammy just lost her job for being late constantly, even if she had a good reason this time. Her car breaks down while going back home. Because she still gets back home early, she is able to see her husband (Nat Faxon) and neighbor (Toni Collette) having a fancy dinner and surprised to see her. Wooo.

So Tammy decides to leave. She wants to run away but her car is dead. Her mom (Allison Janney) says no, but her grandmother (Susan Sarandon) says yes! Pearl has over $6,000 in cash and a car, just needs someone to drive her, so why not run away with her grand daughter for awhile?

Which is also I guess your basic plot. They go on a mini adventure, where things go badly and problems occur. They get to see Pearl’s cousin, Lenore (Kathy Bates), the founder of a big pet store chain and her lesbian lover (Sandra Oh). They also meet a gentlemen interested in Pearl (Gary Cole) and his son (Mark Duplass) who Tammy awkwardly flirts with.

Outside of mentioning that her dad is played by Dan Aykroyd, I don’t think I could describe the movie anymore than I already have.

Talking about this scene is unnecessary thanks to the trailer!

When I said that was the basic plot, I guess I tried to sound sarcastic, but that is really hard to do through words on a screen. It is hard to really say how much of a plot this movie had outside of a girl and her grandmother having problems and driving. Those tiny plot points could be turned into a good film, sure, but this film might not have been in the best hands.

For the most part, McCarthy does play the exact same role. She has some nicer character moments that a lot of her other roles lack, which is nice. But as the main lead, her character doesn’t have enough for me to care. Was I supposed to feel sorry about her getting fired? No way. Even if this time it was okay, it still implied she was late a lot and probably deserved it. Same with most of the other things that happened to her.

Let’s go back to the awesome teaser trailer. You know how I didn’t bring it up? That is because that scene doesn’t happen until about two thirds of the way in the movie. Seriously. And not much is different about it from the teaser. All the lines are the same, barely any longer. A funny part so much later ruined for that reason. Looking at the trailers, this scene seems to be something early on which would make it okay. Hey, the problems start because she robs a store. Cool. Nah. That late in the movie, I kind of wonder what the point was.

Overall, the movie did have some amusing scenes, but they were few and far between for me. Pretty forgettable soon after watching it.

Fuck this movie. Just, get it out of the way. During The Nut Job I predicted Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return would end up being the second worst animated movie of 2014. I was wrong. At this point, I don’t see how there could be anything worst than this trash of a film throughout the rest of the year. No way. No way at all.

It was so many levels of shitty, I don’t think I can properly spend time explaining it all, so I made a short play to try and explain it all.

Here are most of the characters. Not of the play, but of the shitstorm movie.

Executive 1: Alright, we need a sure fire hit for the company. We got about $70 million in budget, and we want to cover ALL demographics. We want the nostalgia, we want the kids, we want songs, we want jokes, we want it all.

Executive 2: We gotta get that Glee girl involved. She is relatively free with the dead boyfriend news being almost a year old now.

E1: Yeah, get her to be the lead!

E2: How bout we do another Wizard of Oz movie? That one last year was pretty well received, and they didn’t try at all!

E1: Brilliant! Who doesn’t love the Scarecrow and Tin Man and Lion! We can make a sequel. Bring everyone back!

E2: But sir! We are out of villains! All the witches are dead!

E1: Shit, we can’t just have them having fun and going on an adventure. We need excitement!

E2: Well, we could get Ralph, our idea man…

E1: Ralph? That man is a wild card, shit, just saying his name three times tends to get him involved.

(Just then, Ralph busts in the boardroom door, pen and paper in his hands).

RtWC: FUCK THIS! WILD CARDS DON’T NEED TO WAIT THREE TIMES! HERE IS OUR MOVIE.

BOOM. FIRST OFF, DOROTHY’S HOUSE GOT FUCKED UP BY A TORNADO. LET’S MAKE THE VILLAIN BE AN APPRAISER WHO KICKS HER OUT OF THE HOUSE. ALSO, LET’S CHANGE THE LOOK OF HER AUNT AND UNCLE. HER AUNT HAS TO BE YOUNGER, HER UNCLE NOW BALDER. IT WILL WORK.

E1: Yeah people probably won’t remember the look of the outside non Oz characters.

RtWC: ALRIGHT. LET’S GET HER BACK TO OZ. WE NEED TO UP THE NOSTALGIA. FIRST THING WE SEE ARE HER FRIENDS, ALL FREAKY AFTER THEIR NEW BRAIN HEART AND SHIT. ALSO, FLYING MONKEYS. WE NEED MORE OF THEM.

LET’S SAY THE WITCH HAD A BROTHER. BUT HE IS A JESTER, BECAUSE THE WITCH IS A BITCH. HE IS EVIL NOW BECAUSE OF THIS STUFF. WHY NOT. HE IS ALSO OUR COMIC RELIEF. FUCKING JESTERS.

ANYWAYS, SOMETHING WILL GO WRONG, DOROTHY WILL HAVE TO MEET NEW PEOPLE.

LIKE A FAT OWL THAT CAN’T FLY AND IS SMART. AND A MAN MADE OUT OF MARSHMELLOWS. A PORCELAIN DOLL. THEY HAD THOSE LAST MOVIE, LET’S DO MORE OF THEM.

E2: Is the Jester going to have a stupid death like the witch?

RtWC: I DON’T KNOW, LET’S NOT WORRY ABOUT THE END TIL WE START FILMING. HERE ARE SOME PLOT POINTS. ANGRY APPLE TREES? BRING THEM BACK, BUT THIS TIME LET ONE OF THEM KILL HIMSELF FOR DOROTHY.

THEY ARE GONNA TREAT HER LIKE ROYALTY EVERYWHERE SHE GOES. IN FACT, LET THE FACT THAT SHE IS DOROTHY SOLVE 95% OF HER PROBLEMS! THE PORCELAIN DOLL? LET’S HAVE A TIME WHERE SHE BREAKS APART AND EVERYONE THINKS SHE IS DEAD.

E1: Now now, looking into your other notes, I see have written down here that the doll breaks a bunch of porcelain suitors, who then go on talking and living lives, just need to be glued back together to walk again. Why would anyone think she is dead?

RtWC: BECAUSE WE WILL INEXPLICABLY MAKE HER NOT TALK AND JUST LIE THERE POST CRACK, DESPITE HAVING HER WHOLE HEAD GOOD WHICH SHOULD IMMEDIATELY ALLOW HER TO DISPEL ANY OF THOSE THOUGHTS.

E2: Are any of these new friends going to serve a purpose to her journey?

RtWC: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THAT’S JUST FOR MORE MERCHANDISING! I WANT POINTLESS CHARACTERS AND TIE-INS. I WANT FAKE DRAMATICS. I WANT EVERYTHING TO HAVE AN EASY SOLUTION AND THERE BE NO REAL THREAT TO OUR CHARACTERS.

LISTEN, ALL WE NEED IS AT LEAST ONE REALLY BIG NAME, SAY PATRICK STEWART OR MARTIN SHORT. THEN WE CAN FILL SIDE CHARACTERS WITH OLDER, NOT AS FAMOUS PEOPLE. LIKE DAN AYKROYD, JAMES BELUSHI, KELSEY GRAMMER, OLIVER PLATT AND HUGH DANCY. THEN GET SOME “FRESH FACES,” LIKE BERNADETTE PETERS AND MEGAN HILTY. WE MAKE THEM SING AND DANCE, AND CAN DO IT ALL FOR PROBABLY $20 MIL WITH OUR ANIMATION QUALITY.

E1: Hey, we have $70 million on the table! Where would the other $50 million go?

(The three men look at each other, smile, and agree to greenlight the movie).

Anyways, that was probably terrible. But it was still more entertaining than this trash. I didn’t even begin to touch what didn’t make sense with this movie. Just. Fuck.

Fuck, another movie that I had for months, and waited for the DVD release, like a noob.

It is a shame, when HBO released Behind The Candelabra, I heard nothing but good things. I mean, it is a biography about Liberace! Not that I know really anything about him, as he died before I existed. I just knew he was a flamboyant man, and was part of a joke in Austin Powers. So the good news, I am going to learn a lot about a famous person, and get that much closer to being a master of pop culture.

Good, I have at least one potential benefit.

Alternatively, this might just be two hours of butt sex.

The movie begins in 1977, where Liberace (Michael Douglas) is already world famous and the biggest act in Las Vegas. What did he do? He entertained, in almost every fashion. He was great at piano, could tell a story, and was very flamboyant/extravagant. But oh no, he wasn’t gay, never say that. He would sue you. [Plot twist, later in real life, it was found out to be true.]

This is kind of about that story. But also the story of Scott Thorson (Matt Damon). Who is he? Well in 1977, he was only 17, an animal trainer, and wanted to be a vet. He was a bisexual man who happened to see Liberace in Vegas and get to meet with him backstage. Liberace liked him. He hired him to be an assistant.

Assistant apparently means young supple boy lover!

Aw yeah true love.

Unfortunately, this story is about the last ten years of Liberace’s life, so really, I don’t want to say too more, minus the obvious ending. It was great to see Rob Lowe in a small role as a plastic surgeon, and Dan Aykroyd did not look like Dan Aykroyd, he looked like a younger Elliott Gould.

Sex, a hidden lifestyle, AIDS, jealousy, plastic surgery, dollar dollar bills, drug addiction, and traveling the world. What a crazy last ten years or a man to live.

Oh yeah, Rob Lowe didn’t look like Rob Lowe either.

Man, Liberace is really good with his fingers. I mean for piano reasons. Big talent. Huge ego. No, I don’t know what I am doing right now.

A man with such a big personality you would think lives an interesting life. Well, fuck yes he does. A lot of cool and bizarre shit. If the movie is true. It is based on the autobiography of Scott Thorson, after Liberace died. Why? Because Liberace fucking had a clause with everyone that made it so if they ever said he was gay, he could sue them, and would claim it is a lie. Even going so far to release his own biography, making up fake women loves of his life, just to appeal to the masses.

It is a strange an interesting story, one that felt like it left a lot out unfortunately. My biggest complaint. A lot is missing, it goes a bit fast, makes big jumps.

But you know what was the most amazing aspect? The acting by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in this movie. Douglas was so into that character, I believed completely that he was Liberace. It was really fucking outstanding, and something I haven’t seen from Douglas in some time. Matt Damon still looked a little bit like Matt Damon, but he too really embraced this role, holding nothing back. I mean it. Nothing. Held. Back.

He didn’t pull a 1993 Will Smith in Six Degrees of Separation. Sorry, maybe one other person will get that reference.

These two were really fucking great at their roles. You should watch it for that reason. I just hoped there was a lot more biography in the film is all.

Happy November 6th, 2012! It is Election Day in America, so I went the obvious route and picked The Campaign to review. I don’t even have a clever intro to say before I talk about the movie, so fuck it, lets just go into it.

Just gotta warm my tongue muscles first.

In the 14th District of North Carolina, life is simple. Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is running for his fifth term as congressman for the Democratic party and is unopposed. I guess people really like him. Sure he is a filthy man, and doesn’t do much, but who cares. Unfortunately, his popularity takes a drastic turn down when he leaves a very explicit sexual message for a woman he is cheating on his wife (Katherine LaNasa) with. His campaign manager (Jason Sudeikis) tries to put a positive spin on it all, but nothing really seems to work.

This spells for trouble in Capitol Hill, namely with the Motch brothers (John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd) who are working on a new plan with China and need all the support they can get. Seems like now is the best time to replace Brady with someone new, that the public will love. Unfortunately their only available contact in the area is Marty Huggins (Zach Galifiankis), the son no one talks about. Wanting to make his dad proud, he is happy to run and make his area of North Carolina better.

He just didn’t know it involved changing everything about himself, his wife (Sarah Baker) and kids, from the mysterious campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott).

But more importantly, once both men are in the race, how low will they go to discredit the other, just for a chance to help start Project: Insourcing?

Will they be able to stop all this family shit and man up?

Having lived in North Carolina, I was happy to notice a lot more subtle jokes than one would have expected. Like the 14th District of North Carolina, that doesn’t even exist! NC had 13 districts, not sure if they did that for legal reasons, or for the joke, but I will so go for the joke.

Cutting right to the chase, this movie did make me laugh. I giggled quite often. But I think the movie went the easy route with most of the jokes, and could have made a stronger movie overall, tackling bigger issues, while also keeping a lot of the jokes. The DVD for this movie came out about a week ago, all of the timing makes since. They wanted this movie because of the presidential election. Yet they didn’t really say anything important about it.

Sure, the basic message of money buying elections is probably true. Minor jokes on the Romney/Obama campaigns, and other parallels like John Edwards. But overall it just seemed to be missing a lot more.

I would suggest seeing the movie once, it will probably make you laugh. I just don’t think it will pack as big of a punch in multiple viewings.

Without looking, I am going to assume that Yogi Bear probably failed at gaining really any profit. Its goal is to make a live action version of an old cartoon, one kids nowadays do not watch. So it wants to be a kids movie, but appeals to a non-kids audience. So adults going to it will be disappointed in it because it is a kids movie only, while kids won’t want to go to it because they don’t know about it.

Bad strategy. Recreating old cartoons into live action movies is stupid. You will lose money probably.

And not having any money is what this movie is about.

Yogi (Dan Aykroyd) and Boo-Boo (Justin Timberlake) are doing what they normally do. Being talking bears. Ranger Smith is played by Tom Cavanagh (Bad choice) and his assistant Ranger is T.J. Miller, the only two rangers in Jellystone. But, yeah. The city was going bankrupt, unless the mayor could do something. So he wants to rezone the park into a non park and sell the land to logging companies, giving the town and everyone money, yay!

So it is up to Yogi, Boo-Boo, Ranger Smith (who doesn’t care about their help, no matter how many people would love to see a talking bear) and Anna Faris (As a crazy documentary nature person) to try and save Jellystone!

HOORAY!

Here is the problems with the movie though.

1) There is not enough Yogi Bear/Boo-Boo in it. I think the ranger gets more screen time. Fuck that. We don’t want to see more Ranger Smith than Yogi, especially if he never wears the damn hat.

2) Their way of saving Jellystone involves a law that protects it. Unfortunately it is one of the dumbest and least successful laws ever, normally meant to screw people out of their homes.

3) They do save the park, but don’t bring in additional revenue for the city. So, presumably, the city DOES go bankrupt, people lose their jobs, and somehow that makes more people want to go to the park? They somehow get business at the end, but must be from out of towners, because that city is probably a ghost town.

I enjoyed the first half of the movie more than the second half. Or at least just the Yogi Bear scenes. All the other scenes were stupid. I had laughed on more than one occasion because of the good bear commentary. But there wasn’t enough. That is an obvious problem someone making this movie would have observed. It’d be like making a transformers movie and having it be about a human instead. Oh wait.