Tag: Indie

Honestly, I don’t know the real name of this movie. Sure, All Superheroes Must Die is the title on the cover. But IMDB really, really, really wants it to be called Vs. Who knows why. Maybe IMDB doesn’t want to let the title go. Maybe it has special value in that title, and just can’t see it drift off into the night.

Whatever the reason, I am going with the better and sexier looking title. I also am only watching this because of seeing The FP. Same guy wrote and directed both, so I am hoping it is a big subtle parody on the whole genre. You know, because director/writers never change genres in film. Right?

Oh, here are all the superheroes, that must die.

Our story begins with four heroes, waking up in a strange place, feeling woozy. They are weak! Stripped of their powers!

We have The Wall (Lee Valmassy), Shadow (Sophie Merkley), Cutthroat (Lucas Till), and Charge (Jason Trost), who still found a way to sport an eye patch in this movie.

They have lost their powers! They are all in some strange abandoned town, with a creepy vibe. Finally, the television pops on and of course it is their Arch Nemesis Rickshaw (James Remar) who wants to play a game with them. Yes, very Saw-esque. Even better if you recognize James Remar as the dad on Dexter.

Either way, he has joined these superheroes together, who have a history, to play a series of games. There are over a hundred townsfolk tied up around the town, with explosives. So if they refuse to play, he will explode and kill everyone. Their only chance is to try and work together, to attempt to pass his tests and save the lives of the innocent.

Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to win, is to die.

Insert nefarious cackle here.

The FP was a strange movie, but I allowed it, given the context, and clearly they were doing a parody. All Superheroes Must Die, however, was not a parody, and it seems they were going for a legitimate, serious movie.

The concept is a good one. No boring back story to lead up to the moment, just drops you right in the games. In fact, it is less than 80 minutes long, so they can literally just tell this one story, make it awesome, and not worry about the consequences.

Unfortunately, despite the short time? We still get a lot of back story in the form of flashbacks. Ugh. Far too much of this movie is bullshit back story, that the rest feels like a waste. Speaking of waste, the villain makes the games seem like such a big deal, with all these mini challenges. Well, it is just three rounds. And they are boring. Bah.

Yeah. A good concept, but unfortunately the entire movie is boring. It could have had a lot more action, much better acting, and just some level of entertaining. Thankfully it didn’t waste too much of my day to get through it.

1 out of 4.

I’d argue that there are two really “big” coming of age indie movies competing for top dog status this summer. The bigger of the two is The Way, Way Back, as it was written by the same guys who brought us The Descendants a couple years ago. The lesser known movie is The Kings of Summer, written by Chris Galletta, who is writing his first movie.

If you are surprised that we have a first time movie writer, stop it. They are called indie films for a reason.

Indie films tend to include forest dance scenes and drum solos, right? Being in high school can suck. Why? Well, your life is changing, you feel like an adult, but you still live with your parents. You just might lash out against your parents. Like Joe (Nick Robinson). His mom died a long time ago, and his dad (Nick Offerman) is now dating. He is also a bastard and has become very strict in his single parent raising. His sister (Alison Brie) has already moved on, but he is stuck with him for at least three years more.

Patrick (Gabriel Brasso, from The Big C) has a different problem. His parents (Marc Evan Jackson, Megan Mullally) are over bearing. Not in any mean way, just nice. Way too nice. Really fucking nice. Also they are ridiculous, it is just hard to feel alive under their care.

Eventually, Joe has the idea to build a house in the woods. Not just some lame tree house either. A real house, with two stories, multiple rooms, and they can live there, by their own rules, live like MEN. You know, hunt their own food, boil their own water, the whole nine yards. Biaggio (Moises Arias) is there too, neither of them really know him, but they are afraid to tell him to leave.

We have a few kids, building a house in the woods, and attempting to live on their own. They of course will also discover a bit about themselves, their family, and maybe what it means to be a man. Potentially with the help of Kelly (Erin Moriarty), a fellow high school buddy. We also have Mary Lynn Rajskub (most well known as Heartfire from season 4 of Arrested Development) and Thomas Middleditch as the head cops on the missing kids case.

The race to grow the best pedo-stashe is on. Coming of age films tend to be hit or miss with me. They are popular for both indie and mainstream movies, so to have a great one nowadays, you really have to offer up something new. Not just another misunderstood kid with big dreams.

The Kings of Summer takes the running away story, and well, runs away with it. For the first time movie writer, his dialogue was pretty top notch. Full of memorable quotes, I found myself looking for a piece of paper in the theater just to write some of the absurdly funny things I heard.

Witty comedy doesn’t make a complete film however, so the plot has to also stand on its own. I was afraid I would be dealing with a lot of teens who thought they were god’s gift to suburbia, the standard definition of first world problems. Thankfully, I found myself agreeing with Patrick and Joe, at least a little bit, and thought leaving home made sense for both characters.

It wasn’t perfect though. No, I would have changed the ending a lot. It was a bit too cliche at that point, which made it feel off from the rest of the movie. I am also pissed off by the romance element in the film, although it is more at the naivety of youth, and not for being actually bad. In other words, it hurt me square in the feels.

But despite that, The Kings Of Summer is wickedly funny and unique. For sure, it is worthy of at least one viewing, if not two in your summer line up.

3 out of 4.

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.

1 out of 4.

I didn’t plan on watching Little Birds, it was right next to the movie I wanted in the store. But that movie was gone, so fuck it, why not. Could be good.

I will admit, I had a huge brain fart when I picked it though. I saw that it had Juno Temple as an actress in the movie, so I of course went, “Ohh, I love Ellen Page!”. Damn that movie Juno confusing me every time.

Come on Juno. You are on the back of a bicycle. Smile like you fucking mean it! The story is mainly about two girls living in Salton Sea, California and they are poor as fuck. Well, decently poor. Lily (Juno Temple) is shown with cut marks around her vagina, clearly there from some attempted suicide. Which her dad totally did. Her mother (Leslie Mann) is doing the best she can, and pretty dang caring, but Lily is super angsty at 15, so she doesn’t care.

Alison (Kay Panabaker) is living with her dad, who is a super alcoholic. She also lost her mom, but to the Cancer. She and Lily are great friends, except Alison actually has a positive enough outlook in life. Because she isn’t a cunt.

Eventually they meet some skater boys, and said see you later town, it wasn’t good enough for them.

Yep, they decided to leave the area, steal Alison’s uncle’s truck, and drive to LA a few hours away to meet the boys. Lily is totally into Jesse (Kyle Gallner), where Alison doesn’t really care for any of them, but gives into peer pressure. The leader of the boys is David (Chris Coy), who is a no good, do nothing. They all are runaways too, living in a not so very safe abandoned apartment.

So why not get into shenanigans? Outside of normal crime and skateboarding. Like setting up dates for Lily with middle aged men to steal their shit when they get back home. Yeah, that can’t go wrong.

It was pretty great living for the boys before Lily/Ali joined them. Well, this is an indie coming of age movie. It turns out most of these are all the same. We have unlikable characters, doing unlikeable things, leading me to not liking the movie. Crazy how that works out.

I wouldn’t say that the acting was bad, just I was incredibly bored by all of it. It took a long long time for the girls to meet the boys and go to LA, where any excitement started to happen. It was a chore to watch Lily bitch the whole film about her life and hate her mom, for no reason at all.

But then when we got to LA, it took awhile still to get exciting. The ending was a bit exciting, but I hate out they ultimately decided to go with the scene. Sure, it was unpredictable, but the predictable ending would have been a lot better and make more sense.

Kay Panabaker was the best part of this movie, although she has yet to be in any movie that I have rated decently. Come on woman, I liked you (ish) in No Ordinary Family. Make your sister proud.

1 out of 4.

The reason it took me so long to see Liberal Arts is because for whatever reason, I refused to watch it outside of a RedBox rental. Yet somehow it was rented out for months, and I just got slapped in the mouth over and over again.

That doesn’t make any sense. But if you saw my review for Happythankyoumoreplease, you would have seen my comparisons between Josh Radnor and Zach Braff, getting their indie movies on. But now Josh Radnor did a second one? Come on, Braff is way behind now. Stop it Radnor.

But please, continue being the old dude at college parties. That’s for cool people.

Jesse Fisher (Radnor) is a 40 something man living in NYC and just being kind of miserable. He has a job, has a life, but there is no fun. But when his professor, Peter Hoberg (Richard Jenkins), announces his retirement (in mother fucking Iowa) and wants one of his favorite students to show up. Sure. Why not. It is his favorite professor too.

Well, during the festivities, he meets Edie Parker (Elizabeth Olsen), a 20-year old college student who is all sorts of perky and happy. In fact, they go on a date. Not weird. Kind of weird. Nothing happens. But they agree to write each other and exchange music.

That gets them all excited. Then they see each other again. For sex? Maybe for sex. He also meets an old teacher he used to like (Allison Janney), a depressed individual who likes the same books he does (John Magaro) and a person who may not be real who is helping him achieve his desires (Zac Efron).

Aww yeah. Again, maybe sex will happen. Maybe.

Is this sex? I don’t even know.

So what happens when Josh Radnor tries to out indie Zach Braff? Well, it actually works out really well.

First off, Elizabeth Olsen is the younger sister of the twins. She also seems to be totally sane. She won a lot of awards for her role in Martha Marcy May Marlene, but I haven’t seen it yet. Well, clearly I should, because Olsen rocked this movie as well.

Liberal Arts deals with a lot of tough subjects. There are multiple supplots outside of the “Go to college, maybe deflower someone who really likes you” subplot, yet they all also deal with Radnor’s character. One man, many subplots. I love the random ones with the depressed kid, and a dazed and confused Zac Efron. It also took me awhile to recognize him as Efron, not at all expecting him to have a role like that.

There are plenty of awkward scenes as well, dealing with a man who is trying to find his place in life, and going back to his roots to figure it out. Everyone acts well in it, and it doesn’t go the way you’d expect it. Shit, there is even a discussion about Twilight in it, without mentioning the book title.

I’d say check it out. You will realize that Radnor might be a better director/writer than a sitcom star.

3 out of 4.

The reason I saw this movie is basically an accident. You see, I went in to rent The Oranges the other night, and well, all 2 copies were out. What?! So, P section is next to O, this is still labeled as new release, only planned to be in there for 30 seconds, so grabbed Price Check and went on home.

Yeah, blind watch!

Maybe we will get some good old fashioned gender violence.

Pete Cozy (Eric Mabius) is satiated with his job and station in life. He works as some sort of business guy in some sort of sueprmarket chain. What does he do? Hard to say. Let’s just say he is a low level businessman, making about $40,000 a year, and fine with it. He has a wife (Annie Parisse) and a child, but they have many bills to pay. But at least he gets to spend time with his family.

When his boss leaves, another is flown in to take his place. Hiring within the company is stupid. But Susan Felders (Parker Posey) is a little bit strange. To be fair, she is in a new situation and wants to have a good impression, and be successful, but it puts everyone off and no one gives her a chance. Pete is reluctant, because the first thing she does is fire someone, and not the person he recommended, while also doubling his salary and making him her assistant. Awesome.

But with more money comes more responsibilities, and Susan might have made promises that their small team office can’t jut handle. He just wants to make enough to live and hang out with his family. He definitely doesn’t want to accidentally have an affair. Whoops. Oh yeah, that happens too.

This boardroom meeting is weird. Who gave them a table?

It was hard to get through the plot outline, it truly was. I might have had to take a nap during it. Instead I ran a lab around my lab. Overall, watching the movie was good for my physical health, just not my mental health.

About twenty minutes in or so, I just didn’t care anymore. Despite being a comedy, nothing entertaining happens nor makes me laugh. Like zero. Maybe they were going for awkward humor? Hard to tell. If so, they did badly at it.

Like, I didn’t hate hate it. I was just bored. Parker Posey isn’t the most likeable of actresses, but she was especially off the annoying charts in this one. Almost worse than Zach Galifianakis in Due Date, which is saying something.

Now I am just rambling. Don’t watch it. But every movie on the previews for it looked decent.

1 out of 4.

Normally when I do a review intro, I might say a small quip about what I think the movie was about before watching. Most of the time that is a made up dumb joke, just to show that I tend to try and watch a lot movies without knowing what they are about.

But this one is true. Baghead? The cover is the picture below, four people with bags on their heads. Well, I figured that Baghead sounds a lot like Baghdad. This is probably a comedy (the front says comedy) that has a fictionalized place named Baghead, where instead of turbans, they just have bags on their heads, and people assuming they are all terrorists. A satire or something. This is actually what I determined from the cover and word comedy. But man was I way wrong.

Oh man, oh man what is the movie about?!

Dead wrong!

This indie movie is about four people wanting to make a movie. The group of them are seen at a film festival, and seem to be critiquing to themselves how bad a movie is that everyone else seemed to love. That director, Jett Garner, said he made the movie on a small budget by doing scenes with some real people who thought the events were all real and hidden cameras. Alright, cool. But they do get inspired. They should make a movie! Don’t know what kind, but the four are going to a cabin in the woods to figure that shit out.

We have the would be director Matt (Ross Partridge), his ex girlfriend Catherine (Elise Muller), his best friend Chad (Steve Zissis) and a girl that Chad likes, Michelle (Greta Gerwig).

But first, party time. Michelle has a dream that some guy with a bag on his head was stalking around the woods and trying to kill him. Matt says that is PERFECT for a movie, a dude with a bag on his head is scary, and proceeds to prove that point by scaring them. Of course the level of fear is more based on their reaction to a surprise than the fact that a bag is on his head, but still.

Chad really wants to do Michelle, but she wants to do Matt (who said he won’t go for it). Then a dude with a bag on his head enters Michelle’s bedroom, who she assumes is Matt. She is scared because he doesn’t do anything but rummage and leave. No one claims to be the one who went into her room. DUn dun dun..

What started out as a simple joke and a movie idea is turning into reality. Did she actually see him in a dream the first night, or was he in her room then? When everyone finds out that some dude is outside their house with a bag on his head, will they all freak out and panic, or you know, tell him to stop being a douche.

Are you scared?!

Alright well, yeah. It is a horror drama thing. Definitely didn’t find anything really comedic about the movie. I also saw what was coming a mile away, and it just bugged the shit out of me how boring I found the movie. Definitely more dramatic most of the time. Very slow. Realistic, sure, but man do I not care about any of these characters.

Really not much else to say. This movie was not a good purchase on my part.

1 out of 4.

There is one major reason why “average people” would want to see Melancholia.

I may be off my rocker declaring this, or pompous, not sure. But come on, that has got to be it.

That is why I wanted to see this movie. Not afraid to say that.

This movie is highly rated and an artsy indie movie. But also Kirsten Dunst is super naked in it.

This is not one of those times. But it might as well be.

The movie is split up into two parts and a prologue. The movie begins with Earth getting fucked up and getting hit by a giant planet. Like way bigger than Earth. All the scenes were in super slow motion and confusing me, because I saw the same characters doing different things, when I thought it was supposed to show their last seconds. Nope. The first part is called “Justine” played by Dunst. She is getting married! To Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). They have a big ceremony on a mountain and are late. Limos hate mountains.

It is a weird wedding. Family issues, etc. Dunst is some sort of depressed and her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is clearly trying to help her out. She is trying super hard to fix it all, but cant. And before her wedding night, she screws some other person and I guess Michael finds out and leaves her. That night. Wooo, take that Kim Kardashian.

The second half is called Claire, for some reason. The planet is getting close to earth, but everyone is saying it will miss the planet. Including Claire’s husband, played by Kiefer Sutherland, an amateur astronomer. But Claire freaks out anyways, and now her sister is living with her, barely able to do anything at all with her depression. She is even looking forward to the collision and hopes it will happen! And we all know it will right? It will miss, but sling shot back around and come fuck everything else up.

“OH FUCK!” – Earth in one collective groan.

Did I spoil it all? Hard to say.

I am kind of mad at the ending. It doesn’t happen at all like the beginning seemed to suggest. Maybe it was a metaphor, the beginning. Or something. I don’t know.

It is a super indie artsy movie and well, maybe it went over my head? If it did I don’t care. It made me not like it. The wedding was all long and sporatic, so I didn’t enjoy watching it. I didn’t understand Dunst’s character. I didn’t even realize her husband was trying to divorce her the same night. Id understand that he was mad since she said she’d be right back before wedding sex, and she took forever. But I don’t see how that is grounds for no longer seeing each other.

Took me awhile to realize what had happened, until it was spelled out for me (yay wikipedia) which I decided to read the first part of the plot summary before the second act.

And uhh yeah. If you want to see Kristen Dunst naked, you have the internet.

1 out of 4.

Midst the bigger releases this week, I saw Like Crazy and was most curious about it. After all, the other ones were the previously reviewed (and hated) Immortals, a remake of Footloose, and the most hated movie of 2011, Jack and Jill.

Not that I am basing my opinion on a movie before watching it though. That’d be bad (and human). >.>

But yeah, Like Crazy, also featuring the words before it “I want you” “I need you” “I love you” and “I miss you”. Pretty neat, and yeah its an indie romance story.

It also features some kissing. So kids 5-9 will not like it.

Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones. The former, an American (hah) who likes to draw and design things. The former, a girl from Britain, on a student visa. Well they get infatuated with each other, go on a date, have some dirty American sex. He even meets her parents who come for a visit. But she decides to stay a bit longer over the summer, and they live together. Once she goes back for a few months for weddings and stuff, she plans on flying back to LA. Well. She can’t get through customs.

For overstaying her student visa, she is now, in fact, banned from entering the USA, even though she now has a tourist visa, and is sent back to London.
Well that sucks.

The movie is basically their relationship. It has, for the closest description, montages of their relationship. A lot of music and them doing things, or not doing things depending on where it is in the movie. It goes into a long distance thing, and then them seeing other people, trying to get rid of the ban. Then, marriage! Still doesn’t lift the ban. Then rifting apart, kind of living in both cities still, maybe also dating?

But what happens when the ban finally does lift? Can they live a normal life together?

Or will it just be a constant awkward turtle?

The other members of this relationship are Jennifer Lawrence and Charlie Bewley, and involve even more awkward working relationships and possible proposals.

Some things you might ask yourself. Why doesn’t he just move to London? Yes. Why not. Because of course that’d be ridiculous. Trying to figure out how much each member are really into this relationship is hard to grasp. When they fight, it is of course pointless, but most fights are. But one of the reasons he doesn’t go is he gets a successful design business in LA that would be hard to start in London (cough).

The ending thankfully while kind of expected, also went a different route. I both loved and hated the ending, and wouldn’t want to spoil it. But it definitely was emotional, and uneasy feeling. However, I think it moved kind of slow during other parts of the movie, and felt like the relationship was forced at points. The chemistry was definitely there between the two main stars, and it felt real.

2 out of 4.

Midgets!

Okay, just one, sorry.

When you see that a movie title is “Pete Smalls Is Dead” and see a midget on the cover, you probably groan. Who is Pete Smalls? Is he the midget? Why does his death matter, midgets die everyday[needs citation]. Well he is not Pete.

Pete Smalls is instead played by Tim Roth! Whoa! But Peter Dinklage (above) is the main character, with his friend Mark Boone Junior (who has been on Sons of Anarchy. That’s something!)

Pete Smalls is a director. He dies. Dinklage owns a laundry mat, but owes someone 10k, and they stole his dog. He wants his dog back. Goes to LA for Pete’s funeral, and meets his friend there. They work on trying to get the money, and trying to get the rights to Pete’s last unfinished movie. And some other stuff happens.

Also, some panda nonsense.

This movie is super Indie, and it shows. The soundtrack hurt my head, mostly because it annoyed the poop out of me. Just felt like crime drama background music, non stop, always going, never really feeling appropriate. Tim Roth is obviously barely in this movie. Since his character is dead. But even in a lot of the scenes with Pete Smalls, it seemed like it was just a stand in.

Some other celebrity cameos are in the movie, as other people, but none really warrant a tag, as none of the scenes were really good.

The movie is just a boring mess of blah.

0 out of 4.