Tag: Jason Sudeikis

Watching the trailer for We’re The Millers, it is clear that it could be hit or miss. There are moments in there that make me laugh every time I see it, and those that make me think it will be the worse film ever.

I like Jason Sudeikis as a comedy actor. The problem is, he hasn’t proven himself yet as a leading man in a comedy movie. He is fine as a side kick, or part of a trio, but his only real venture as leading man was in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, which ended up being less than stellar.

If anything, this film might just cement Eustace from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a young comedic genius. Stranger things have happened.

“We’re not even a real family. She is just a washed up actress from a 90s Sitcom!” Whoa, Jason. That’s cold.

David (Sudeikis) is a guy in his mid thirties, still dealing pot. It’s a good life for him. But when he gets robbed of his stash, cash, and back up cash, he finds himself in a pile of trouble. His boss Brad (Ed Helms) doesn’t care and sort of wants to kill him! Unless he heads down to Mexico, grabs a shipment of drugs for him, smuggles it across the border. Sounds easy when the other option is death. Plus, he will earn an extra $100k. Nice!

The problem is, he looks like a drug dealer and in no way can smuggle it across the border on his own. Until he realizes that white middle class families on vacation never get searched! He just has to rent and RV and a group of people to play his family.

He hires the weird kid downstairs, Kevin (Will Poulter), the homeless girl on the street, Casey (Emma Roberts), and the stripper down the hall, Rose (Jennifer Aniston) to play the various roles of the Miller family. Nothing could go wrong!

Sure they get to Mexico, and find out that they are actually stealing the marijuana from a Mexican drug lord (Tomer Sisley). Sure, the amount of drugs is several thousands of pounds worth. But they can probably still pull it off.

Hitmen, spiders, engine failure, dogs, DEA, and another RV family (Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Molly C. Quinn) are just some of the other problems they will face on the road.

I’d let Nick Offerman sexually wet willy my ear any day. Even Tuesday.

After viewing We’re The Millers, I think that Jason Sudeikis was able to run this movie like the comedy veteran I always knew he could be. It works. It really does.

Yes, this movie has a lot of foul mouthed humor. Cursing, sex jokes, genitalia jokes, incest jokes, it has them all. The unfunny scenes I alluded to in the trailer mostly turned out pretty decent, which is a big relief.

Almost every time Will Poulter was on camera, I found myself laughing. He used to be an annoying asshole kid in a bad Narnia movie. But now he plays the awkward teenager so well, that everything the put him through just tickled my gills.

It wasn’t a perfect movie. Sitting there, a lot of character actions and decisions seemed illogical. If the script was stronger overall, they could have avoided those type of moments. I don’t think they really knew what to do with Emma Roberts as her role in comparison was really limited. Such a shame.

Now if you excuse me, I am going to go blast my old TLC records up and start planning my own fake family vacations.

I was very excited when I first saw the trailer for Epic. The music is perfect, not a lot is spoiled, it looks beautiful, and looks like a great new franchise.

You know what I don’t like? The title. You know how hard it is to look up things about Epic? Don’t just search the title, you will get dumb internet images. “Epic Movie” is out, because of a bad movie having that exact same name. I had to resort to searching for “Epic <character/actor name” to get anything close to finding suitable images or posts. Come on people, think about the ease of finding your movie before you name it. Unfortunately, it was also made by Blue Sky Productions, who haven’t really made anything I really loved, their last effort being Ice Age 4: Continental Drift.

Just look at how sexy those birds are. Mmmmhmm.

This movie begins with death! Death before the film takes place (this is a PG movie). MK (Amanda Seyfried) is en route to her fathers house in the middle of the woods. She is almost 18, but her mother just died, and so she has to go live with her dad, who is basically a stranger to her. You see, Professor Bomba (Jason Sudeikis) believes there is a hidden ecosystem in these woods, hidden from human eyes. They react on a faster plane, like flies, so humans can’t really see them because they are always moving so…fast. Yeah, he went crazy and his wife left him. Happens all the time.

But holy tiny men, Bomba is right! In fact, it is a special day, the Summer Solstice on the same night as the Full Moon! Time for the Queen (Beyonce Knowles) to pick a new heir for the next 100 years. After all, only the queen can restore life to the forest if the evil Mandrake (Christoph Waltz) of the Boggarts (swamp/decay creatures) come to mess things up.

The leaf men won’t let that happen! Ronin (Colin Farrell) has sworn to protect her, but young Nod (Josh Hutcherson) is making things difficult by quitting. After some bad things happen, MK finds herself in the woods and magically gets shrunk down to their size. Now she is in the middle of a forest civil war, with the threat of 100 years of swamps on the horizon.

Of course, this could all be some sort of PTSD after her mom’s death for all we know. Chris O’Dowd and Aziz Ansari play a snail and slug, respectfully, Pitbull a frog, and Steven Tyler a glowworm.

“No shell over here baby, I’m a slug” – Aziz. Possibly my new favorite line ever, and I don’t know why.

Epic is loosely based on the children’s book (that no one has heard of), The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. Basically, it took the character ideas, and made an original story. The plot itself isn’t the most exciting or original, and was filled with certain plot holes that made me shutter.

But it’s pretty, though.

One of my biggest complaints is inconsistencies in a movie. In this case, what is the real difference between a tiny human, a plant/animal human hybrid, and an actual plant or animal.

It’d be simple if all animals and plants could talk and be human-like in this movie, but we have frogs and snails that can talk perfectly, living out their lives and jobs, right next to birds who are just 100% animal, no voice. We have flowers that are just flowers, right next to some flowers that run around, gossip, and have arms and legs. Where is the balance? How does this work?

With the leaf men, they aren’t leaves at all. They are basically tiny humans, with just leaf armor as clothing. Nothing else in the forest outside of the queen appears to be a tiny human, so I found it all confusing.

But it’s pretty, though.

Epic ended up being just an average film, not living up to its (poor) title. If you ignore how confusing the world ends up being, it is a cute tale that is outrageously incredible to look at.

“Hey, it’s a kids movie, stop thinking so deeply about the world!”. No, that is a bad excuse, and leads to movies like Cars 2.

The thing I love most about Movie 43 is how easy it will be to review.

I mean, part of the point is not knowing much about the movie ahead of time before you see it. So I don’t have describe all the skits, just the main plot that tries to hold it all together.

Shit yeah! Oh, and so many tags. I am gonna tag the shit out of this movie.

I don’t have any obligation to tell you what Halle Berry is going to do with that Turkey Baster!

So here is the basic story, which is a piece of shit excuse to give you this movie. Sorry, that sounds negative. The point of this movie is a series of short skits all put together, that is all. Trying to put a plot behind them all? Probably won’t work well, but it technically gets to be the movie plot.

A crazy asshole (Dennis Quaid) is having a meeting with some big movie executive (Greg Kinnear). Why? You know fucking why, to sell a movie of course. Greg doesn’t like it, the movie is vulgar and bad, but when a gun is brought into the equation, maybe he will listen. Also featuring Will Sasso and Common.

What vulgar skits? We got Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet on a blind date, where Hugh is basically perfect. Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts are homeschooling their kid, Jeremy Allen White, and trying to give him the realest depressing experience ever.

Anna Faris wants Chris Pratt to poop on her. Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone are awkward.

Richard Gere doesn’t understand why people are sticking their dicks in the iBabe, nor does Jack McBrayer the scientist. Only person who gets it is Kate Bosworth.

There is a speed dating convention in the DC universe, with Justin Long, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Bobby Cannavale, Kristen Bell, and Leslie Bibb all playing parts.

Jimmy Bennett is on a “Date” with Chloe Grace Moretz, who gets her period, and the older brother Christopher Mintz-Plasse freaks out. Seann Williams Scott is mad at his best friend Johnny Knoxville, but to make it up for him, he found a leprechaun (Gerard Butler).

Am I almost done? Fuck no!

Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant are on a blind date playing truth or dare! Terrence Howard says the same joke about black people and basketball over and over!

BUT JUST YOU WAIT. THERE IS ONE MORE SCENE. AFTER THE CREDITS.

I was surprised too. Because this scene didn’t have any previews in the trailers. So I will just say Elizabeth Banks and Josh Duhamel.

Just seeing all those links man. It makes me dizzy.

Maybe I talked about the skits too much, maybe I didn’t. But basically all I mentioned was information you can learn in the trailer, which is unfortunately a lot of it. Problem is, some of the better jokes I already knew were coming and it ruined it a bit for me. I knew about most of the Home School scene, but I still thought it was one of the better ones. Poop quest ended up being better than advertised as well. My favorite scene, however, was the Batman based speed dating, but that could just be because I am a comic nerd. Either way, Jason Sudeikis made that scene his bitch, and I want more of that.

The movie started pretty uncomfortably too, with the blind date scene. No one really laughed right away at the sight gag, but eventually they just threw it in our face enough that it became funny.

I understand the movies only purpose is to do outrageous things, without a plot, but I am upset about the main story line. I hated how it ended. Pretty much a cop out. Even more strange is that only the American version features Quaid and company. Apparently international versions star three unknown kids searching the internet for a fabled movie and finding these clips. Pretty dang weird.

Yeah, most of it is dumb ass jokes, but eventually you just have to give in or else you will have a bad time. Easier to accept the laughs than to ignore them.

Unfortunately, it is still a pretty shit film, in the grand scheme of things. So there you go! Maybe watch with the buds eventually, while drinking, when it is rentable. That would be a better idea.

Happy November 6th, 2012! It is Election Day in America, so I went the obvious route and picked The Campaign to review. I don’t even have a clever intro to say before I talk about the movie, so fuck it, lets just go into it.

Just gotta warm my tongue muscles first.

In the 14th District of North Carolina, life is simple. Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is running for his fifth term as congressman for the Democratic party and is unopposed. I guess people really like him. Sure he is a filthy man, and doesn’t do much, but who cares. Unfortunately, his popularity takes a drastic turn down when he leaves a very explicit sexual message for a woman he is cheating on his wife (Katherine LaNasa) with. His campaign manager (Jason Sudeikis) tries to put a positive spin on it all, but nothing really seems to work.

This spells for trouble in Capitol Hill, namely with the Motch brothers (John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd) who are working on a new plan with China and need all the support they can get. Seems like now is the best time to replace Brady with someone new, that the public will love. Unfortunately their only available contact in the area is Marty Huggins (Zach Galifiankis), the son no one talks about. Wanting to make his dad proud, he is happy to run and make his area of North Carolina better.

He just didn’t know it involved changing everything about himself, his wife (Sarah Baker) and kids, from the mysterious campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott).

But more importantly, once both men are in the race, how low will they go to discredit the other, just for a chance to help start Project: Insourcing?

Will they be able to stop all this family shit and man up?

Having lived in North Carolina, I was happy to notice a lot more subtle jokes than one would have expected. Like the 14th District of North Carolina, that doesn’t even exist! NC had 13 districts, not sure if they did that for legal reasons, or for the joke, but I will so go for the joke.

Cutting right to the chase, this movie did make me laugh. I giggled quite often. But I think the movie went the easy route with most of the jokes, and could have made a stronger movie overall, tackling bigger issues, while also keeping a lot of the jokes. The DVD for this movie came out about a week ago, all of the timing makes since. They wanted this movie because of the presidential election. Yet they didn’t really say anything important about it.

Sure, the basic message of money buying elections is probably true. Minor jokes on the Romney/Obama campaigns, and other parallels like John Edwards. But overall it just seemed to be missing a lot more.

I would suggest seeing the movie once, it will probably make you laugh. I just don’t think it will pack as big of a punch in multiple viewings.

The Rocker is definitely a movie I heard about when it was coming out, and then practically never again. Honestly. The only reason I really can remember this movie at all is because a song from it is a free download on Rock Band. Gotta love that advertising. It is just one of those that once you see the cover or something you go, “Oh. Oh yeah. Okay. I think I recollect that title at one point.” Just no one really saw it.

But now that I have, I can tell you I will make zero geology puns. Not actually about geology, but about music. Whoops.

And the band brings a new face to a short attent – Hey look Emma Stone!

BACK IN THE 1980S, a little band called Vesuvius was getting pretty popular with a song. Although just the drummer, Fish (Rainn Wilson) Was the heart and soul of the band. Even came up with the name, brought the energy. The other members had rock names too, like Trash (Bradley Cooper), Kerr (Fred Armisen), and front man Lex (Will Arnett). They are your typical glam rock band of the 80s, and when they get word that they can sign a deal and tour with Whitesnake they go ballistic. Just have to drop Fish and bring in a new drummer, son of a record exec.

Well the money is right.

20-30 years later, Fish is at a dead job and has no worries. Except for all the rage. Vesuvius is STILL a big deal, new albums, everyone loves them. Fuck.

He ends up leaving his wife, and losing his house, so he goes to move in with his sister (Jane Lynch) and her family, including his nephew Matt (Josh Gad). I know, a non rocker name. Lame. But turns out he is in a band too, called A.D.D. and they just lost their drummer, and a school dance concert is coming up. Too bad Fish is their only chance, which he begrudgingly accepts. Singer/guitarist is Curtis (Teddy Geiger) and bassist Amelia (Emma Stone).

Needless to say, some shit happens. Eventually they get famous from a youtube video where Fish is practicing naked, and even get signed (by Jason Sudeikis) and go on a tour! I’m sure Vesuvius wont pop up and ruin anything. Or like, Curtis’ mom (Christina Applegate).

As a geology/history major in college, the band Vesuvius really does mean a lot to me.

Straight talk time. I thought this movie had a pretty good beginning but got a bit boring as the story went on. It happens all the time, and I just felt this was another example of it. Once I pretty much figured out where all the storylines would go, just didn’t care. Dicks are dicks, good guys are good, etc.

To be fair to Rainn Wilson, he was on as that character the whole movie and it seemed like he put work into the persona. It was if Dwight was a little less full of himself, and merged with Jack Black. Kind of.

Everything else? Well, ehh, most people could have probably pulled it off. So I mean, the movie isn’t necessarily horrible, but easily a one and done affair.

About a year and a half ago a local independent rental store was going out of business. Unfortunately I didn’t realize this until the last day, but I was still able to walk away with about twenty movies. Needless to say a lot of them didn’t work.

Including Meet Bill! I was sad. But turns out it does work, and my laptop was just being a little bitch. Good news, everyone! Time for an older review.

They look so happy too. Finally glad to be noticed.

Bill (Aaron Eckhart) is a loser. He is married to Jess (Elizabeth Banks) and she is hot, but he is kind of lame. Getting out of shape, doing dumb things. He also works for his father in law, in a made up position, so he feels like he doesn’t contribute a thing to society. Thankfully his old private school is starting a mentoring program, where students who are about to graduate get to follow a successful alumni around. And technically Bill is successful.

Well he becomes a bit popular for yelling at a local broadcaster (Timothy Olyphant). WHy? Because his wife was cheating on him, with Tim, and he got it on tape. Doesn’t help that he later assaults him either. Needless to say everyone wants him to be their mentor, but some rich kid (Logan Lerman) wins out, after he already made plans pre anger shenanigans. This kid is also trying to hit on Lucy (Jessica Alba), a worker at a lingerie store, and ends up bringing her along with their sessions.

Needless to say, Bill is going through a mid life crisis, a kind of divorce, and is having to explain to this kid how to be successful. Whoops. Really the only thing he does during this time is think about starting up a “Sweet Sweet” franchise, a donut shop, and has constant arrangements with the owners Jane and Jim Whittmann (Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis).

I wouldn’t feel jealous if I was Elizabeth Banks and Alba was in front of me going after my man.
Mmmm, Elizabeth Banks.

I love explaining the plots, it helps me remember the movie and my own thoughts on it. And this movie is a whole lot about nothing. Mid life crisis, yadda yadda.

But I don’t feel like I gained anything after watching it. While watching it, parts were enjoyable, but mostly just okay. Didn’t even care too much about Bill, and I am supposed to be meeting him, damn it.

Oh well, Aaron Eckhart knows he can’t ever reproduce Thank You For Smoking, but by golly is he going to keep trying.

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy not only sounds like a great name for a movie, but a band, a novel, a weekly comic strip, and a video game. I am surprise we aren’t eating a cereal with that name yet either. The first time hearing that title, I felt like the guy who just invented the word “Shazam!”

I am sure he felt Marvel-ous.

Jason Sudeikis is middle aged and likes to party. Like all middle aged people I know. He lives in his dad’s summer house, pretty much, and throws crazy bashes that frequently get the police called on them. We get to see their “White Trash Bash” at the start. He meets a girl, Leslie Bibb! Who he wants, but later turns out to be his real estate agent.

Real estate agent?! Oh yeah. His dad is selling his house. Well shit. All the memories! He needs to find an epic, end of summer hootenanny to end all other hootenannies. With the help of his best friend Tyler Labine, he realizes that his generation is lame. They need to kick start their generation back on the right track, and have a good old fashioned orgy. (Oh shit, title drop again!)

Who is involved though? Well just their close friends. Lake Bell (recently single), Michelle Borth (secretly likes Jason), Lindsay Sloane (insecure about her looks), Nick Kroll (insecure about everything), and Angela Sarafyan and Martin Starr (Dating couple). But who isn’t invited? Lucy Punch and Will Forte, because they just got married and have a baby, and that would be weird.

And the last thing you need in an orgy is for things to be weird.

The obvious plot comes from the fact that Jason finally likes a girl, but she probably wouldn’t be too keen on hearing about a planned Orgy, that he is the lead alpha in. Also there is a lot of sex talk and sex in the movie. You know, people trying to figure out if they want to, how they would do it, getting tips from people, etc. Normal stuff.

There isn’t as much nakedness as one would expect from a movie called this though. Or sex. The “orgy” party did last longer than I thought, but still seemed like it could have been better. More realistic, probably no. Because people are too awkward. The humor of the movie, pretty witty at times, and other times fell short a lot. This is Jason’s first role as “100% lead actor” role, but wasn’t even the funniest person (that would be Tyler Labine). It was decent, but not the laugh riot I was hoping for.

I shouldn’t have to describe this plot to you but I will anyways.

Charlie Day, Jason Bateman, and Jason Sudeikis are all friends. They all hate their bosses, but for different reasons. But more or less they are all Horrible….Bosses. Jennifer Aniston is sexual abusing Charlie at work, and he is engaged! Kevin Spacey is a crazy psycho and won’t give Jason Bateman his due promotion. Colin Farrell is an incompetent cokehead boss, who got the job over Jason Sueikis.

Also Jamie Foxx is a black man, and thus a murder consultant.

Sorry. I don’t make the rules of the movie.

Wait, murder consultant?

Oh yeah. Because they want to kill their bosses, fixing their lives completely. As long as they don’t do it stupidly enough to get caught, and get help.

The comedy in this I really enjoyed. The plot line, although ridiculous, somehow works out at the end. Do any of the bosses actually die? That would be a spoiler. But it is R rated, if you know what I fucking mean. Jason Bateman plays the role he always seems to play. Charlie Day freaks out and does his fast talk like normal. I am confused by how funny I find Jason Sudeikis, as he is generally a side character. But his characters have been funnier in other recent movies too. Farrell doesn’t add much to the film, but Kevin Spacey easily adds enough to make up for the both of them. Most of you would probably just want to watch this to see Jennifer Aniston in a new light.

As a brunette!

Some flaws, but very decent nonetheless.

What? This movie has nothing to do with school time shenanigans? Oh well.

I was hoping for a hilarious romp of avoiding the hall monitor and cutting class with all the cool kids!

Interesting concept. The wives of Jason Sudeikis and Owen Wilson (played by Christina Applegate and Jenna Fischer) give their husbands a week long “Hall Pass” from Marriage. They both go away for 7 days, to let their husbands live alone and do whatever they want. Stay our partying, hit on (or sleep) with other women. Whatever. They were no unfaithful before, but classified as way too horny/cocky whatever, because they think they can still hit the hot stuff if they were still single. So giving them the break allows them to find out they cannot, and hopefully be way more faithful.

I can see how the idea of a hall pass, if not a silly name, could help a relationship. But also could see how it could easily hurt one. The idea that it would always help would just mean that certain people are meant to be together, probably. But I review movies, not provide marriage advice.

That would be Dr. Phil.

Most of the humor comes from the fact that these dudes are middle aged and have no game. No one wants to hit that. They will swing and miss a lot. Fun stuff! I did enjoy the first half of the movie. However the ending seemed to be kinda meh for me. Just died down and didn’t really know how to end (which would explain why they went for the ending that they did).

So remember married guys, there is no way your life could have turned out better, especially now that you are old and married.

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?