Tag: Heather Graham

On a Wing and a Prayer is a catch phrase. It means you are likely fucked. You don’t have the talent, or resources, or training, or something to make it through the situation. You know, like a plane that only has one wing. So how can it fly and land? Well, it is going to need that prayer element. Hope the universe can guide them to safety. Hopefully luck is on their side.

A film like this could be about anything. Hell, most films involve odds like this where the heroes overcome despite not having the right resources and need a lot of luck. But why not use that phrase for a literal movie about a plane problem? Heck, any plane disaster movie could have used it as a title. Like. Plane. United 93. All of them.

But it would be nice if it was about a one winged plane. Unfortunately for the movie On A Wing and a Prayer, the plane will have both wings the whole time, so the lack of resources will come from another place. And the prayer will come from Jesus, I guess.

Damn, no one is in that seat. Looks like it will have to be filled with the holy spirit. 

This film is a lot about Doug White (Dennis Quaid), a pharmacist. He has a wife (Heather Graham) and some kids, but really, the relationship we care about is the one he has with his brother, Jeff (Brett Rice). They are best buds, they do a random BBQ cook off together and win? Despite the fact that they just are regular people. This is meant to be a character trait I imagine.

Anyway they hang out, and days later after they go back home, Jeff dies! A shocker for sure. So they go to the funeral, and are flying back home in a tiny private plane with a pilot and just their family. When not many minutes after take off, the pilot dies as well! Damn, maybe Doug is just a jinx. Men around him just dying.

Now they are already in the air, and the autopilot is on, so they have time. But what if he needs the autopilot off because the safest thing would be to turn around to try and land? Doug has been taking pilot lessons. Not really. He did his first ever lesson, which has almost no actual training. So he lacks the experience to get it done. It takes a lot of people working together at nearby traffic control, and people outside of that, to give him any hope of success.

But hey, maybe Jesus will take the wheel?

Also starring Jesse Metcalfe, E. Roger Mitchell, Abigail Rhyne, Jessi Case, and Rocky Myers.

Oh nevermind, seat’s taken, Jesus. 

It is important to point out that sure, this film is based on a real story. And hey, anytime a real person who survives a crash and lands, despite not being a pilot, good on them. I love to hear it. I am super glad they didn’t die. But not every one of these stories needs to be made into a film.

This film has incredibly low stakes. I mean yeah, the life of the family on the plane. But it still feels like the film was filled with filler. [Editor’s note: That was an interesting sentence]. I wouldn’t say that we needed some kids nearby listening on a monitor. Did that help much? Nah. It just took away from the plane, which had not a lot of actual content to fill out the film. Heck, the beginning of the film was so awkward. The BBQ cookout win looked like it was all done in one take, no one really was caring much during that part of filming.

The idea of “Jesus taking the wheel” I always find to be a strange one in general, in real life. But to have that be a literal moment for this movie? It is certainly an interesting choice. On a Wing and a Prayer is a sort of religious movie. It doesn’t go as hard as something made by Alex Kendrick, so it feels a least a little bit realistic. But letting the end of the film rely on this sort of moment just, honestly, made me sigh and roll my eyes.

On a Wing and a Prayer is a drama film, not a thriller. It tells a relatively simple story, where we know everyone will be fine by the end. But even if it isn’t a thriller, it should have some level of thrills in it to keep my attention. But unfortunately, it never could.

Norm of the North? What in the flip is Norm of the North?

What? You didn’t hear about the Lionsgate animated film coming out mid January? What? Did you also not hear about Strange Magic last year around the same time, which ended up as my #2 Worst Movie of 2015?

Norm of the North has also not received many trailers or TV spots. It is the type of film they are releasing and not expecting much. And let’s not forget that the critic screening of the film is Thursday night, at a time when normal people can already pay money to see it. That is where you put movies you don’t really want the critics to ruin.

But maybe they do expect something out of it. After all, two sequels have already been announced. The sequels are only planning to be 45 minutes long and straight to DVD, but they are still planned!

Here is the real question I wonder though: The Nut Job 2 was also scheduled to be released on the same day, but it has apparently moved its date. However no one out there knows where it was eventually pushed. It has disappeared off the map. Did Norm of the North somehow eat it?

He is looking kind of chunky.

So, we have a polar bear named Norm (Rob Schneider. And now you know what you are working with here). Lives in the arctic. And he can speak Human. We learn this when he tells a seal his life story about why he cannot eat the seal because he is a terrible hunter and doesn’t do polar bear things anymore. Just humans. He in particular likes to dance, of course. He calls it the Arctic Shake. Remember that. That will be important later.

The only other animal who could speak Human was his grandfather (Colm Meaney), the king of the Arctic, but he has disappeared. Speaking of shenanigans, there is a house suddenly on the ice! Fully furnished and ready to be lived in. Apparently it is a model home and some group is shooting a commercial, hoping to sell homes to get people to move to the Arctic. It is an untapped reservoir luxury gold mine. Or something.

Norm tries to get them to flee but only helps them make a good commercial. The owner, Mr. Greene (Ken Jeong) just wants to rip people off. He also has the idea to use an actor to dress up like a polar bear to sell their idea to the world. Of course Norm sneaks to NYC to become that actor and put a stop to everything. But he also feels bad for the PR lady, Vera (Heather Graham) who just wants to get her daughter (Maya Kay) into a good school.

Time to Arctic Shake his way into America’s hearts and stop the Ice take over from happening.

Also featuring the voice work of Bill Nighy, Loretta Devine, Gabriel Iglesias, and Michael McElhatton.

And these little fucks.

Oh where do we begin. Sure, the lemmings. That is what those tiny things are, and three of them join Norm on the adventure. They are apparently indestructible and can do anything, making them a perfect plot device to solve any and all problems. Except for tense moments near the end when characters decide to not use them to untie them for some reason. Oh and they are vulgar too. They pee a lot on things and fart and burp and teehee. They are going for the fucking Minion market and it is despicable.

The plot is paper thin. Points move too fast without a lot of explanation. For some reason none of the animals will believe Norm about the house, despite it being a physical thing anyone can go to, and a lot of witnesses (The Lemmings) and a respected community member. They just laugh at him…for some reason. And in the conclusion, despite none of these same animals going on the journey, they totally believe everything because The Lemmings say so, which is totally contradictory to how they behaved earlier. There is no sense to any of it.

Part of the plot involves getting America to like him shown by some fancy real time approval ratings graph that everyone can just access about things. And after going on a talk show, says one thing, he dances, dances in the street, and everyone loves him. Yay resolution! Well done bear. It is ruining Shut Up And Dance for me now.

The animation was poor and blocky. A final storm scene was almost painful to look at. The Coca Cola polar bear commercials have better overall quality to them

I can’t find any real pictures from them in NYC, just promo art.
But at the same time, look at that background bear and see how terrible it all is.

The director had his button on a fade out button and used it constantly to go between scenes. I was going to vaguely describe an example of it being used improperly, but it hurt my head trying to describe the scene.

I kid you not, my four year old step daughter turned to me twice during the movie and told me this was a bad movie. She didn’t laugh at all. I laughed at a joke that could be misconstrued as a pedophile joke. It also had a decently offensive gay joke, to throw the whole thing more under the bus.

I don’t feel like I am done. There was a love interest. But I didn’t even link her above because she had all of three lines throughout the film and ended up being not important, despite literally marrying her at the end. The final plan of the bad Mr. Greene, which he kept secret, was simply recording Norm talk and changing his words around. And after that happened, Norm basically gave up. “Oh ho, they heard me say something else now. Nothing I can do about it!”

Just. Fuck. This was bad.

Daniel Radcliff is one of those actors that you just can’t help but watch what they do. Forever will he be Harry Potter, technically a former child star, but can he be successful as an adult in random movies? We know he was successful in Broadway. He was decently successful in What If.

But what about Satan? It seems like the perfect transition really, given the witchcraft scares of Potter and other wizard folks. First they worship Satan, then they become devils in movies.

Either way, Daniel probably actually did make a deal with Mephistopheles to make all those pounds and pounds of Pounds.

If the United Kingdom adopted the Euro, famous British men wouldn’t have to worry about growing horns.

Everything is shitty for the life of Iggy Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe). He had a long time girlfriend, Merrin (Juno Temple). Well, she was killed. And everyone now thinks that Iggy did it! It was tragic too. Merrin went to church every week. She was a good person and no one hated her. But now the only people that believe Iggy are his brother (Joe Anderson) and friend/lawyer (Max Minghella).

I mean, his parents (James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan) believe him, but do they really? And Merrin’s dad (David Morse) is fully convinced of his wrong doing, threatening to kill him himself.

Oh, and he grew horns on his head. That’s interesting. Especially when they seem to change the way people perceive him, just not in the way that you’d think horns would change someone.

This isn’t click baiting to get you to watch the movie, this is just not spoiling what happens. Also with Kelli Garner and Heather Graham.

This is a scene you can find in about a third of every romance based movie.

First of all, let’s give it up for Daniel Radcliff’s American accent. I forgot he was actually a Brit in this movie! If this was his first role, I would have never assumed he was a dirty Queen-lover.

Related. I wish I could fake a British accent.

Anyways, Horns is probably, by far, one of the weirder movies of the year. And coming from me and who I am, that is definitely a compliment. Based on a book I didn’t read, book people didn’t like it as much, which is no surprise. The horns actually happen super early in the movie, but in order to keep the weirdness and uniqueness of the horns, I kept most of it a surprise for the viewers. I don’t know how much the trailer spoiled, but let’s just say it is worth finding out on your own.

It got even weirder by the end, some plot twists I could see coming, and some I could not. Some of the acting from some characters are a bit weak, but I thought Radcliffe and Temple were on point enough to keep the movie interesting. A lot of her plot and acting was of course told through back stories, but still entertaining.

Either way, Horns is at least unique and that is one of the things people seem to clamor for the movies coming out these days. It isn’t a remake or a sequel. Sure its based on a book, but basically every movie ever is based on a book, so get over it.

Behaving Badly is not a movie I was rushing out to see. Not really a movie I heard of ever, actually. But I grabbed it and a few others, purely as fillers when I needed something else for a week and wanted something random.

Literally, the only reason I grabbed these movies was to make sure my reviews weren’t just the well known new movies. I need those straight to DVD randoms. Especially if they have an interesting cast.

After all, those unheard of films that look terrible? If they end up good, that is the greatest feeling of all.

Yes, even greater than that.

Rick Stevens (Nat Wolff) is not your average teenager. His family is dysfunctional in many ways. His mother (Mary-Louise Parker) is on a lot of booze and pills. The dad (Cary Elwes) is never around, they hate each other, but he says he doesn’t want to divorce to lose money.

His sister (Ashley Rickards) is a stripper, getting money to go to college and his brother (Mitch Hewer) is very angry, stupid, and not coming out of the closet.

But they aren’t the cause of all of his problems. That is all because of Mrs. Bender (Elisabeth Shue), the mother of his best friend Billy (Lachlan Buchanan). For whatever reason, she likes Rick and sexual relationships happened. This changed his life greatly, leading to two weeks with some dead bodies, people in jail, mobsters, suicide attempts, and lots and lots of boobies. However, he just wants to impress a smart girl in his class Nina (Selena Gomez). Oh boy Rick, you done fucked up by fucking that lady.

It is also full of celebrity cameos. Gary Busey is a police chief, Heather Graham a lawyer, Patrick Warburton the principal, Jason Lee a priest, and Dylan McDermott as the strip club owner.

Generic Creepy Teenage Male Fantasy: The Movie!

Behaving Badly was a weird movie. It was definitely not made amazingly well, that is for sure. It has an incredibly low budget feel, a lot of it is half-assed. It definitely isn’t great.

But I still almost gave it a 3 out of 4 on originality alone. This movie felt like it was created for an ADHD generation, and since the story is the main character retelling most of the events, you can say that is why everything seems so hectic. It is all from the teenage boy perspective.

There were just so many awkward moments, that I had to give it some props. I loved seeing all of the celebrities making quick quips. It actually lived up to the teen sex comedy genre, although also not being of fantastic quality.

I am at a point where this film in most cases would deserve that 1, and definitely not deserve a 3 or higher, but there was a charm to it that just took me in. I didn’t know what I was getting in to, and well, it surprised me.

Some people will assume I watched About Cherry only because of its provocative DVD cover, of which I will leave up to you to look up on your own.

Those people would be right.

Seriously, that’s the reason.

You see, she has been a naughty girl, and people need to acknowledge that fact in this movie.

Angelina (Ashley Hinshaw) has recently just turned eighteen, and you know what that means! Time to throw away all responsibility and do what you want. Who cares if your mom is worried? Who cares about money? Oh wait, Angelina cares about money. That is why she agrees to do a sexy photo sheet for some necessary cash. Oh yeah, it turns out she likes it too.

So she convinces her friend (Dev Patel) to move to San Francisco with her, where they share a room and an apartment with another boy. Angelina goes to work at a strip club, not as a skeezy dancer, but as a waitress. That is where she meets Frances (James Franco), a rich lawyer who totally wants her. Woo, sugar daddy.

Oh yeah, and she starts doing adult films too. You know, solo stuff, strip scenes nothing too dramatic. Until she does BDSM with other women only. Not with dudes, that would be strange. Until she progresses to dude stuff too. Oh yeah. Penetration. Either way, her life keeps going up, her friend starts to hate her, her man starts to hate her, but Heather Graham doesn’t hate her. Heather Graham plays a director, who thinks she really has the “Stuff” despite only being eighteen.

Franco knows whats up. He loves the young ones. Francos a sick man.

Guess what, this movie has breasts in it. Ashley Hinshaw’s and some other women. But that is about it, really. It is a movie with some boobs and little else. The drama seems fake and forced. The message is uncertain, and the characters are lame. The ending is also a let down.

But boobs? But nothing. National Lampoon movies have boobs, but also occasionally they are entertaining. Yes through humor, but dramas can be entertaining as well. This one just isn’t. It is boring, and although I never moved to California become an adult star (that you know of), I doubt it happens that way so casually. Short review, for basically a short waste of time. Ashley Hinshaw is hot though.

The Hangover series is a bit of an enigma. Here is why!

The original is about four men on a bachelor party in Las Vegas, where they all black out, one goes missing, and they have to retrace their steps through the wildest night of their lives before the wedding. So what’d the sequel do? The Hangover Part II gave us another wedding, another night of blacked our memories and regrets, but in Thailand. Like most sequels, in contained the same theme and a similar plot. After all, it is called The Hangover and is about being hungover, and it is not called “Some Guys Get Into Shenanigans!” I don’t know if people complained about the similarities between Die Hard and Die Hard 2.

But for whatever reason, audiences hated it and voiced their displeasure. Which is why we now have The Hangover Part III! (Trailer) Learning from their mistakes, we now have a movie about a few guys getting into shenanigans and no hangovers.

Classic elevator scenes are classic. Those sheets are suggestive as fuck.

A few years after Part II, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) is still a madman. He is off his medication and causing accidents, overly stressing his father (Jeffrey Tambor) and giving him a fatal heart attack.

Which is why his friends decide to give him an intervention. Doug (Justin Bartha), Stu (Ed Helms), and Phil (Bradley Cooper) convince him to drive down to the rehab center to get his life back on track! But along the way, they are hijacked by Marshall (John Goodman), a drug dealer and international criminal, who claims Chow (Ken Jeong) stole $21 Million in gold bars from him.

Of course the only person to be in contact with Chow since Thailand is Alan. So he kidnaps Doug, and they have three days to find Chow and his money, or Doug dies. Swell!

This film also brings back Mike Epps as “Black Doug”, Heather Graham as Jade, and introduces Melissa McCarthy as a pawn shop owner.

Yep, the whole gang is represented in this poster. Wait…

I think I am going to put this blame on the writers. In terms of plot, this Hangover actually tells a decent story. There is betrayal, redemption, and a group of guys that can’t fix their larger than life problems. But instead of focusing on the entire group, it is almost a if Stu and Phil get pushed out of the way for the Alan and Chow show.

Alan is an annoying character, which Zach G. tends to to play a lot (With mixed results). He is the type of character that is good for a comedy, but shouldn’t be the main focus. Chow was also a secondary character, but  it feels like he has more lines than even Stu, who in turn is just a punching bag for Alan this movie.

The writers intended this to be a redemption movie for Alan, and thus  gave him the leading role. After all, everyone else has settled down besides his character, so this is just his turn to settle to end the series. But it feels very forced. The film on the whole has less humor than the previous two, focusing more on the intense plot lines. In fact, the scaffolding scene from the trailer made me jump from my feet in fright. Not that the seriousness was a bad thing, but it is framed as a comedy and not an adventure/action film.

I know it is a strange thing to blame the writers yet talk highly of the plot.I wish they were able to have the same overall storyline, without cramming two (Arguably) secondary characters down our throat. It shouldn’t be hard to give Bradley Cooper or Ed Helms bigger roles in the film. They felt like replaceable cast members, which is unacceptable.

That being said, Part III wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t amazing either.

Hooray! A children’s movie based off a book about a little girl who is “very imaginative”! That is something that hasn’t been done before!

Her hair remains that disheveled throughout the movie. CLEARLY SHE IS TOO COOL FOR IT!

Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer seems to apply some sort of new aged valley girl speak into the title and dialogue from the main character, Judy Moody, so that half of that time no one understands her. I like to imagine that at least, and everyone just responds assuming she said something else. She loves long sentences, and rhyming words in those sentences. I guess it comes with the name?

Judy Moody is played by Jordana Beatty, a natural ginger. She is possibly the only kid outside of myself at that age who actually hated summer. Because they are bummers for her. She normally has to go live with her grandmother, and old people are lame. But not this year. She has a plan. But her friends ruin that by going on better vacations, leaving her with the one lamer friend, played by Preston Bailey. Besides that, her parents are actually going somewhere “cool” (California) and leaving her with her Stinky younger brother (Parris Mosteller). And by that, I mean apparently he likes to be called Stink. Alright.

And they are being watched by their aunt who they never met, also known as Heather Graham. Heather plays her normal free spirited roll, and is a “guerrilla artist” who is bad at driving, and somehow doesn’t help Judy have a good summer.

So the movie is about how all of her plans fail, mostly because she chose to plan them and wants to stick as close as possible to her plans, regardless of what is actually going on. She is also super mean to her younger brother, who just wants to find Big Foot. I don’t see a good reason for her to actually hate him throughout the whole movie. Besides being a poster nazi child, he always seems so happy and focused. Nothings gonna stop this kid!

Not with his Blitzkrieg powers.

So I think the problem with this movie is that it only tries to capture a child audience, and give nothing to the poor parents who have to watch it with the kids. You think a whole bunch of themes will be touched, like real friendship and family, and finding out your life is actually pretty snazzy. But instead it just feels like actual kids just running around like asshats for 90 minutes.

You won’t like Judy, she is super selfish. Wants everything to go her way, and drags her friends through the mud to do so. Just wanna give her a nice punch in the face. I guess it is pretty cool that in her imagination though, she is a CGI character and not her normal self.

Father of Invention? This just sounds like the modern version of Leonardo D’whatshisface. Not the actor one, the inventor guy.

The title comes from the fact that he is a father, and “invents” things himself. By inventor, he actually means fabricator. Not a liar, but someone who comes up with ideas and puts them together using different pieces. Kevin Spacey plays the (better title) Father of the Infomercial, and makes millions. His products are just two other products put together, such as the nightlight + dehumidifier and the pepper spray + camera.

But unfortunately his ab clicker (a remote control and ab workout thing at the same time) broke a lot of fingers, and for some legal reason, put in jail as a felon for 8 years. He got out early on good behavior, not on good looks.

Not only should he never have shaved/cut the ponytail off in the movie, but I demand that all his future movies include this look.

Trying to get his life back on track, he has to work at a Family Mart under Johnny Knoxville, while his ex-wife is living with park ranger Craig Robinson, and his daughter (Camilla Belle) is now living with two other women in a poor part of town. One of her roommates being Heather Graham, the rock band loving lesbian.

Camilla was also in From Prada To Nada, a horrid film, and was unknown ish to me then. But now that she has at least two movies that I know where she is a lead character, I have to acknowledge her.

Story of course is of how his relationship with his daughter is ruined, and him trying to make the next big fabrication, which is a watch with games/videos/music on it that is cool to wear, while also employing the child tracking GPS technology for parents. John Stamos plays a very small role as his CEO replacement, so don’t watch it for him. You will have to find some other show out there.

I have no idea what show this picture is for.

The ending outcome is pretty predictable. The movie probably uses the word ‘Tits’ more than you thought it would. Spacey is of course awesome, but Knoxville just came off as really annoying. Could be just the character, but could be the actor. Just didn’t find him annoying in the good way. Characters are mostly believable, just not the redonk products that he movie makes up.