Tag: James Marsden

Small Apartments is another example of a film I picked to watch merely on the bizarre cover. Nothing really out of the ordinary in terms of subject matter, it was just faces of a few cast members. But those faces? Those faces were weird looking.

A bunch of actors I recognized, just all slightly off. I was ready for a dark comedy, or just strange film. Or at least, I thought I was ready for that jelly.

Basically the first scene of the film. I WASN’T READY!

Franklin Franklin (Matt Lucas) lives alone in his apartment, in an apartment complex of weird people. He isn’t any different. He really loves Switzerland, wants to go there, has the giant fucking horn thing and everything. He also is hairless. Relevant? Not sure. He also has the dead body of his landlord (Peter Stormare) on his floor.

He is surrounded by other odd folk, like Tommy Balls (Johnny Knoxville), a junkie with an almost philosophy degree (who is banging Rebel Wilson on the side). There is Simone (Juno Temple) who sometimes spies on Franklin, and flirts with the local convenience store employee (DJ Qualls). Let’s not forget about Mr. Allspice (James Caan) who I guess is just mean. That’s not really weird.

Shit, I could tell you more, but its just…Weird stuff. Weird stuff happens. Conspiracies, and investigators. Burned bodies and burned bridges (that second part is a metaphor, but the first part is literal). We also have James Marsden, Billy Crystal, and Dolph Lundgren.

I never realized Knoxville had the eyes of an angel.

I think I already said this, but man, this movie was weird. I really wasn’t prepared for it in any way.

Everyone was so odd, I just had such a huge quizzical look on my face the whole time, wondering what was happening and why. This is based on a book. I am going to assume the book is equally odd.

I am going to say that based on how rustled my jimmies were, the movie did its job. The actors, in particular Matt Lucas and Johnny Knoxville, were really excellent in this movie.

The issue is, because of its weirdness, I never really felt like I could get behind it. It didn’t really interest me in watching for a movie, it just piqued my curiosity a little bit. A movie I will remember for a little bit, but forget unless it is specifically brought up. A shame. And I feel weird saying the only reason I dislike it is because I couldn’t really get into it, but hey, it’s my website, so sometimes I have lame reasons. Hah!

1 out of 4.

The full title of this movie, for legal reasons, is Lee Daniels’ The Butler, but eh, technicalities.

This film is supposed to be a biographical film of Eugene Allen, a butler who served in The White House for 34 years until he retired in 1984.

I’d say your best possible experience with this movie would be treating it like your average fictional film, set through a back drop of history, almost like Forrest Gump.

I hope you came here to see pictures of butlers.

Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) came from very humble beginnings in the 1920s. He was living with his family on a cotton plantation in horrible conditions. After his father gets shot and his mother goes a bit insane, he is trained to work in the house, to serve and to serve properly. Eventually he leaves the plantation, gets a job at a hotel, gets discovered, and finds himself as a butler at The White House.

Yeah, butlering at The White House is probably the sweetest gig out there. Unless you mess up, you have job security for 30-40 years.

While at The White House, Cecil finds himself interacting with decades of presidents. He is there for Dwight D. Eisenhower (Robin Williams, his second time as President), John F. Kennedy (James Marsden) and his wife Jacqueline (Minka Kelly), Lyndon B. Johnson (Liev Schreiber), Richard Nixon (John Cusack), and Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman) with his wife Nancy (Jane Fonda). For you patriots out there, yes, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter just get kind of skipped.

During these years, Cecil also has to deal with his family life. His wife (Oprah Winfrey) has bouts of alcoholism, and depression due to her husbands long hours at work. Their youngest child, Charles (Elijah Kelley) eventually decides to join the army for the Vietnam War. Their other son, Louis (David Oyelowo) is able to graduate high school and go down to college in Tennessee. There, he meets other “radicals” who want equal rights. He begins to participate in sit ins, protests, becomes a Freedom Rider, a marcher on Washington DC, and a follower of Martin Luther King Jr. (Nelsan Ellis). Basically, he is there for all of the major civil rights events. Well, the ones that don’t involve sitting in the back of the bus.

Most of the movie involves splicing the civil rights movements through the eyes of the son, with the servitude of Cecil at the White House during these nation changing events.

In case you wanted more star power, fellow butlers are played by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz, while Terrence Howard plays his wise crackin’, woman lovin’ neighbor.

I tried to find a picture of each actor as a president. This will do.

Like everything in Hollywood, most of the movie is fictionalized away from the source. Like, Louis, the civil rights activist. He never existed. They only had one son, Charles (who actually did go to the Vietnam War!). So, half the movie right away is fictional. Sure, the events all happened, just the make believe son wasn’t a part of them.

While the butler in question did exist, he also probably didn’t have the small conversations about civil rights with the various Presidents, but they make the film a lot more interesting.

Despite it’s inaccuracies, The Butler is incredible. Over two hours long, it spanned decades of American history and put it in such a powerful context, that it is hard to not feel emotional over it.

All of it is very dramatic and very sad at times, but as you learn by the end of the film, the journey is totally worth it.

The acting is phenomenal on all parts. I am willing to bet Whitaker gets nominated for Best Actor in this film, and Oprah potentially Best Supporting Actress. The line up of presidents was hilarious in its own right. All of these big name actors getting to play a US president, but only for a small part in a movie. Heck, they had a British actor playing Reagan, even better!

I think The Butler is going to be one of the few stand out movies of the year when it comes for Best Picture consideration. Its treatment of racism in the United States is spot on and informative. I am most excited for Forest Whitaker though, who has been in some less than great roles recently. Hopefully this gets him back on the right path again, like when he did The Last King Of Scotland.

4 out of 4.

With The Smurfs 2 and 2 Guns releasing on the same day, I thought I would be clever and do a joint review called “Smurf 2 Guns.” Get it? Hilarious! Too bad Entertainment Weekly beat me to the scoop. Sigh. I will beat those guys one of these days, I swear.

Because of that, instead, we get a regular movie review! Hooray! I will jump right on in.

With two stars at their finest, we hope. Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Michael Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) are about to rob a bank.

Let’s back up. These individuals are working for Mexican Cartel Kingpin, Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). They just traded him 500 Passports in exchange for $100,000 in Cocaine, but he gave them cash instead. Lame. Now in order to take him down, they will have to rob a bank with his safety deposit box. In that box, there will be $3 million or so in cash that they can use for tax evasion charges, or something. Wait what, take him down?

Let’s back it up again. Bobby is secretly DEA, working undercover to bring Papi Greco in to authorities. He has been working on this case for three years, but his boss is about to pull the plug, and the only one who trusts him is his on again / off again secret lover Deb (Paula Patton), another supervisor.

Stig secretly works for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Yes, trust me, that’s a thing. You may be aware of its acronym, NCIS. Why is the Navy doing any sort of investigation into a Mexican Drug Lord, and in Texas? Don’t ask me. Don’t ask Stig either. He is just listening to orders from his superior, Quince (James Marsden).

However, after they rob the bank, they find more than $3 million waiting for them. In fact, there is over $40 million in the small town bank. Damn. Something isn’t right. When they try to reveal their actual identities right after, nothing goes right, and they are left on their own to find out just what the heck is going on. Things take an even bigger turn for the worse when the mysterious Earl (Bill Paxton) shows up in town, questioning just about everyone as to where HIS money ended up.

2 guns. 2 guys. 2 ropes. If you get what I am sayin’.2 Guns is billed mostly as an action comedy, a genre made very apparent from the trailer. A lot of nice one liners and wise cracks. Good show. While the action element is certainly there, the comedy element is incredibly light and sporadic in the actual movie. Wahlberg’s character makes a few jokes early on, but they quickly seem to disappear once all the betrayal starts. Heck, I found Paxton’s character to be the most humorous, but that was only because he was mysterious and a cowboy.

Speaking of characters, the secondary cast members weren’t used very well. Paxton (as I just described) was at least a bit interesting. The fact that James Marsden is in this movie almost feels like an oversight, with no real reasons for a big star to be in that roll. They also reduced the CIA to mere money hungry meanieheads, without any real explanation at all. In fact, the NCIS, DEA, and entire US government is seen as corrupt and inept, for no real reason at all.

In terms of plot, it is all over the place. They tried (very little) to explain why Stig was even investigating Papi in the first place, but it didn’t make any sense. The actual scene itself was quick too, just in case you wanted to understand the plot.

So half of the movie I am confused, trying to figure out how any of it makes sense. When they did finally explain why it didn’t make any sense, their actual reasons feel unacceptable.

Not a spoiler, but someone was pulling the strings secretly behind all of it, and set them up to rob a larger amount of money than they expected. Surprise surprise. But given how long these men have been working their posts, there is really no way anyone could have orchestrated any of the events that would lead them to rob a bank, without other people finding out.

The factual details are also out of whack. I could only shake my head during the “break into the navy base” scene. It felt comical, in the bad way, how little they cared about accuracy with it.

I initially thought I would forget about 2 Guns in a few months. Now I might forget about it within 2 weeks.

1 out of 4.

I have been told by one of my friends that Netflix has been pushing Bachelorette on them pretty strongly over their last few movies. No matter the movie. Now, I am not going to make the claim that they will ignore their “If you like this, you might like x?” formula sometimes for advertisements, but the evidence seems pretty strong.

For shame, Netflix. But I took it overall as a request to see the movie myself, you know, like I tend to do, and decide if its worth all this Netflix hype. Maybe they are just making up for its lack of advertisements elsewhere? After all, pretty impressive cast. Kind of. But I only heard about it after it hit video, so clearly people didn’t care about hyping it in the slightest.

If you saw the cast, you did not guess the bride to be correctly.

Becky (Rebel Wilson) is getting married, yay! This actually kind of pisses of Regan (Kirsten Dunst), her best friend. How could her “Fat friend” find happiness in marriage before her? What the heck?! Either way, she will be her maid of honor and help her plan a kick ass wedding, but they still need their two best friends from college, Gena (Lizzy Caplan) and Katie (Isla Fisher).

To help with the recap, we have Becky the Happy, Regan the uptight and pompous, Katie the drunk and cokefiend, and Gena the sarcastic and apathetic. Great, different personalities, and not one of which is the “slut” (arguable, when Katie is drunk, but shh).

Well, things get dicey at the bachelorette party, when the stripper (Andrew Rannells) calls Becky a pigface, a mean nickname in high school. Shit, are her friends actually still mean bitches who can’t be nice for once? Things start getting out of hand, including a ripped up wedding dress. This leads the remaining trio to go out to try and fix all the problems the night before the nuptials.

It also features Adam Scott, Hayes MacArthur, Kyle Bornheimer, and James Marsden! They play either the groom, exes who are still in love, or new people who just want to get laid. I will let you figure out who goes with who.

Pictured, the female version of The Hangover. It would be Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Bradley Cooper personality wise.

Well, this movie is a little bit bleak. I mean that in the best way possible. All three of the main girls have unlikable virtues associated with them, and they are all pretty callous, but that makes the film more exciting for me. Bad people, being bad. They are trying to make a harder comedy, but with women! Sure, maybe I should be worried that movies trying to do this tend to be about weddings, because apparently that is the only thing women do. I will let someone trained in sociology to figure out the ramifications about that.

It wasn’t an insanely funny movie by any means, but at least it was a bit interesting. I am mostly annoyed by the ending, in which they attempted to redeem every character and wrap up their plot lines in happy endings.

Boo. The entire movie was about unhappy people. I wanted more unhappy endings. Bring on the sad people!

2 out of 4.

I have written before about Holiday or make believe character movies, and how I hate it when they contradict with the real world that they are presumably set in. I am looking at you The Tooth Fairy.

Despite everyone knowing there is no Easter Bunny in the real real world, Hop does a pretty good job of not contradicting itself. Mostly. So I will give it a point for that. I do not recall a single adult uttering “Easter Bunny? Preposterous!” and slamming their first down. Because clearly if one existed, people wouldn’t question it, because there’d be damn easter eggs everywhere that they didn’t hide. Must. Stop. Rant.

Because I have a way more important topic to rant about.

The Easter Bunny, or E.B. (Russell Brand) doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to be a drummer in Hollywood. His dad, the current easter bunny (Hugh Laurie…who is named E.B.’s dad. What??) So a few days before Easter, he escapes from their hideout (On the Easter Island, of course), where they make all the candy and eggs for Easter (because that is a thing people think Easter Bunnies do?). He escapes to LA where he gets HIT BY A CAR!

Driven by James Marsden, who is a slacker living at home with his folks. His family (dad of Gary Cole, younger(?) sister of Kaley Cuoco) thinks he needs to get a real job. And move out. I was confused, because it seemed like Kaley still lived at home possibly. Eventually Marsden agrees to help the bunny out, despite causing problems, and get him an audition for David Hasselhoff (On Hoff Knows Talent) to be a big star!

Oh yeah, and the factory for Easter is fueled by an army of “chicks”, whereas the second in command (Hank Azaria) has dreams of being the “Easter Bunny”. Despite the fact that E.B. has no interest in being the head honcho, the dad is stubborn, and laughs away all of the suggestions from the chick to become the next guy in charge. Instead he sends the Pink Berets (highly trained bunnies) to capture his son.

There is also a subplot of James figuring out what he wants to do with his life, become the first human Easter Bunny.

Now this picture should make a lot more sense.

I seriously am about to spoil some thing. I cant figure out how to hide it so I will just say it. Yes, at the end they stop the chick and save the day. E.B. and James agree to be co-Easter Bunnies, more fun for the two.

So uhh. James gets to live his dream, and E.B. gave up his?

But more importantly, WHAT THE FUCK KIDS MOVIE? This is a horrible main plotline. Horrible horrible. Just typing this seems silly, but clearly this movie is anti-chick. These chicks, who must live in Neverland because they never go to Chickens, have to work in a factory all year (like Santa Elves) making candy apparently? There is only like 5 bunnies in the whole place from what I seen, the head honcho, his son, and his body guard unit (who never spoke. They should have spoke). And they don’t do shit but once a day, if that.

But for the head bunny to call the chick more or less dumb for wanting to advance to the head master position was horrible. It made it seem like a Kingdom, and not a business. It gave the message that those born as chicks can never advance to any higher sort of existance, but must stay there and work. Sure later, when he did take over (after he forced it) he replaced candy with worms and stuff (because Bunnies like candy, so of course a chick would put in food they like? Another dumb correlation). But by then he was probably just pissed off at how much of an asshole the dad was being.

Especially as one character noted it made more since for a chick/chicken to be handing out eggs than a bunny. AND NOT TO MENTION that at the end JAMES MARSDEN, A HUMAN, gets to be an Easter Bunny, when all the other chicks get put back in their rightful place.

Again. What. The. Fuck. These type of matters shouldn’t be brushed aside either because it is just a kids movie. This is the same shit they tried to sell us in Cars/Cars 2.

0 out of 4.

Plural? Yes.

I watched Death at a Funeral (British version) the other day, and I realized I wanted to see Death at a Funeral (American version) as well. Obviously the British one came first, but I figured they’d be different enough with the same general plot to do two reviews, but no. They pretty much are the same. Some different jokes, but all the same stuff happens. SO ONE SUPER REVIEW (that counts as two, damn it). Also probably my record for most tags. Two ensemble movies in one. Hooray!

And why not start it off with a naked Alan Tudyk on a roof?

So in both movies, the patriarch of the family dies. The main guy (Chris Rock, Matthew Macfadyen) lived with his folks and is an inspiring writer, which is bad because his slightly younger brother (Martin Lawrence, Rupert Graves) already has made a best seller. Jealousy!

We also have their cousin (Zoe Saldana, Daisy Donovan) is bringing her new fiance to the funeral, hoping her own dad will approve of him. This makes the fiance (Alan Tudyk, James Marsden) nervous, and he takes some Vallium to calm down. But it really isn’t Vallium. Her ex is also there (and trying to win her back…Luke Wilson, Ewen Bremner), now a friend of the family, along with another friend of the family (Tracy Morgan, Andy Nyman) who has the unfortunate job of looking out for the wheel chaired uncle (Danny Glover, Peter Vaughan).

Got all that? Too bad. A few problems go wrong, delaying the actual ceremony, which is perfect for the real main plotline. The midget who no one knows turns out to be the secret gay lover of their dad (Peter Dinklage, Peter Dinklage) with picture proof, and threatens to show everyone unless he gets a nice sum since he was left off of the will. Yes blackmail, and midgets.

I am sure I tagged some people and didn’t mention them. Honestly I lost track. Here is Loretta Devine, who you would have guessed was in the American version without looking it up probably.

Somehow, both of these actors naked on a roof was the easiest “same scene” from both movies to find.

So, these movies both feature large ensemble casts, with a few different plot lines so that they can all build up and get crazy by the end of the movie.

But which is better? I have heard from multiple sources that they think the British version is WAY better than the American. They also said this before watching the American though. After watching both though I find that…well they are both okay. I didn’t find one vastly superior to the other. Honestly, I probably would have been fine with either of them if only one of them had to exist!

So watch whatever version you choose, knowing full well that if you choose the British one for any other reason than it being the original, then you are probably a racist.

2 out of 4. (British)
2 out of 4. (American)

Hold your horses everyone. ANOTHER Hollywood remake!? For shame. After all, the first Straw Dogs is only 40 years old. It should still be fresh and in everyone’s minds. Clearly Hollywood is running out of ideas, if it has to remake something only 40 years old. The NEW Straw Dogs will automatically suck, by comparison. It has things like credit cards in it!

It is also full of thievery and shame.

The other option is to ignore all of that.

Done! James Marsden and Kate Bosworth are traveling down south to the town where Kate used to live. It is a smaller community, not all hustlin’ and bustlin’ like the big cities up north. Which is good! She has an old place there, and he needs a quiet place to write a screenplay. They also want the roof of the shed/barn thing repaired, for some reason (even if they are there temporarily). A friend of Kates, played by Alexander Skarsgård, and his posse, agree to fix the roof.

Then crazy shit happens. And by crazy, I mean subtle annoyances between the two groups. Coming too early to start work. Leaving too early. Coming too late. Drinking their beers. Playing loud music.

This also makes Kate and James argue. Because James is a pussy who hates confrontation, and Kate is running around braless and “asking for it”. Which just leads her to flash seductively the crew (and oh yeah, that guy is her former ex). As expected, this leads to further elevation of conflict. A dead cat, bizarre hunting antics, and a rape or two.

“Or two?! Let’s calm down here. I am a one and done kind of guy.” – Flynn

There is also a side story involving James Woods (a high school football coach), his cheerleading daughter, and Dominic Purcell who plays “local retarded boy”. She has taken a fancy to him, which Woods is sourly against. The two plot lines accumulate by the end, to create a standoff where James Marsden finally breaks, and protects his family at all costs.

So, a lot of this film had me cringing in my seat. The violence at the end, rape in the middle, a scene where bone was shown coming out of the arm. When the final final scene happened, which also happened in the original, I half expected to hear someone yell “FATALITY!”, it was that crazy.

Personally, the reason I can’t rate this higher is because I know I probably won’t ever watch this again. Although an enjoyable experience, I wouldn’t want to see it more than once, which is a weird feeling.

From what I can tell, the differences between the two movies are: Going down South instead of North, less boobs in the rape scene (despite the fact that her boobs are pretty much visible throughout with her clothing choices), the guy is a writer not a mathematician, the violence was upped a bit, and it ends sooner. The first is based on a book though (And this one is based off the movie). That should have been done, because changing medias is fine.

But remakes never. After all, The Wizard of Oz and Scarface were both remakes, and they failed horribly because of it.

Maybe the problem is that it is too similar to the original still, and thus doesn’t warrant being made. But, if it had a lot different, people would bitch about it not being Straw Dogs. Lose lose.

3 out of 4.

Yeahhhhhhhhh Sexytime!

Pink Robe? Check. Redneck? Check. Mexican Donut? Double Check!

Sex Drive was a teen road trip comedy coming of age story movie, that when it came out, I think I saw about one advertisement for. Like every movie, I was about to watch the unrated version of the movie, but it began quite differently.

The unrated version begins with a poorly edited (on purpose) message to viewers, that the unrated is significantly different. It has more boobs and dicks, more jokes, and is way too long. Since it said it was only for already fans, I switched to regular, and holy crap, the unrated has about 20 more minutes of time added to it. That is serious.

The movie is kind of like The Sure Thing. Kind of. Josh Zuckerman is chatting up a girl on the internet, and lying, because that is expected. For some reason, her lies make her want to do him, so he decided to drive from Chicago to Knoxville to hit that. So he steals his brother’s car (James Marsden), and along with his best friend who thinks he should be a dick to chicks (Clark Duke), and accidentally with his best friend whom he likes (Amanda Crew), he drives off!

CRAZY ADVENTURES COMMENCE!

But does it end with Zuckerman and Crew falling in love? Of course. Fuck you if you thought differently.

Also in this movie are Katrina Bowden, from 30 Rock, as internet girl, and Seth Green, playing the role of “master of Sarcasm Amish dude”. His role was fantastic. Also, James Marsden as “entirely way too offensive older brother” had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion.

So if you want a comedy full of sex jokes, and obvious plot paths, Sex Drive is your movie. Not sure if I will ever watch the unrated version, but I am sure it is way different.

Such shifty eyes, Seth.

2 out of 4.