Tag: Jonah Hill

The Watch had a lot of negative press surrounding it. Unfortunately its first previews started to appear right before the Trayvon Martin shooting down in Florida. Which was done of course by someone on a Neighborhood Watch patrol. Bad timing indeed!

But really this has very little to do with the plot of the movie. Because this movie is dick jokes and aliens.

Lets count how many dicks and aliens you see in this scene.

Evan (Ben Stiller) is a normal middle aged man living in Suburbia in Ohio. He founds a lot of clubs and cares for his community. But bad things happen. Very bad things. Like the security guard at Cotsco, HIS STORE, was brutally murdered and had his skin shaved off. Pretty damn gross. He realizes the cops in the town are pretty incompetent. There are only eight, and the main two hate him (Will Forte and Mel Rodriguez). Plus they think he is a suspect, since he had the ability to get into the store!

Well damn. So Evan founds the Neighborhood Watch while his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) is away for a weekend, but interest is limited. He gets Bob (Vince Vaughn) a rich man who loves capitalism, but has to raise his daughter (Erin Moriarty) mostly alone because his wife travels for business, and really just wants some nice man friends. There is also Franklin (Jonah Hill) who now lives with his mom, wanted to be a cop, but failed all the tests, including the mental one. And Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade) who also really wants to just hang out/fit in after a divorce, and has an Asian fetish.

This rag tag group of people are forced to do mundane things, until…Evan hits something with his car. And it has green slime! And there is a weird ball that explodes whatever they point it at, assuming they actually finger all the holes. Turns out it is Alien technology, and they might be dealing with a giant alien invasion in their small town Ohio!

I’m sure the creepy skin talking neighbor (Doug Jones) has nothing to do with it. Also Nicholas Braun is in this movie, as guy trying to get with Bob’s daughter. So you know he is going to get fucked up as well. And why does Evan not want to have sex with his own wife? Damn it, Evan.

Oh, so he lets out his steam another way? Do go on.

DICK JOKES. Dick jokes on dick jokes on dick jokes.

Honestly, I’d say that 85% of the humor in this movie was about the male genetalia. It just kept coming up, and came quite frequently. The other 15% would be spread out between some racial/ethnic humor, bromance, and then miscellaneous. But wow.

I didn’t think the plot was that bad. But a movie needs to penalized if it strikes the same funny chord as its go to mechanic. Thankfully the dick jokes were actually, mostly, well connected. But at the same time, it got quite annoying.

Vaughn played a character he always does, and Stiller basically the same. I would say Ayoade and Hill brought something different, since at least with Ayoade he hasn’t really been in an American film yet, and Hill got to play a pretty psychotic military character.

So sure, a bit disappointing, but thankfully it wasn’t complete trash.

Haha! Funny People! A movie about people who are funny!

That is the assumption at least. I will let you know I’ve heard tons of bad things about this movie. Most of my friends hated it. But damn it, I loved 50/50 (which could just be the better version of this movie, not sure). I also thought It’s Kind Of A Funny Story was supposed to be similar to those two (it isn’t) but I loved it as well. So damn it, I am going to watch Funny People and see what the hell happens.

Although this is a scene from the movie, it is definitely way out of context.

Alright lets get the basics.

Seth Rogen wants to be a stand up comic, but isn’t good at it. He has some good material, but bad delivery. Also maybe too many fart jokes. He lives with Jonah Hill, who is more successful and improv like, and Jason Schwartzman, who is staring in some kids sitcom about a cool teacher. Making those ‘big’ bucks.

Adam Sandler plays a big celebrity star. He has done a lot of shitty movies, and used to just be a stand up comic guy too. Turns out he is probably going to die, to a rare disease, kind of shattering his world view. I mean, fuck. He didn’t see that coming. He doesn’t even have really any friends. Needless to say he is kind of depressed, and bombs at a comedy club, where Seth Rogen is quick to make fun of him for his act for cheap laughs.

Sandler freaking out hires Seth to write some jokes for him, and also pseudo take him under his wing for a little bit. Opportunity of a life time for him, at the end of Sandlers. He also is one of the first to know, and helps him out during it when he gets sick. Sandler slept around a lot, so he regrets having that one “slip away”, in Leslie Mann, who is now married to an Australian journalist, Eric Bana, with two kids. Rogen’s problems are just his inability to talk to women, and having a three month plan to try and score with Aubrey Plaza, a neighbor of his.

This movie does NOT end with Sandler’s death. Because the movie is more so about the trial he is on working, and having a new shot a life, after he had thought it was over. Can he fix the wrongs in his life, and get out of his celebrity funk?

Har har har! Funny people!

I think one of the biggest complaints about this movie is the length. Almost 2.5 hours long, it is very unexpected for a movie of its type. The unrated version is about 10 minutes longer (and I can’t tell which I watched. I wanted the Unrated one, but the Blu-Ray menu was confusing!). Apparently it only adds more stand up parts, which I found amusing.

Maybe another complaint is in terms of direction. I really thought it was going to end with Sandler dying. I read the back of the box afterward, and it pretty much begins with “a man getting his second shot at life”. Oh yeah, definitely made that clear with words, just not the previews. So only half of it was him dying, the second half being alive and figuring out what to do now.

Definitely an interesting way to take it, and something I didn’t see happening. I thought the movie felt very real, and I enjoyed it though. It could have definitely been better overall, and not as unforgettable as other Apatow movies. I am sure I will watch it again, just farther in the future, as it is a pretty long time commitment, but I thought it did a good job overall.

Here is something I won’t do with The Sitter. I won’t complain about it being similar to Adventures In Babysitting. That seems to be a big complaint. After all, there cannot be more than two movies about babysitting in a 20some year span. That would be crazy. Just like there is only one cop show every 20 years.

Can’t even compare their directors, as The Sitter was directed by the guy who did Pineapple Express, so he is already established. The guy who directed Adventures In Babysitting was doing his first movie ever, and only went on to direct some Harry Potters, Home Alone, Rent, and Percy Jackson. Holy shit, that guy is awesome.

I guess it makes sense that his name is Chris Columbus too, given his ground breaking movies.

Jonah Hill is a bum. Well, kind of. He lives with his mom, after kind of taking a break from college, and has no job or anything going on. He’d rather sit around all day than do anything productive. Or you know, hang out with his “girlfriend”, Ari Graynor, who lets him go down on her! And that is about all they do. Shit.

But when his mom’s future love life is in jeopardy because her friends can’t find a sitter, he reluctantly volunteers. Afterall, he just has to sit in the house and get paid. Just three kids too. The oldest, Slater (Max Records), seems to be bad socially, the daughter, Blithe (Landry Bender), who is going through some wanna be celebrity party phase, and their adopted son, Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), who sets off firecrackers and has a bad attitude.

But his girlfriend calls up, asking him to come out and party, and bring her some cocaine (for her friend, not her), and then they can have real sex! Well, time to grab the kids and go! Anything dealing with drugs is probably bad, so when he tries to get the stuff from her friend Karl (Sam Rockwell, who yes, dances in this movie) things go from bad to worse.

Race relations, people with guns, diamond stealing, bathrooms exploding, Bat Mitzvah crashing, and you know, meeting old friends in the form of an old college buddy who just wants to hang out and watch a cool geologic storm with him (hint, true love, played by Kylie Bunbury).

This is also the last movie to feature “Fat Jonah Hill”.

There is a rumor that formerly fat people can’t be funny. That isn’t true, we found that out with 21 Jump Street. But it should be noted that fat people aren’t always funny. This movie being a big example of it.

Was there some funny moments? Sure, but they were few and far between. It was also entirely predictable, and well, just lame. Sequences of the movie didn’t even make sense, one notable part involving a pull over from the police. They didn’t even try to explain that event later in the movie, was just stupid.

Most of the humor derives around Jonah Hill cursing at or around kids, and them possibly doing it back. Hell, even Sam Rockwell’s character wasn’t that funny. I think the best character was the gay roller blading assistant. Name is maybe Julio. Maybe.

21 Jump Street (the movie) is nothing like 21 Jump Street (the TV show). Have I seen the show? No. But I know “about it” enough so that I get it. That was more of a crime drama thing, not really a comedy. The movie is a straight up comedy, with tons of references to the show.

You can like both the show and the movie, because it is clearly not a “Remake” but its own thing, taking the basic premise of the show. You know, in case you were curious. But I should also note that when I first heard about it my reaction was a resounding “What The Fuck!?”

But are these two knuckleheads at all believable in these roles or as cops?

Movie begins in 2005, when Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum‘s characters were in school. Hill, nerdy and shy. Tatum, athlete and dumb. 7 years later, some how, they are both wanting to be cops. They remember each other, and agree to work together (helping study / train) and become great friends and partners!

And after a bad first arrest while being park patrol on bikes, they get re-sentenced to an undercover gig on Jump Street, because they are “young looking” to infiltrate a high school and try and stop this new drug from being spread. Could be lethal, but they know nothing about it! So they have to infiltrate the dealers, find the suppliers. So says Ice Cube, their sergeant.

They meet the “cool kids” Brie Larson and Dave Franco, and accidentally switch their identities. ROLE ROLE REVERSAL. They find the dealers, and work on befriending them in order to find the supplier, and you know. Hopefully save the day without getting fired or expelled.

This also features Rob Riggle as a PE teacher, Ellie Kemper as an AP Chemistry teacher, Jake M. Johnson as the principal, and Nick Offerman as their former boss. (This was my paragraph of “People you probably recognize from a TV show”).

Yes, that is the younger brother of James Franco. And it would have bugged you the whole movie noting how similar they looked. He is formally known as “Greg the soccer player” in Superbad.

But outside of all of it, was it funny? Yeah, shit was funny.

It was a self aware comedy too, making obvious jabs at the idea of recreating an 80s drama show into a modern comedy movie. Very easy to catch jokes too. Not everything has to be very subtle.

The made up drug is great, and the moment when the characters were forced to use it? Some of the most funniest consecutive minutes of my life.

Ever joke I don’t think hit the mark, but a large percentage of them did. The action scenes they threw in got to be quite heavy (and slightly predictable) and at one point they actually made a claim that goes against the teachings of South Park, a very hard pill to swallow.

My original interest in watching Cyrus was not because of its all-star cast (exageration maybe. But at least one person in it was in a Best Picture movie, and the other has now been nominated for best supporting actor, so…). Nope, I watched it because it was previewed on another movie I liked, surrounded by previews of other movies I liked. Very simple idea.

You just have to for some reason not skip the previews.

“But if you skip the previews how will you know what to love!?”

John C. Reilly is not Cyrus! No, his character is John. That is convienient. Jonah Hill is Cyrus, be he comes in later.

John is miserable and divorced, has been for years. And now his ex-wife is getting married, and she wants him to come to it, and go out with them to a party to try and meet people. He strikes out on everyone, and bares his heart and soul to one chick, and even she runs away. But not Marisa Tomei. She was eavesdropping and figured she’d give it a go on that drunk guy.

And they have sex! Hooray! They are also super honest about everything. Except that she has a 22 year old son who lives a home (What a loser!) He finds this out on a surprise visit. Tomei is not there, just Cyrus. He shows him his techno, and hey, they talk about the fact that John had sex with his mom. Fun!

The story unfolds weirdly, with the relationship going pretty quickly, but Cyrus seems to be upset, and plots to get John out of the house. Small things, like stealing John’s shoes, lying to his mom, and other tactics that someone who is 22 shouldn’t be up to. John confronts with his ex-wife over all of this, played by Catherine Keener, but refuses to be as honest in his own relationship.

This builds up until a physical altercation at his ex-wife’s wedding, and possibly an end to this fling of a relationship.

Did I mention the techno?!

The movie definitely doesn’t follow the normal format. If you were to stick this idea into a machine to determine if it’d be a success, you’d probably get a yes! But it would also probably assume there was a lot more jokes in the movie. I think about two scenes in the movie I actually found funny. The techno scene, and a late night threatening scene about being knocked out.

Everything else was kinda of blah. Too real, not too funny, not too serious either. Just was, you know, blah.

“Inspirational sports movies” has got to be one of my favorite categories of movies. They are usually long, have drama, and sports! And they hopefully make you feel good at the end. Also preferably with nice quotes during locker room moments, you can you steal their good words later when you are playing a non important Intramural game or maybe even a video game.

Jeez, I pretty much like most of the ones I have seen too. I did not like We Are Marshall, Gridiron Gang, or Miracle though (even as a huge hockey fan). Seemed like they were just copies of other things I had already seen, don’t care if they were “true stories” either.

Moneyball is another “True Story”, based on the Oakland As of 10 years ago going for a title, with little money, and a different way of evaluating players. I’d say the biggest problem with it is that it is so soon, and MLB, so even if I hate baseball, I know enough to know that the team hasn’t done squat after when this movie takes place. So very disappointing in that regard!

But hey! Those movies didn’t have a serious Jonah Hill.

Shit. But each one of them had an action star as the head coach. Oh, what? Philip Seymour Hoffman is the coach/manager, but Brad Pitt is the GM? Thank god.

So Pitt is the GM, and just saw his team lose in a best of 5 series after going up 2-0. Shame. They are losing their star first baseman. With no real payroll available to find one guy as a suitable replacement. Even though trades are attempted, including with the Indians. Pitt sees Jonah Hill in the corner, and thinks he is secretly calling the shots, so he finds him, talks to him, and buys him from the Indians to be his assistant GM (a huge upgrade). He is a Yale graduate in Economics, and think the best solution to replacing the first baseman is to bring in three different guys, undervalued. None of which play first base.

Chris Pratt plays the catcher, who no one wants, and has to change position. He also has a smaller role than I would have expected, but does a nice job of being “Serious”. Stephen Bishop plays David Justice, a “washed up” athlete who the Yankees cut, and therefore the As can afford.

Of course since this is based on a true story, all the trades / transactions that happened in the movie, actually happened, and it isn’t just a team of misfits, like The Replacements or Major League. But the movie is about the first attempt to try and rebuild a team through this new method of evaluation, and their quest for the world series.

Chris Pratt’s character may be important.

Overall I thought the movie was very well down. I think people argue on whether or not Pitt acted good, or acted at all. They try to show his character to have a lot of past demons, based on his own dealings as a MLB player when he was younger. I thought he did a good job, like most of the leads. I think the manager character was probably way too stubborn in all of the talks with the GM, but hey, what do I know?

Movie is over two hours, and has a touching ending too, and I think is interesting enough. Don’t even have to understand much baseball to get it. Hitting percentage is probably the easiest thing to grasp, and one of the things talked about most.

But I might have enjoyed a fictionalized movie about this more, just to have a better outcome.

I saw the preview of Get Him To The Greek and was like, what? That looks dumb. What is Jonah Hill doing? Russel Brand? He is just acting like he did on Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Can he only do one thing?

Katy Perry?

Fortunately for my past hating self, this movie turned out to be funnier than that. Sure, a lot of jokes occur just because of drugs and alcohol, making it pretty much a stoner flick. But the “Jeffrey” scene was just way too good. In this movie Brand is still a rocker, and Jonah wants him to replay a concert he did 10 years later (big deal concert) to revitalize his career. Unfortunately with drugs and alcohol, he is really unstable. So getting him back to the greek, is filled with shenanigans.

Puff Daddy in one of his few roles ever, was terrific throughout the movie. Seriously, he was way too fucking funny. His humor could be based entirely on the fact that he is P Diddy, doing humor, and that makes it awesome, and him not actually being funny. Celebrity factor. But ehh, I will put on those shades every time to get those laughs. He played the over the top record executive, and damn it, did it go really well.

This is his “Imma fuck you up” face.

I obviously see now that he is playing the same dude from Forgetting SM, and that makes it kind of like canon. The music that is sang also is pretty decent. Not necessarily completely comedic, but actually going for some sort of listenable sound as well, helps make it believable. No way Elizabeth Moss would actually be with the Jonah Hill in this movie, but I guess we have to believe she has gone insane from long doctor hours. Speaking of insane, the scene with her, Jonah, and P Diddy? What?

How To Train Your Dragon? Dumb title. Just saying. Let’s have some creativity dreamworks. Good luck making an evil baby dragon look cute also.

Oh shit.

Awww, look at that cute evil glare.

In this story we have Viking like people! Hooray! They are at war with the dragons because…uhh they are dragons and dragons are evil. Our main character (Jay Baruchel) sucks at fighting, and would rather just learn. He ends up hitting the dangerous Nightwing dragon DOWN FROM THE SKY! But no one sees him do it, and it is at night, and for whatever reason no one will go into the woods with him to get it later. Their loss. Cute dragon he finds, and he can’t kill him. But aww, its wing is broken.

Eventually he gains the dragon trust, all in secret of course. Adults don’t believe kids. While he is training with his dragon, he is also getting trained how to fight and kill dragons with the other kids. Through his dragon, he learns little secrets to subdue them without weapons, that no one else knew about. Shit, dude is a genius! He thinks that there is nothing evil about the dragons, and maybe something else is evil forcing the dragons to be “bad”. Just saying, of course. He even makes a book eventually. About how to train a dragon. Oh okay. got it now.

Lot of voice actors in this one, including Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, America Ferrera, and T.J. Miller.

Your heroes, ladies and gentlemen.

And here is what pissed me off. Family movies (or movies for kids) love to do this shit. Make adults unable to change and accept the word of a child. All the time, and use it as a main plot point. It is stupid, and bullshit, and makes me so mad.

Once they find out about his trained dragon, guess what? Everyone flips their shit. They stop from killing him because, well, if they let him go, he can lead them to the lair and kill them all. Obviously that is the best advice! Because this kid, who has surprised everyone for months over his tactics that he learned from a dragon, on how to subdue them, on how they are not bad, and on the fact that a dragon listens to him? That is all hogwash. The fact that any of them would constantly interrupt him and ignore him is the bullshittiest bullshit at that point.

Even if they were at war their whole life, their first reaction would be more confusion and panic and a willingness to listen. That on it owned ruined this from a great film to an okay one for me..

Of course everything changes by the end and people accept the dragons. Thanks to the kid character, they can all now learn how to train a dragon. The sequel being called HTTYD2 doesn’t make sense though. Oh well. I liked this more than Toy Story 3 (the movie it lost to for awards) though overall, is because unlike TS3, it shows that people can change, even if it takes some unreasonable amount of time. Guess what my biggest complaint of TS3 is? Hah.