Tag: Drew Barrymore

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.

Big Miracle? Some whale movie?

Originally I wasn’t going to watch Big Miracle, but then I remembered I watch everything. “Oh yeah! Might as well watch it asap then,” I thinks to myself.2

This is the best intro I have wrote for a movie.

Bitches love whales?

Based off of actual events in the 80s (and thus I don’t know about it), this takes place in a very Northern Alaskan village. Yes, that means Eskimos. For whatever reason, Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) is a reporter in their town reporting on random shit, for the main Alaskan news. People love him there, overall nice guy. He finds one extra report before leaving though, thinking people will love it. Turns out three California Gray Whales are trapped under the ice! The vast water froze quicker this winter, and three whales are sharing a small hole, miles away from the ocean to breath from. Damn, that is sad.

This story gets LOTS of attention. Wildfire amounts. The director of Greenpeace Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore) is already around protesting the selling of territory for oil, and of course the guy who bought the land for Oil (Ted Danson). Also tons of media shows up, including Jill Jerard (Kristen Bell) who is willing to take any story to get a leg up. The head reporter at their department (John Michael Higgins) thinks it is silly though.

Fuck, even the government gets involved! Cold War is still looming, and the government gets a Russian ship nearby, made for cracking ice to help. Because they have no idea how to help these things. Initial tries are failing. Even bring in some boys from Minnesota with ice melting technology meant for rinks to try and speed up the process. Eventually they get the only idea that might work. To constantly make holes in the ice a few meters apart, big enough for the whales to come up for breath, and lead them to the ocean, hoping that they follow said holes.

Sounds crazy? Well because it is. All the locals and news reporters end up helping, including Tim Blake Nelson playing some guy from Alaska! The main kid in the movie is played by Ahmaogak Sweeney, as they had a lot of real locals play the appropriate parts. But will the Whales follow? Will the Russians save the day? Will anyone die along the way!?

Hopefully none of them decide to jump on the ice. That would suck.

So, in terms of Family movies involving saving animals, this one is actually quite refreshing. True stories can be annoying like in Dolphin Tale, where the just poop on everything that matters and give a random inspirational tale nothing like the real events. But this stuff seems to be a bit more spot on.

First off, the main kid in the movie isn’t even the main character? Everyone seems to play an important role, and it isn’t from a kids point of view, like most “family movies”. That is cool.

Secondly, the oil people arent the bad guys. Literally everyone helps out in this movie. And people don’t even need convincing, all sides actively work together and want to save the whales. Sure, some also enjoy the positive PR, but damn it, there is no one stopping them and reluctantly letting it happen. No, it just happens.

I will note I found it weird that everyone seemed to be against letting the locals kill the whales for meat. Kind of rude. Their logic was sound, and would supply them food for quite awhile. Oh well, we love guilting other cultures into living like us.

But yeah, this touching story actually was a good watch, with mostly believable characters. Had some normal family jokes you would have guessed, but overall was pretty decent.

BONUS TEXT!

I wrote this review in June, 2012, the summer before I moved to Iowa. I lived in North Carolina at the time, and Blockbuster I worked at was already closed. So I had even more free time for films, and watched anything I could.

In Iowa, I met my now wife in the summer of 2013. Days after I met her she had to fly out to Alaska to go to the funeral for her uncle, Randy Roosdett. Why is any of this relevant? Well, he apparently was an extra in this film as an oil man. And that is kind of neat.

Dun nun nun nun nun. Pew pew. Whip it good.

I immediately apologize for doing that. But for some reason I cannot delete it. Oh well.

When I first heard of this movie, I thought it was lame. Mostly because Drew Barrymore annoys me half the time, and she was in charge of it. Similarly, this might have been Ellen Page‘s first big release after Juno. Not sure.

So plotwise, Ellen is a loser in Texas! Her mom makes her do beauty pageants, but she doesn’t want to. Teen angst. Her friend, Alia Shawkat, tells her to man up and stop doing shit like that. Before I go on, her life at home is different. Her dad is there, but never fully around. It makes it seem like he is living in a van (where he has a TV for sports and stuff). But why is he in the van? Maybe its because he is Daniel Stern, and thus no one wants to be near him.

“Want to join me in my van, little kid?

So yeah, she goes to a roller derby event, loves it, and Kristen Wiig tells her to try out.

Sorry it took so long to get to the actual plot. That took awhile. She does, but she has to lie about her age to do so. I am sure that won’t come back to haunt her.

Through some miracle she makes the team, but is never played. Until she starts to play, and her small frame allows to score the heck out of some points and actually let her team win a game or two! Then they all become the best of friends! Then rising action, climax, end of movie.

Oh, and Jimmy Fallon is the announcer at all these games.

“A movie about mostly girls, and you show pictures of two dudes? That’s sexist.” – Gorgview.com reader.

Unfortunately for my Drew Barrymore dislike, I liked her movie. The conflict near the end was obvious, but it was also was kind of just swept under the rug too. That kind of bugged me.

Ellen’s transformation from “Okay mother” pageant girl to kick ass “celebrity” who learns to take control of her life is a good one. There is morals too in the story, and not just loose ones. That is a plus. But it was also entertaining and funny. Besides, it is also kind of a sports movie, and who doesn’t love sports movies?

Weee, another RomCom. This one is pretty similar to No Strings Attached, except the two main costars are not as big as the two in NSA right now. That being an acronym for the other movie, not the government organization.

But wouldn’t all movies be better with John Casey?

Both of these R rated RomComs have a lot of raunchy sex humor, but GTD came first. I actually liked GTD more than NSA. I laughed a lot more, and found it a lot more believable.

In Going the Distance, Justin Long is tired of serious stuff. It keeps blowing up in his face. But as a rebound he falls for Drew Barrymore, who is leaving NYC in a month or so. So she says nothing serious. Just some sexytime. Once she goes back to California they decided to try the long distance thing and hey, maybe one of them would move eventually and change jobs. I guess?

So some awkward visits back and forth, arguing about jawbs, an what not. Also more and more sexytime.

Going The Distance of course meant both in terms of a long distance relationship, and having a relationship that can go to that next level. As usual, the supporting actors/actresses really make the movie. They are there for comedy and that is it so they should get some of the better scenes. Charlie from It’s Always Sunny, Jason Sudeikis was pretty strong as “friend with intense mustache.” Also Drew Barrymore gets a friend, Christina Applegate. Pretty much the whole mustache storyline is worth admission alone. The only real bad thing in it is Drew Barrymore’s weird face. You know, when she like does the disgusted/panic look. I don’t like that face.

I am apparently not the only one to notice her mouth. ALSO. I just noticed her name. DREW? What the fuck?