Tag: Johnny Simmons

The Stanford Prison Experiment was one of the coolest and scariest things I ever heard about, when I learned about it as a freshman in college. I don’t even remember in what class it was brought up, but the real life experiment was so fascinating I remember running home to wiki all I could about it. After all, doing my own research outside of Wikipedia seemed silly.

Hearing about it lead to hearing about all the creepy things people ended up doing in the name of psychology, before jerky standards were set in place. So now things like TSPE cannot take place for scientific knowledge, because you know, humans and shit. So instead of crazier and more ridiculous experiments, this is one of the top tier ones and I guess it will stay that way.

And although they can’t recreate this one for science, they sure can recreate it for film and TV. They did it in season 3 of Veronica Mars, they had that movie five years ago called The Experiment, and more!

But now, this film is about the entire enchilada. Nut just the test itself. But also the people behind it and what occurred before and after, for realsies, in Stanford.

How do you know someone went to Stanford? Don’t worry, they will probably …err, not talk about this.

In 1971, hair was everywhere and government oversight was only a legend. The 60’s were dead, so it was time to get serious. Dr. Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) was a professor who wanted to simulate a prison in their own building. They would do it over the summer when not many students were around and offer to pay people $15 a day to participate in a two week experiment. After extensive interviews to make sure people weren’t crazy, they narrowed down the group of men and used a coin flip to determine who would be the prisoner and who would be the guards.

Zimbardo and his crew (Gaius Charles, Olivia Thirlby, and more), along with Jesse Fletcher (Nelsan Ellis), a guy he knew who went to prison to help “legitimize” the experiment, would monitor the halls 24/7. The men are kept to a strict contract, where the guards are in charge, the prisoners have very few rights, and there is to be no physical violence of any sort.

So the prisoners get brought in my volunteer police to arrest them at their homes to make it feel a bit real. They have to get naked, cleaned, and put into prison uniforms (which are closer to dresses to help break them down), and put into their cells. The guards try to break their humanity right away in order to maintain order and make it feel a bit more serious. The prisoners are referred to as their numbers not their names. They don’t get a lot of sleep. They are forced into exercise and other mental punishments, since they can’t just get beaten down.

And the prisoners break. They break quickly. Mentally and physically. It becomes quickly a torture job, as suddenly, the people who identify as guards feel they have to be mean and the prisoners feel like they are worthless.

And of course, even more dramatic and scary shit.

Some of the guards are played by Nicholas Braun, Moises Arias, and Michael Angarano, who plays the “worst” guard and calls himself John Wayne. He knows how to push buttons.

A lot more of the prisoners matter, and they are sort of led by Ezra Miller and Tye Sheridan. Other prisoners who play big roles include Johnny Simmons, Logan Miller, Ki Hong Lee, and Thomas Mann who joins later to fill in a spot after a prisoner has to leave.

Everything about this movie is real. Including the facial hair.

Want to see a bunch of male youths devolve into their primal forms and do bad things, but not on an island? Then this movie might be for you!

The filmmakers did an excellent job of really driving home the moments when people began to break under pressure. It is one thing to know that the prisoners were referred to as numbers, constantly having their number drilled into their head, and long amounts of time spent sounding off their number until the guards were satisfied. But it is another thing to see it happen. These, for lack of a better word, mental torture scenes are long, loud, and constant. Major props to everyone involved for making me feel sick to my stomach that things like this could have even happened.

From the prisoners, over half of the prison cast seemed to play an important role. There might have been 2-3 people who were just also there, but every single one of them had a personality that presumably matched reality and a lot of them got focus. We were able to see almost every single one of them break and lose any sense of hope. Seeing that is disgusting, but by golly, is it some fine acting.

For the most part, the guards were just lead by Angarano’s fine acting. Angarano has to play a person playing a role, not just some mean dude. It is sadistic and cruel, but surprisingly not physical. No, other guards devolve into physicality. He is just a mind fucker.

This can be a hard watch, but a good one if you want to learn some crazy shit about human nature, while also watching a lot of young new talented actors in the same film.

In the end, The To-Do List will just be known for Aubrey Plaza‘s first lead role in a film, and nothing more.

Huh, that sentence would have made more sense at the end of the review, but I think it is too late now. Now the bias is set. Now you know where I am going with it. Oh well.

But I guess you already knew the movie might suck.

Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) is your typical Boise, Idaho native. Her parents are pretty strict (Clark Gregg, Connie Britton), because her dad is a judge, so she was raised correctly. It is 1993, no internet to corrupt her, so she became Valedictorian of her graduating class. But she never really learned anything about sex or the human body. Only what she was told by her “slutty” friends (Alia Shawkat, Sarah Steele).

But after being forced into a college party, she sees someone. Rusty Waters (Scott Porter), an older guy, playing guitar. Oh em gee, so dreamy!

In fact, he almost has sex with her on accident. Oh snap! But he still doesn’t. She thinks it is because she isn’t an expert at sex, despite being an expert at everything else she does. So she makes a list of things to do over the summer, to elevate herself to sexual maturity, so that one day she can have sex with Rusty Waters. No matter who gets in the way.

Like her friend Cameron (Johnny Simmons) who clearly likes her. Also in the movie is Bill Hader as the pool owner, Rachel Bilson as the older more experienced sister, Donald Glover as a token black guy, and Andy Samberg as some local band guy.

See, there he is. At a House Party. Looking like Kid.

Really, just really, I got the feeling that no one really tried in this movie. Let me take a step back.

Aubrey Plaza does not act the same way she does in Parks and Rec, and other live interviews. That is presumably how she is. No, this character isn’t brooding, or sarcastic. It is just a overachieving girl, who wants a boy. So there is definitely acting in this movie.

It was definitely going for comedy, because it had a few amusing moments and a lot of shenanigans ended up happening. But nothing really struck a chord with me. IMDB tells me everyone is over 25 playing teens as part of the joke, but it isn’t a good joke. Why? Because that happens all the time. If they wanted to make that real joke, they should have gone even older. Make it super awkward.

Some situations were “Sex-awkward” which I guess is the main selling point. Virgins doing stuff! A nice girl being “slutty!” Oh the humanity. I will admit they were the most amusing part of the film, but even they fell short to me. But hey, Clark Gregg is in this movie. As a Conservative Judge! That sure is nifty.

In the end, The To-Do List will just be known for Aubrey Plaza’s first lead role in a film, and nothing more.

When I first heard about The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, I just assumed it was some indie high school coming of age comedy, that would appeal only to hipsters and hippies. Technically my assumption was not wrong. I was wrong to use the word only, because after seeing this movie, I can see how this movie would appeal to everyone.

There are many factors that can be attributed to the broad appeal, including this broad.

Set in the 1990s, Perks is the story of a boy named Charlie (Logan Lerman) who is the youngest child in his family and about to start his first day of high school. His older brother is now off to college, and his older sister (Nina Dobrev) wants nothing to do with him at school. She is also busy going through a vegetarian phase with a pacifist boyfriend (Nicholas Braun).

Charlie’s one chance of fitting in rested on the shoulders of the school quarterback (Johnny Simmons) who used to be good friends with his older brother, but still, no dice. Heck, it looks like his only friend will be Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd), his freshman English teacher.

But then something wonderful happens. He meets strange people. Namely an eccentric senior Patrick (Ezra Miller) who is willing to talk to him, and his step sister Sam (Emma Watson) who begin to introduce him to a world based on non-pop music, and unconventional fun. However, the closer he gets to his older friends, the more they get to learn about how troubled his past actually is and how deep his madness goes.

Sorry, I made that sound like a horror film. This also features Mae Whitman as one of his new group of friends, and Melanie Lynskey as his influential aunt.

How to be awesome at parties. Find couch, sit, and wait.

The first thing I noticed about this movie is that I knew practically everyone in it. In fact, I’d say some of my favorite young actors have rolls in this movie. Everyone know who Emma Watson is and her famous franchise. I’d say Logan Lerman is pretty well known, as both Percy Jackson, 3:10 to Yuma, and Three Musketeers. But Ezra Miller? Well he was Kevin in We Need to Talk About Kevin, a very upsetting movie and novel. Nicholas Braun has been in Sky High and Red State. If they would have just thrown in a Michael Angarano I might have died from good young actor overload.

But you don’t care about past performances, you care about right now. Well their acting in this movie is definitely top notch. I was surprised at how drawn into the story I became, wanting to know the personal histories of every fictional character. The movie was very relatable, but don’t worry, the events in the film never happened with me. The feelings of longing, love, and loneliness are universal emotions that everyone can say they had their share of in high school.

While watching this movie I can personally attest to crying at least four times in the theater. It draws you in and doesn’t let you go for the entire 102 minute run time. There were probably eighteen people in the theater when I saw it, yet when the credits hit only three were able to get up right away and leave. I’d like to assume the rest of us were just trying to compose ourselves before going back out in public. It wasn’t an entirely sad movie though; half of the tears probably occurred thanks to scenes being overly beautiful.

I felt so strongly about this movie that this is the first time I actually want to read the book that the movie is based on. If you like this movie, I would also recommend It’s Kind of A Funny Story, also dealing with high school depression, but in a much lighter tone.

Here is an example of a biased review. Yesss!

Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a movie based off of a 6 part graphic novel series more or less called… Scott Pilgrim. The novels were one of my first forays into owning graphic novels and reading them, when there was still only the first four out. By the time the sixth one came out, I was able to go to a midnight release of the book and read it all before I went to sleep. Then the movie came out a few weeks later, and crammed all of the stories into one movie. And it was epic.

You might even say I am in lesbians with it.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is our main boy, and he lives in the mythical land of Toronto, Canada. He is 22, and living with his gay roommate Wallace (Kieran Culkin), and has little to no prospects outside of his band, Sex Bob-omb. The lead singer and guitar player is Stephen (Mark Webber) and the drummer is Kim (Alison Pill, and dated Scott a long time ago). So what is Scott doing? Dating a HIGH SCHOOL CHICK, named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) and she becomes a groupie along with Young Neil (Johnny Simmons).

But then he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a cool American chick and wants her so bad. What he doesn’t know, is that to actually be with her, he has to first defeat her seven evil exes in order. What?! Yes. Including an emo, a movie star (Chris Evans! In his 5th comic movie role), a vegan, a girl, twins, and Gideon (Jason Schwartzman). Can he defeat the exes? Can he handle his own exes? Does he know how hot his sister (Anna Kendrick in the movie) is? Also Aubrey Plaza is in here, more famous for Parks and Rec.

Of course, as it is a six book to one movie adaption, a lot of fun cool stuff had to be left out. Like my favorite panel in a comic ever.

Hopefully you can tell already that a lot of the movie is kind of video game-y. If you ever played older ones, this movie has a lot of shout outs for you. Parts are written like the comic as well, and full of smaller inside jokes, but they don’t take away from anything if you’ve never read the books. It is also a very fast paced movie, so time should fly by pretty quickly while watching it. Also, hilarious.

Fight scenes are great. Characters are great. And you won’t be able to guess how it all ends. If I had one real gripe, it is that there won’t be anymore movies. And they never made any “save point” jokes. For a first time watcher, a lot of the names thrown at you at the start may confuse you too. But hey, get over it.

Jennifer’s Body is listed in the Comedy section at Blockbuster. I think that statement is enough to show how the general public perceives this “supposed to be horror but also kinda not ish” movie.

But this movie is brought to us by the same girl who wrote Juno! It must be good! But if the same level of writing was used in both movies, it is clear what made Juno work was the actors and actresses involved, not the script.

Both movies cater to a different fetish group though.

In Jennifer’s Body, we have two friends, Megan Fox as Jennifer, and Amanda Seyfried as ‘Needy’. Dumb nick name, probably alludes to something. They used to be best friends, from the “sandboxes” of yore, and in high school, they still get along great. You know, despite the huge slutty cheerleader-ness of Jennifer, and the dorky whatever-ness of Needy. Needy has a steady boyfriend though, in Johnny Simmons, and is taking it slow.

But they go to the only bar in town to see some indie band play a gig, named Low Shoulder, with the frontman being played by Adam Brody. I have been told he was trying to imitate the lead singer of The Killers with his performance, but I really couldn’t say! Anyways, a FIRE happens, and a person dies in it at the bar! Next thing Needy knows, Jennifer has disappeared with the band, and has no idea whats going on. Then later she appears at her door, all being creepy and covered in blood!

Egads!

Then some people die in the school, namely boys. Who is doing it? Well, Jennifer is. Because she is some demon now, and only Needy seems to realize it. It is like the girl she used to know, is no longer there, but what has remained is Jennifer’s…body. Oh yeah, if you want to see both JK Simmons in his ugliest and worst role ever, this would be a great thing to pick up.

In a movie that has gore, death, Megan Fox acting, this is still the grossest thing.

So, somehow, according to the writer, this is a movie about women empowerment. But I get absolutely nothing like that. All I see is a movie trying to use T&A to sell tickets/dvds, with a pretty dumb and badly acted plot. Oddly enough, one of the reasons Megan Fox didn’t like working in Transformers is because she thought she was being exploited for her looks. Huh. Then she did this movie? Glad you have your priorities straight.

I need Amanda Seyfried to get out of these dumb teen movies right away. She was funny in Mean Girls, and was one of the stars in Mamma Mia!, but then she did this and Red Riding Hood? Stop it right now Amanda.

I have also heard this referred to as “Twilight for Boys” in the good way. What?? That would be assuming that guys only care about “hot” looking womens in their movies, nothing more. Clearly this is just offensive to guys (which may be pro women empowerment? Who knows.