Tag: Jorge Garcia

2017 is the year of the animated disappointments so far, and yes, I still have not seen The LEGO Batman Movie, get over it. It might be funny, I just don’t care too much, as Batman was what I disliked the most about The LEGO Movie.

And I figured I would be skipping Rock Dog, it was an animated film released almost a whole year prior in China. You know, because they made it. And I know America isn’t number one at everything anymore, but I know we are still number one at animated CGI films. Yes, some anime notwithstanding, we do CGI cutting edge and well, so foreign films just seem behind.

And also the title, Rock Dog. Sigh. Come on animated films, be better.

I wonder which one is the rock and which one is the dog.

Way way far away, in a land called Snow Mountain (which is, guess what… a snow mountain!), there lives a young Tibetan Mastiff named Bodi (Luke Wilson). Bet you thought his name would be Rock Dog. Nah, not yet.

A long time ago, a bunch of wolves led by Linnux (Lewis Black) were driven out of their town by Bodi’s father, Khampa (J.K. Simmons). Khampa is pretty sure the wolves will eventually come back, so he is training up the local sheep and his son to protect it again once they come back. There is also some magic stuff about finding his inner fire to help defeat things, but uhh, that is weird.

Turns out Bodi just wants to rock, once he discovers what music and rock music actually is. It is all he thinks about, it is his new dream and passion, and he is a bit of savant. But his dad disapproves, so he one day just goes out on his own to prove him wrong.

After getting to the city, he heads to a place called Rock and Roll Park in order to find a band and make a big name for himself, like the legendary rocker Scattergood (Eddie Izzard). But the wolves are out, the people are mean, and Bodi might just have to make it on the music biz on his own.

Also featurign the voice work of Kenan Thompson, Mae Whitman, Jorge Garcia, Matt Dillon, and Sam Elliott.

The snow or rain or whatever is happening is indistinguishable from that yak’s beard in the background.

Rock Dog is another animated film that ushers out a line of celebrities to do their voice work instead of real voice work, because names sell. Names like Eddie Izzard. Thankfully, two of those names are J.K. Simmons and Sam Elliott, who have unique voices and add something to the film. Too bad their characters are in Snow Mountain, so only at the beginning and the end of the film, really.

The premise of Rock Dog is mostly shit. Anthropomorphized badly explained worlds are all over the place, and this does nothing to rise above a Pre-K TV program on Disney. It doesn’t feel fully fleshed out and it is a super simple story. A lot of it about a dog who just wants to play music in a world that doesn’t rewward newcomers.

But despite its lack of originality, great CGI, or anything new to offer the genres, it is still an average movie.

I mean, I am not going to go out of my way to make sure my kids see it, but if they do see it, I won’t be annoyed at their mind being poisoned by drivel. It is just a bit dull for those of us who have been there, done it, when it comes to these types of movies.

Anna Kendrick movie tracker #3? Yeah, this is number 3 for the year. Unless I post it before Mr. Right like a jackass. This is the second of the three that is also straight to DVD, what fun!

However, Ms. Kendrick isn’t the focus of the film. She is technically just a side character, in a handful of scenes, and not super relevant to the plot. She is all over the cover of Get A Job though.

Oh yeah, this is supposed to be me talking about the movie. I have no idea what Get A Job is about going into it, but damn it, I surely had some pretty dang obvious guesses.

The over/under for hearing the term Millennials is 15.

This movie is actually about Will Davis (Miles Davis), well known slacker and pothead. Well, only the occasional bong stuff. He is about to get hired at a shitty internet clickbait journalism site, so he is celebrating with his dad (Bryan Cranston) and girlfriend (Anna Kendrick). His dad gives him some money, finally ready for his son to be a man and need no more handouts.

But of course, day one into the job he is fired. Right as he walks into the door, they couldn’t hire like they thought they could. He lives with a group of guys, not his girlfriend. Charlie (Nicholas Braun), a slacker who is getting a job as a chemistry teacher somehow. Ethan (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a slacker who is making an app to help stalk people. And Luke (Brandon T. Jackson), a slightly harder working slacker who is getting a job as a stock broker!

Yay jobs for everyone. Except for Will. And for Will’s dad, who also loses his job despite being with the company forever. Shit, being unemployed is hard, especially in today’s world. Thankfully, Will gets a job that eventually matches his passions, making videos for some corporate company. His boss (Marcia Gay Harden) hates him, the bosses boss (Bruce Davison) likes him, and the other kind of boss (Alison Brie) wants his body, but hey, money is money. And I guess, really, this movie is just about getting jobs in this day and age and the struggles they bring.

Also featuring in smaller roles, Greg Germann, John C. McGinley, Jorge Garcia, and John Cho.

Corporate jobs means ties. Ties get in the way of food. Corporate jobs hate food.

I expected Get A Job to be a completely shit movie. And honestly, on some levels, it is still that film. It is mostly an incredibly pointless story. It is simple, basic, and more synonyms. The only thing that can possibly make this a worthwhile film experience is if the comedy is on point.

And you know what? It barely reached a good enough level at that. Davis’ character isn’t very funny, being our lead. Cranston is giving a few amusing moments, but he also basically plays a straight man this time around. All of the humor that actually interested me in this movie came from Braun and Jackson. For whatever reason, I found the chemistry/coaching plot from Braun to be almost hysterical. I didn’t giggle out of my seats, but I definitely tittered. Jackson’s scenes, especially with McGinley were a nice change of pace. Higher energy and a bit stressful.

Everything else you can practically ignore. The main plot line is meh. Kendrick is barely in the film. Mintz-Plasse’s plot is pretty shitty.

No one will ever watch this movie and change their life from it. No one will probably really watch this movie over ten times in their life. But for whatever reason, two side character plots just really clicked with me and put this film into mediocre territory.

How many movies does Adam Sandler do in a year? Usually one right? Maybe two?

Well this year, he stars in three different movies. The Cobbler, Pixels, and now The Ridiculous 6. Sure he is getting older, but those private yachts aren’t going to pay for themselves. And as he does more and more films, he gains more and more friends to have to support on his army of yachts.

This film is a Netflix original movie. Last year he signed a four film deal with the company, and so it will be awhile before his films are released theatrically again.

And uhh. I guess this is Adam Sandler’s take on a western, with a name similar to those other western and samurai movies.

There are rag tag groups and there are shit groups. This group is worse than the later.

White Knife (Sandler) grew up never really knowing his father or his mother. But he is half Native America, despite looking white. And yes, her is freakishly good at using knives. Name explained, boom.

Then one day, an old guy comes to town. Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte), a famous bank robber who was notorious throughout the land. Turns out that is his real daddy. But he needs help. Members of his former gang are going to kill him, unless he pays back money that was stolen from there. The gang is now lead by Cicero (Danny Trejo), and they are ruthless. Frank lies to them about the location, so that White Knife aka Tommy can get the money and put it in the spot before the bad guys get there. Then, after saving his dad’s life, he can enjoy some of that sweet ass quality time he has been hoping for. So he will run off and do that, before he gets married to Smoking Fox (Julia Jones).

Along the way, Tommy finds out that his dad really did get around, by meeting several half brothers. There is Ramon (Rob Schneider), half Mexican with a burro. There is Lil’ Pete (Taylor Lautner), who is half retarded and well. Yeah. Herm (Jorge Garcia) is half…Mongolian or something. He speaks gibberish. There is also Chico (Terry Crews), half Black and a piano player! And finally, Danny (Luke Wilson) who is half an alcoholic and half an American traitor.

Remember when I said Sandler had friends? Yeah, a ton of them are in this movie.

Chris Parnell. Blake Shelton. Harvey Keitel. John Turturro. Jon Lovitz. Nick Swardson. Saginaw Grant. Steve Buscemi. Steve Zahn. Vanilla Ice. And Will Forte!

Lautner’s tooth gap is played by Steve Carell!

I almost forgot to mention the controversy! You know, where Native American extras walked off the set because they found the humor to be racist and demeaning. One would say that isn’t good publicity, but of course we know there is no such thing as bad PR.

In fact, Netflix can only gain from a raunchy Sandler film. No one will cancel their account because it exists, but they will get more international audiences who love the shit out of him still. Win for them, no matter how terrible a film is.

But in all honesty, this film isn’t even super terrible. No, it is really fucking…slightly below average. Sandler’s character is a bit boring, which is true for a lot of his things lately. He is just playing an every guy, who happens to be good at knives I guess. The only reason to watch the film is for the rest of the 5 brothers.

Taylor Lautner playing what amounts of Simple Jack? Fantastic. He was the best part of Grown Ups 2 and one of the best parts of this one as well. I have been know to enjoy Schneider, and I think his performance is one of his better ones lately (again, not saying a lot). Garcia and Crews felt a bit underused, especially Garcia. His character didn’t even make sense.

But really, the movie has bottom of the barrel. I only laughed occasionally, the twists were obvious, and it was just far too long. It looks like they really did try to make a good western parody, but you know. Poop jokes. Under using actors. Some racism. You know what you are getting going into the film, I suspect.

Circle Circle. Dot Dot. Everyone knows that is what you need to get your cootie shot. Except for my wife, who asked why I drew boobs on her arm.

No one wants Cooties. They are gross and carried by other gross kids. Fuck those asshats, trying to spread their germs on you. Or worse, COOTIES.

When I heard they were making a horror comedy about actual cooties and how the outbreak starts, I will admit I was interested. Zombie movies are trying very hard to be original now, so why not make a whole lot of kid zombies? That adds a new dynamic, morally and comedically, with lots of room for potential. It makes sense, if you think about it. Kids in general have potential, so Zombie Kids should have potential as well!

Although, with their shorter arms the whole thing just might be child’s play.

Clint (Elijah Wood) is a fancy book author who used to live in NYC. But times are tough, and he is living with his mother. It is the start of summer and he has lucked his way into a summer school teaching gig, as a substitute. Anything to pass the time, I guess. If anything it can get him out of his slump. He is trying to write a horror book about a possessed boat and he is only about a chapter in.

Needless to say, the kids at summer school are kind of dicks. But at least the teachers are mostly not dicks.

Well, Wade (Rainn Wilson), the athletic director is a dick. But everyone else is eccentric or fine. Oh hey, there is Lucy (Alison Pill), who he went to school with. She seems relatively normal.

Other teachers include people played by Jack McBrayer, Nasim Pedrad, and Leigh Whannell. And let’s not forget the crosswalk guard Jorge Garcia and the janitor Peter Kwong!

Anyways. Some sort of infected chicken nugget causes it all. Girl eats it, starts getting sick. She bites another kid, and soon, kids are running around the school, biting and attacking anyone in site. Fucking kid zombies.

As for some of the kids, we had Patriot (Cooper Roth), the biggest dick in the school, Dink (Miles Elliot), his lackie, Tamra (Morgan Lily), patient zero, and Calvin (Armani Jackson), a kid who didn’t get bit and gets to hang out with the adults! There was another girl that hung out with them, but I forget a name. And of course, Ian Brennan as the normally vice principal, but for summer, principal! He wrote the narrator of Glee.

Here’s what you missed last time on Cooties: Fuck these little fuckers!

Cooties ended up being a lot more graphic and violent than I expected. Horror Comedy usually means a lot more comedy and horror is more of a sub genre. Like, “Oh yeah, there are zombies, so there is a horror element, but we are all just hear for the laughs.” No, the zombie kids end up being a bit scary and definitely very gruesome in their attacks on the teachers and parents at Fort Chicken. Add in the booming loud noises department and I was constantly taken aback. Yes, they made loud noises to scare you, and yes, that is lame. But they were still unexpected.

I actually had a mostly enjoyable time with this film. The banter in particular between Wood and Wilson was the highlight of the film, along with one of the teachers being ridiculously smart in biology out of nowhere. A lot of it however falls apart with the ending. They just don’t stick it. It is as if the writer/director didn’t know where to take the story. With only 10 or so minutes left, our characters were in a new situation. No real time to fully appreciate the situation, just enough time to showcase something cool and end with a cliffhanger.

The movie is also afraid to kill off the teachers. Anyone who seems to have lines is encased with plot armor. The kids lose any real scare when they turn into just things that run at them just as doors are closing. At least early on there was mass chaos, kids chasing other kids, teachers getting fucked over who were outside, etc.

Despite everything, Cooties was entertaining in ways I didn’t expect, and pretty decent on the joke department. I would watch a sequel in the future, should it happen, with some amount of optimism. But in all honesty, despite unresolved story lines, I don’t think a sequel has anywhere it could go that would set it apart from other zombie films.

The Wedding Ringer seems to fail at the most basic level, having an interesting title. A lot of movies begin with “The Wedding” and end with some noun. Ringer is really only associated with The Ringer and that is a weird movie to be kind of associated with. Or it might make it sound like a shitty horror, if you think about it hard enough.

Oh well. I will note that Sony Pictures really wanted people to see this film a head of time. I think I could have first gone to a screening in October or so. And then roughly 2 a week until it finally came out (exaggeration, but barely). I am normally a bit more weary about films that show too many screenings, because I think they don’t think they will be successful without a lot of positive word of mouth. Like, a lot a lot. And that means it is probably shit.

Not that I am judging it or anything. But Kevin Hart has been on a downward spiral in terms of film quality, with me hating the last few of his movies outside of About Last Night. But hey, despite all these negatives maybe I will be surprised.

This movie probably will taste better with copious amounts of alcohol.

Doug Harris (Josh Gad) is super rich. Like, parents died, took over their business, gained a lot of wealth, and makes a lot of income. He is also kind of fat and awkward and has no friends. But when the daughter of one of his clients suddenly gets interested in him and finds him interesting, he runs with it. Now he is marrying Gretchen (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) and it is expensive. She wants everything and he agrees, this includes a big bridal party. Now ten days away, all she knows about the bridal party is their names, weird things about them, but no pictures and none of them around. Shit.

So Doug finds out about Jimmy (Kevin Hart), who runs a Best Man for hire business. With the time line and the number of people needed, Doug needs The Golden Tux package, costing him another $50k, but he is doing it because he totally knows lying is the best option to make his soon to be wife happy. Inventing fake friends ftw. He just stills has to impress her much smarter sister (Olivia Thirlby) and angry dad (Ken Howard).

And we also have the 7 hired groomsmen. Jorge Garcia, Affion Crockett, Dan Gill, Corey Holcomb, Colin Kane, Alan Ritchson, and Aaron Takahashi. Also Ignacio Serricchio as a gay Hispanic wedding planer. And Jenifer Lewis as Hart’s assistant and advice giver. I think I got every one in there.

The most eclectic group of friends since All In The Family. Errr.

One of the most annoying parts of this movie is it just is an impossible service to imagine. Doug has to pay $50,000 for the service he offers, and the only other price we see is about $20,000. Some people apparently have a lot of money on the side that their soon to be spouse know absolutely nothing about. So it is not only a huge breach of trust, spending that much extra before you share things, but the other breach of trust about lying about someone in your life. It is crazy.

So after I get over that fact, there are quite a few amusing moments in the movie. I could tell how the whole thing would end after about 20 minutes, so they never really stray off of the beaten path. That is a bit disappointing.

The cast of extra characters was entertaining. Kevin Hart was his usual self. Gad was never really anything funnier than “That fat guy”, so his character needed a lot of work. They gave me a Lost joke, which is all I really cared for.

The Wedding Ringer is okay, and not the giant shit show I thought it would be. After all, Kevin Hart’s last January movie was Ride Along which failed to live up to its potential.