Tag: Johnny Knoxville

Presidents in the modern era meet with almost everyone. Celebrities, athletes, civil rights leaders, union leaders, foreign leaders, gym leaders, you name it. So it isn’t weird to see a picture of Obama hanging out with Justin Bieber.

But maybe back in the day it was a bit more odd. Like, a famous picture of Elvis Presley shaking hands with Richard Nixon. One of the biggest entertainers of the last few decades and a president with a lot of…well, character, I guess. It was a really famous image and sort of set the country into jubilee at just the thought of these two larger than life men in a single room talking about who knows what.

And just what led to this monumental meet up and what did they talk about?

Well, it would take a movie named Elvis & Nixon to get to the bottom of it I suppose!

This really just feels like fanfiction. Who wrote this? When do they get undressed?

In 1970, the US was in disarray. There was a war going on that not everyone loved, the parties were divided, drugs were big in the news and in our suburbs. Basically, not too different from today.

But one man was sick and tired of it all. His name was Elvis Presley (Michael Shannon). He was tired of these drugs, these gang fights, people stoned at concerts. He was in the army before and people loved him, so he figured he could go undercover as himself, into their events and protests. And maybe convince them to say no to drugs and put an end to it all. He could be a really big help, hell, he knew karate!

So he wants to head to the White House. He has a damn plan. He will talk to President Richard Nixon (Kevin Spacey), he will convince him to swear him in as a federal agent at large to work secretly for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Brilliant, great, wonderful. Except Nixon didn’t care to meet with him. Even if a meeting could boost his popularity with the youth and the south. Except Elvis doesn’t want to hold a concert, he wants it all to be a secret, no publicity.

Sure, these men might not see eye to eye, but they want similar things, so maybe they can work together. Or maybe their assistants and staff can force them to work together. On Elvis’ side, we have Jerry (Alex Pettyfer) and Sonny (Johnny Knoxville), with Jerry trying to get out of working with Elvis to focus on his own life and maybe engagement. The president aides include Krogh (Colin Hanks) and Chapin (Evan Peters), both people later involved with the Watergate scandal, fun fact!

And so yeah, the meeting is of course them setting everything up and what their conversation may have entailed in that mysterious room.

Here is a picture of a recreation of that picture!

Two powerhouse men can only be played by two powerhouse actors, and we certainly get that with Shannon and Spacey. When I saw the casting, I was almost flabbergasted with excitement. To repeat, almost flabbergasted, not fully flabbered nor gasted. Despite loving each actor from many of their recent and older roles, I still found both of them hard to see in their collective role.

Now, in this film, they both did great jobs. But Shannon has such a unique face, I never really fully believed he was Elvis, he was always an actor. Basically the same for Spacey. For both of these roles, it could be due to the fact that these characters over time have become very exaggerated and in real life they weren’t so intense, but it just never really fully clicked.

The story itself is decently amusing. The cast of characters while small added a lot to the film. The movie is also under 90 minutes long, so it never drags and a good third or more to it is actually focused on their actual discussion in the white house.

The film just has a lot of build up for this moment and honestly, doesn’t go too many places. Elvis & Nixon won’t take up a lot of time and is pretty amusing. Hell, you will learn a lot about an event that is just all sorts of weird in American history. But one that never really elevated more than cool tidbit.

I have been waiting years to review this movie. Years! Because as you probably already know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been in production hell for years.

It all goes to the time before time, 2010, when Nickelodeon had the rights for TMNT and announced that a Michael Bay company would be in charge, with Bay as a producer. This scared a lot of people.

But nothing was to prepare the fans for March 2012. That is when it was presented that the movie would actually be called just Ninja Turtles and was setting out to change at least half of their origin story. One major point was of course making them Aliens from some Turtle planet. Shredder was also a government agent / alien that could grow blades from his body and a lot of the turtle personality traits were switched around and changed, seemingly unnecessarily.

Fans raged, internet was set on fire, former voice actors wrote nasty letters to Bay and needless to say, production was slowed and delayed. The release of this movie was kept getting pushed back, and that’s why it took almost six years after securing the rights for this movie to be released for the public.

A movie, for all intents and purposes, that should have been pretty easy to churn out.

Just like it should have been pretty easy to act out fainting, one would think.

Thankfully, the story takes place in modern NYC. There is a small gang war happening, where The Foot Clan is running amuck in the town, stealing shit, taking prisoners, being assholes. Basically a giant terrorist organization in NYC and for whatever reason just the local police force is doing something about it.

That and four mutated turtles in their teenage phase who have been trained as ninjas, that is. Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), the leader and Katana user, Donatello (Jeremy Howard), the smart one and Bo Staff wielder, Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), the joker/lover with the Dual Nunchaku, and of course Raphael (Alan Ritchson), the lone wolf and bad-ass with the Sai.

They are attempting to stop the Foot Clan in secret, after being trained by their Sensei Splinter (Danny Woodburn), an Adult Mutant Ninja Rat. And they would have been kept in secret too if it wasn’t for that troubling news reporter April O’Neal (Megan Fox) and her desire to get out of fluff news reporting. She discovers them and gets caught up much deeper into the war than she had wanted, especially since she knows no one will believe her. Not her boss (Whoopi Goldberg) or her camera man (Will Arnett, definitely not playing Casey Jones).

Also featuring non-science science, with a lab company lead by Eric Sachs (William Fichtner) who has a hand in the turtle creation without realizing it. Also featuring Johnny Knoxville and Tony Shalhoub as the voices of Leonardo and Splinter. What? Yes. For whatever reason, those two characters had different voice actors than the people playing them for real. Kind of odd.

Speaking of odd, The Shredder. I have no fucking clue who played him or who voiced him, if they are two different people. The internet seems to be void of that information despite being the big bad villain and all, and in the movie quite a fucking bit.

This face was made by Donatello when he couldn’t find out who was playing Shredder. Not knowing things hurts.

Again, thank goodness the internet rose up and demanded a better film. The turtles themselves are pretty loyal to the source material. Each turtle has his established personality traits and they all shine through nicely. As a team, they also seem to work really well together. Their chemistry was good and one of the better parts in the movie.

In fact, there are quite a few amusing/funny scenes scattered throughout. One “rap” scene in particular was well done (and no, not the Ninja Rap redone or whatever, that is just some bullshit credits thing). I also enjoyed a lot a mini-monologue by Raphael near the end. In terms of fight scenes, the most fleshed out fight scene is the going down the snow mountain one, which has a lot going on. All the fights before that are too dark and shadowy or feature too many quick changes. The final fight scene, with one cool moment, kind of just felt like how I play Soul Calibur. Since no one will get that joke, I ring out people like crazy.

Shredder was mostly in his ridiculous armor and never really showed off his actual skills, so that was annoying. I am mixed on whether or not I liked Splinter. Definitely unique.

A lot of fans are going to find the changes to the origin annoying, I predict. I am fine with the change, even though I like the original because then they can reference Dare Devil more. But it is fine.

Oh yeah. Fox? Not terrible, not great. Disappointed in Arnett’s role. He has a look for a guy that could be Casey Jones if he had longer hair, he just…is annoying in this one. I more or less hate how they look. Going for realism kind of make them just look gross. See the Donatello picture above.

Passable, okay, and maybe eventually forgettable.

Bad Grandpa, Bad Grandpa, Bad Grandpa…

Well, it is presented by Jackass, and I can say I have never seen one of those movies in full, or the TV show, just random skits before that people have gone out of their way to show me. And this music video by Andrew W.K.

I literally have no desire to see people hurt them selves and do stupid things for amusement. Like, none. I am not high brow at all, not in the slightest, it just doesn’t seem appealing to me.

But this movie is different. So much different.

Like, this kid, who was the best part of Fun Size.

The “plot” of the movie is that Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) is old, his wife just died, and he is stoked. Too bad his only daughter is going to prison, and her son, Billy (Jackson Nicholl), needs someone to watch him and take him to visit his daddy in Raleigh, NC.

But Irving lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. That is far away. Fuck all that noise.

Well he does it anyways, and that is the backbone for this roadtrip film, which has the main goal of just doing ridiculous things and providing shock value to real people and our enjoyment.

And some stunts too.

Or fabricated little girl pageants in Raleigh just to confuse and bewilder people.

In case you can’t wait for the ending, I am giving this a 2 out of 4 for a few reasons.

Yes, it is at times entertaining. Some of the stunts/interactions are really creative. Nice moments. But a lot of the time they feel too far in between, or the joke takes too long to set up (so instead we are just given a lot of diatribe between Johnny Knoxville pretending to be a mean old man.

Speaking of that, this may be the only time I say this in a review but…

This movie has too much plot.

To be more entertaining, we need more skits, more hilarious interactions between real people and the actors. We have a lot of scenes just between Knoxville and Nicoll who in the car talking. And it is all bullshit, all stuff we would expect to see in a real movie, that feels just completely unnecessary in this film.

Similarly, because a lot of these scenes are so detailed, like the pageant, and that machine that crashes through a store window. That wasn’t just random, other people had to be in on it. So some of those other people are in the shots too, doing reactions as if its real, but you know they know its about to happen.

So to recap, this movie would have been a lot more entertaining overall if they just made more of it be real skits and less plot, and reduced the number of people who knew what was going to happen. Here is one thing I learned from the movie: The Guardians of the Children, a bikers gang, is incredibly fucking awesome, and they really believe in their cause.

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!

The Arnold is back!

Alright, maybe he hasn’t really gone anywhere. The Govenator was still taking part in The Expendables franchise at least, but with The Last Stand he is officially back in the lead role. Just don’t confuse it with the X-Men movie of the same name.

Although Phoenix could solve this problem in an instant.

Sommerton Junction is a small town in Arizona by the border of Mexico. That border is a giant canyon, so there aren’t too many problems associated with it. The high school has a big road football game, so most of the town has left for the weekend to cheer them on, but not Sheriff Ray Owens (Arnold). He is happy to have a weekend off, but he gets a strange feeling about a trucker (Peter Stormare),who comes up clean when his plates are run.

Oh well, it is not like he is secretly a member of the Mexican Cartel, working on busting out Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) from FBI Custody (Forest Whitaker), and then racing him to Mexico across the canyon. That would be ludicrous!

Ray decides that no Mexican Drug lord is going to come into his town and kill its citizens, not on his watch. Nope. He wants to make a stand. With his crew by his side (Luis Guzman, Jaimie Alexander, Zach Gilford) and the deputized citizens of an alcoholic who wants to redeem himself (Rodrigo Santoro) and a weapons museum owner (Johnny Knoxville), they decide to go all out to show that they are not just stupid farmers and rednecks.

“GET TO THE DINNAH”

Sometimes it can be hard to figure out if you are supposed to take a movie seriously or not. I like to apply the LG test. That is, if the movie includes Luis Guzman, do not take it seriously, and I don’t think it has failed me yet.

I do love that The Last Stand provides an action movie without an overabundance of special effects, and being set in rural Arizona helps add to the grittiness. I liked the resolution to the plot, even if the plot was one of the more ridiculous things I’ve heard of. It also wasn’t just a silly shoot em up movie where the good guys use Home Alone-esque traps to take out the bad guys. I actually feared that any character could die.

But, the acting still is pretty bad, and the dialogue probably over did its “one liner” quota. I think the beginning was also a bit too slow, but it picked up when they discovered the bridge being built. An interesting movie, but not sure if it is one I will ever try to watch again.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have no idea what show this picture is for.

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