Tag: James Franco

It turns out, more than one movie came out this weekend. That is right. The very strongly advertised and anticipated Oz The Great And Powerful. Really, I feel bad for any other movie trying to make money. It’d be like coming out vs The Avengers.

Of course, there is also the potential for naysayers. You can’t touch The Wizard of Oz after all. It is too nostalgic to be remade, re-imagined, or even associated with anything. Okay sure. Maybe the classic was based off of a book and not original. But at least it was the only one, right?

Fuck to the no. That classic was at least the 6th or 7th movie version of it, in a 30 year span. I just like to point this stuff out to people, who are quick to say Hollywood is no longer original, always rebooting. The movie you love was a reboot on its own.

So if they want to make up a prequel, with a lame china doll girl, by all means, I say let them!

Go figure, it takes place in Kansas. Oz (James Franco) is working at a traveling fair, being quite the ladies man. Maybe too much of a ladies man. His assistant Frank (Zach Braff) he treats like a trained monkey! Foreshadowing. Either way, he makes the Strong Man angry. Has to run, hops in a hot air balloon. Oh no, Tornado! Boom, Oz.

Shit is all in color and widescreen. Potentially dangerous as well.

Good thing he was found by Theodora (Mila Kunis) and not some creepy flying monkey. She is a witch, but thankfully not wicked. Nor is her sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz), the current pseudo-ruler of Oz. They are all stoked, that the prophecy is coming true! An Oz will save the day, destroy the witch, and he will rule the land. Yay!

Or you know, shenanigans. Greed. Oz isn’t really the nicest or most honest man. Not to mention not actually being a wizard. Can he, will he, kill the witch? Well, just think about the fact that this is a prequel, then figure it out.

Featuring Michelle Williams as Glinda the Good, Joey King as china doll girl, Tony Cox as a helper, Bill Cobbs as a “Tinkerer” and Bruce Campbell. Why Bruce? Because its a Sam Raimi film.

Plot Twist: Bruce Campbell is the wicked witch!

I watched Oz on the opening night, in 3D, of course. It opens with a long title sequence, and its pretty fantastic. Really sets the mood. If you couldn’t tell from the trailer, the Kansas scenes are in a brown tinted lack of color scope, and squarely in the middle of the screen. Thats okay.

But Oz? Oz kind of turns into a CGI slugfest, over the top and extraordinary. I should have known it when I saw it was Alice In Wonderland producers, which might have had 2 real actors the whole movie as far as I could tell. Nothing wrong with special effects, but most of the time, the cast felt out of place or up against a green screen.

The acting in the movie isn’t the best either. Franco seemed like he wasn’t trying, nor did really any of the witches. Kunis plays some odd naivety, Weisz typical angst, and Williams felt like she had nothing to work with.

I might have been a bit bored halfway through, waiting for the eventual plot changes.

But you know what? The ending is kind of amazing. The attack on Oz, to the playful tricks (some of which are obvious, but not all of them), to the resolution, all feels pretty dang great. Not to mention a small part where Sam Raimi actually threw in an Evil Dead reference, which made me as giddy as a school girl.

Was this movie a lot less spectacular than advertised? Yes. But the ending almost made it super worthy to me.

Tina Fey has been in a surprisingly low number of shows/movies, based on how famous she is for her work and writing. Seriously, look at that imdb. Weird right?

I only mention that, because when I went to review Date Night, I noticed I hadn’t tagged her really in anything yet, and that is why. There really isn’t anything there! If I ever review Baby Mama, I’d be pretty much done.

Too bad I have loathed everything Amy Poehler has done, outside of Pars and Rec.

Fey and Steve Carell play a married couple with kids. They are super busy, but they still have time to force themselves to go out and eat, to have date nights! Or else their relationship will get stale. But out of fear, from another couple getting divorced, they decide to spice it up, go out to the city (NYC), wear nice clothes, and eat at Claw, a way fancy place. Without reservations. Dumb. But they are sneaky, they steal someone elses table who isn’t answering, and become the Tripplehorns!

I know right. Scum of the earth. Who the fuck takes someone else reservation?

But when two thugs (Jimmi Simpson and Common (I am mad that is his “name”)) come up to them, thinking they are the Tripplehorns, and demanding a flash drive, shit gets real. Then is a night of running from them, from the cops, and trying to figure out what is actually going on. With the the help of Mark Wahlberg as “private investigator sexy man”, and some help from James Franco and Mila Kunis (the real Tripplehorns), can they not die?

Also what the heck is going on here?

But was it good? This movie was about as slapstick as I would guess, but also more. Tina Fey and Steve did a good job together, very believable, and they both have made a career out of being awkward. This movie also features one of the best stunt driving/chase scenes I have probably ever seen in the last few years. Seriously. The car/taxi thing? Brilli-fuckin-ant. Also laughs were had, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to watch it again. Minus the car scene. Holy shit yeah. Ending wasn’t the best either.

One of my friends joked to me a long time ago that Eat Pray Love could just be renamed “First World Problems: The Movie” (probably a stolen joke) but I didn’t get it now. Holy shit, I never knew the journey to self empowerment would be such an expensive endeavor.

Sure she is roughing it. But she is roughing it in Italy with a safety net.

The movie stars Julia Roberts as she travels around the world to experience life and find herself. She was living very well off in NYC with her husband, Billy Crudup, but got bored by the marriage. While trying to get a divorce (which he didn’t want), she fell for James Franco, who she then also had problems with. Her obvious solution was to pay for a trip to Italy, India, and Indonesia.

In Italy she was supposed to focus on her eating, and find happiness. In India, she would focus on her spirituality, and in Indonesia she would hang out with this weird medicine man and figure out her love life. Despite being packaged into nice little boxes, the overall theme of the movie was love. Everyplace she went, she had to deal with other social stigmas on her for not having a husband/being divorced. Some would call her courageous, but others stupid.

The transition was weird for me to watch too. Once she got to India, I felt like she was only being berated by Richard Jenkins for a long time. She got mad that he was speaking in “bumper stickers”, but she really didn’t have a better message. I barely even noticed her getting to Indonesia, minus the medicine man dude. Where, from what I could tell, all she was doing was hanging out with the rich Javier Bardem.

Not to be confused with the evil killing Javier Bardem.

Anyways. Most of the movie she seems to be complaining about love, and trying to get over her past two loves. Despite the eating and praying portions. Not only does that happen, but she complains a lot. Apparently her life is so bad that she had to leave the USA. By the end of course she “finds herself”, whatever that means, and in doing so…a new man. I thought they were trying to set us up for an independent woman thing, but somehow it still ends with a man. That man not being Billy Crudup, who she left brokenhearted in NYC.

I cant’ speak as a woman, but from what I can tell, it still promotes the fact that they need a man in their life to be truly happy, and that journeys require lots of money. If you are stuck at home, oh well, maybe you can journey to a nearby town. Doesn’t seem like the best messages. For shame, Julia Roberts. For shame.

This is a kind of weird movie. It is kind of a documentary, but also not really. Which is the joke/reference it makes at the beginning. Howl has about three different parts: one the telling of the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg, famous beat poet. Two, an interview with him about the poem and his life. And three, the court room precidings against his publishing company who were defending the work from being banned for being “obscene”. Allen Ginsberg in the first two parts is played by James Franco.

Sure. I could see him being a famous beat poet. I guess.

None of the events filmed in this are the actual scenes. But everything is word for word, the interview is the same, and the court room is the same. The telling of the poem goes back and forth between some art house small stage, and an animated work they made to go to the poem. The animation was very interesting, but I of course still didn’t understand anything about it. I was most excited about the courtroom parts, because I care about censorship, and wondered how it went down. This part featured everyones favorite actor, John Hamm, who did okay. Franco played Allen Ginsberg, mostly in the interview part, but also in the telling of the poem. I can honestly say I didn’t think it was Franco most of the movie, just didn’t have the Franco voice I am used too.

Even if you don’t understand or care about modern poetry, like me, this can be an interesting thing to watch. Clocks in under 90 minutes so it doesn’t take up too much time. You can also put a check mark on you “snobby nerd bucket list” probably.

I had already seen this movie in theaters, but never in Blu-Ray or Unrated. So, sorry for anyone hoping for a one time viewing review, you get at two time viewing review. Eat it! I must say also I didn’t really get the reason for the title until many weeks later. Your Highness? Alright. A stoner flick called a greeting to a king. Hey there is smoke on the cover. Oh wait. A stoner flick and…highness….wait for it…

OHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhh. I got it now.

For some reason, I enjoyed it more the second time around. In theaters I was disappointed, thought they just half-assed the whole movie. Technically, yes it actually was half-assed though, as there may not have ever been a script (/if there was a script, they never used it). I am told that most of the movie was filmed as pretty much improvised.

Maybe I was hoping Franco was as ridiculous as McBride in this movie? I just felt like it could have done a lot better. I think this was the first big release from Natalie Portman after Black Swan, so that probably angered some people too. You know, the ones demanding she pick a genre and stick to it. Zooey Deschanel was in this movie too, and super hot. Even when she went all sex demon.

For the unrated version, I couldn’t even tell what scenes were added, except maybe a conversation between Franco/Zooey before the wedding. Maybe all that was really added in was more blood in death scenes. So, the difference between theatrical and unrated is negligible.

Alright, a good thing to realize right off the back when watching this is it is NOT a prequel to the 2001 Burton one. Instead it is yes, another reboot, and a retelling that is more try to the original film series. This confused me a bit, as they threw in references and clues talking about space travel and stuff in this version of Rise, but they didn’t match with the ’01 version, making me go “Whaaaa?”. Saying “Whaaaa?” in theaters is also very distracting.

Anyways. This movie did a good job of making me care about the apes more than humans. Because seriously, the biggest problem with Avatar? Fuck the Na’vi.

Fuck you too, buddy!

More specifically, if you give me a conflict between Humans and not humans, overall, I want the humans to win. Every time. Species over other species. I may not agree with all the actions (as we are supposed to feel uneasy in Starship Troopers) but I don’t want them to lose because of it. So if this movie brought up a big war with the apes and humans, I would be pissed if the apes won.

Thankfully, what it does better than ’01, is make the apes not the bad guy. ’01 made them clearly the bad guys (humans enslaved! War hungry apes!), but in this movie none of the apes are bad/evil, just a few people and that is all. It also does a good job of explaining at the end how the Apes will take over, so if they choose to continue the franchise the eggs are all in place. The only people who were really hurt were the bad humans too, and no all out war, just an escape for the apes to live in peace.

Not really a spoiler, but yeah its Franco‘s fault. He develops a drug to cure Alzheimer’s, but the testing on apes made them wicked smart. He just wanted to cure his dad, is all. Also, how good is John Lithgow in this movie? This plus Dexter season 4 shows this guy has got that acting thing down.

All in all, this is just a movie about the love between a monkey and John Lithgow.

The plot moves along at a good pace. If I had any complaint it is that the “Ape Escape” in the last half hour may have taken a bit too long.

In terms of randoms, I found his love interest a pointless add in. She didn’t seem to take away or add anything to the film, so that whole buildup was annoying. Also, the company owner in the beginning in the movie, in his first two scenes, removed and put on his glasses a total of five times. My friends didn’t notice it though. Seriously. I wrote them down for my second viewing. At 4:00, 4:10, and 4:35, and then 7:24 and 7:45 minute marks, this happens. Way too much dude.