Tag: June Diane Raphael

After the decade plus of revitalization, comic book movies have finally given me what I have always wanted.

A live action film over the best mutant super hero ever in existence, Longshot. Longshot is an alien/cyborg futuristic dude, who deals with M.O.D.A.K. What is his mutant power? He is lucky. Things go his way. As long as he has pure motives, the hard to fathom things will just work. What a fun power!

Wait. Shit. No. This is a RomCom from the creators of Superbad. And it is Long Shot, two words, meant to show the likiehood of this couple working out. Ah damn it. If this film stays popular over time, we might never get a self titled Longshot movie now!

They say couples will start to dress like each other. Just a guess on which way it goes.

Also starring June Diane Raphael, Bob Odenkirk, Alexander Skarsgård, Randall Park, Andy Serkis, Ravi Patel, and Tristan D. Lalla.

They say couples will start to dress like each other. Just a guess on which way it goes.

When you claim to watch bad movies so others don’t have to, you often get asked if you have seen certain bad movies. I would say the film I have been asked about the most by a landslide would be Cube. Because I like shit like that, and math. Didn’t see that coming did you? Well I’ve seen Cube now and the first sequel.

The movie most requested after that would easily be The Room, something I didn’t rush out to see. I saw the “best scenes” compilation on YouTube and just put that in a “one day” bucket. Then The Disaster Artist has to go and not only come out but receive awards nominations. shit. That meant I HAD to watch The Room finally. I couldn’t go in blind. What’s the point?

So I saw it still slightly reluctantly. Powered through. I get the appeal but I still won’t see it again. And hey now I can watch others talk about it!

Just not in the goddamn theater, that’d be rude.

Sometime in the late 1990’s, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) was a struggling young adult. He thought about being a famous actor one day, and he was even taking acting lessons. He just wasn’t any good. At all. At. All. Nothing helped, he didn’t display any emotion, it was a lost cause. But in those same classes, he found a dark and mysterious man named Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). Now this is a man who knew how to channel his emotions and really bring that raw talent to the stage.

So Greg wanted to work with Tommy, and Tommy agreed. He was a bit weird, but he really brought it out of Greg and Greg started to feel confident. After years of friendship, they moved to LA, with Tommy financing everything, to become real actors. After it didn’t work out well, especially not for Tommy, Tommy started to write and figure out his own movie. This piece became The Room, a film that is iconic today, and the rest of this movie is how it was made, the trials they faced, and the hurdles that were overcome. Also how Greg began to move on by getting a girlfriend (Alison Brie) and trying to separate from the Tommy umbrella.

And only some talk about being a vampire.

Given the people who made this, it is no surprise how many famous actors are in this film: Seth Rogen, Paul Scheer, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, Charlyne Yi, Bob Odenkirk, Hannibal Buress, Joe Mande, Nathan Fielder, Andrew Santino, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullally, June Diane Raphael, Jackie Weaver and Ari Graynor. I could have also swore a minor character was Margot Robbie, but the credits won’t let me confirm that.

As we learned in The Room there is never a bad time for football.

I wonder how much your perceptions of this film changes based on your opinions of The Room. If you have seen The Room many times since it came out, were totally in that cult movie aspect, I think you will enjoy The Disaster Artist a whole lot more than someone new to the topic. Obviously this is a film where you sort of need to see The Room before seeing it to really get it at all, but there is a huge difference between me watching it a week before The Disaster Artist and years prior.

Because hey, The Disaster Artist is a pretty funny film. The Francos do a good job of setting the stage, building up the Wiseau mythos and so on. And sure, I can agree that James acted well, only because we obviously have a real person/character to compare him to. But if this was just a movie about a bad production, this is the type of thing that would be panned for unnecessarily ridiculous director guy.

So it is a very hard thing to judge. Was it actually well acted only because he acted like Wiseau accurately? Or does well acted need to be something more than accuracy to a subject? It is a hard subject to answer, and not one that I will go into real detail here. But it is something on my mind and something that certainly would tell me that it certainly shouldn’t be winning awards for its acting.

The Disaster Artist was a film that made me laugh and remind me of a shitty film at the same time. It is a very strange genre of movie, very meta, and it will gain its own cult status I am sure. Double features for the next 20 years! However, in reality, I really just want to read the book to get the full story and won’t bother too much with the film version many times in the future.

Girlfriend’s Day is a movie that came out of nowhere and just popped up on Netflix. That isn’t true. I saw at least one note for one pre-screening the day before it was released.

It came out right on Valentine’s Day, because why not talk about a made up holiday on a similar holiday.

Hey, this intro is hard. I will admit the only reason I went and saw it because it had a run time of like, 65 minutes, meaning it was easy to fit in between other films.

And I was able to type this review real quick. No effort even.

Ray Wentworth (Bob Odenkirk) used to be the best. The best at what? Writing greeting card messages. He won some awards a few years in a row. But that was years ago. Now his ideas are misses and he lost his groove.

Yes, he used to be married, so he could write the most beautiful cards all to his wife, and people loved it. But once his marriage ended, his writing became a sham, and now he is fired.

Which is a blessing, and a curse. Because California has decided to introduce a new holiday: Girlfriend’s Day. And to celebrate the event, they are giving away a large cash prize to the person who can create and submit the best Girlfriend’s Day card. People currently employed in the Greeting Card industry are ineligible.

So now Ray can work on his ultimate card. To get him in the game again. To bring him to the top. To get that sweet money. But it turns out this has brought out a lot of crazies and thugs, who all want that money without doing the work, getting Ray in the middle of several stories and threats against his life.

Also starring Stacy Keach, Amber Tamblyn, Alex Karpovsky, Kevin O’Grady, Rich Sommer, Larry Fessenden, Natasha Lyonne, June Diane Raphael, and Andy Richter.

Oh look, a potential girlfriend!

There is only one good thing about Girlfriend’s Day. Its run time.

Being barely over an hour, I didn’t have to waste too much of my life watching it.

The filmmakers tried to do a big elaborate film with side characters all building up to one big event. Like a Cohen brothers flick basically. But it felt rushed, it felt lame, and it definitely did not feel funny.

Yes, another comedy movie without the comedy. A few smirks at most, but Odenkirk is basically supposed to carry this movie on his own charm. But he is nor Saul Goodman in this movie, he is barely charismatic and it just feels like a mistake.

Definitely an easy movie to pass and one that would be enjoyed by very few.

When Unfinished Business hit theaters, it committed Seppuku on itself almost immediately? Why? Well, it is a comedy, and it has some famous people in it, AND it was released in theaters, it just didn’t do any screenings for anyone.

I can understand why a movie like Step Up: All In might not do screeners. It is for a very specific group or audience, who will see it, critics be damned. And if you aren’t into dancing, you won’t like it.

I can see why a low budget indie movie with no famous people would also hold no screeners. They are art house films and want awards, not money. (This is a lie, everyone wants money).

But what is supposed to be an A-Level comedy? They are saying they have literally no confidence in this movie at all and are just releasing it while hoping no one will really notice. It is not a good thing to know going into a film and really makes you wonder how bad it could be before you even see anything.

I mean, it has Vince Vaughn and beer, how could this not appeal to the majority of Americans at this point?

Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn), before having an unfortunate name, is also about to leave his work. He is in sales, selling things, but the what is not important. He feels like he is getting screwed out of his pay check, because his boss, Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller) (what the fuck is that name?) wants to renegotiate how much he is getting for a new sale. So he decides to walk out. And much like Jerry Maguire, he was left basically alone and sad.

Wait, there are two people with him! Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkinson), who has a mandatory age of retirement or something, but doesn’t really want to stop working, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), someone who was applying for a job but is willing to work for Dan! Yeah! They will start their own business selling…things!

A year later, life sucks. They aren’t doing great, they don’t have an office. Dan has troubles at home. His son (Britton Sear) is getting bullied, his girl (Ella Anderson) is needing him to work on a project about his unsuccessful life, and his wife (June Diane Raphael) wants to put the boy in private school, but Dan can’t talk about their financial woes.

Either way, they finally are going to close on a deal. Just need to shake hands with a Jim (James Marsden) and they will have money to fix all the things! Well, then there is fucking Chuck, suddenly in the races and they have a lot more work to do. And also Nick Frost is hanging out.

They just have to do the things to maybe get the deal! The things! The things!

Pancake is probably one of the greatest last names in movie history.

You know, this is probably 2013’s fault. In that year we had The Internship (which I actually liked) and Delivery Man (a scene for scene remake of a French Canadian film), both of which basically bombed and were groaned at by critics. All with Vince at the helm! Since then he had nothing in 2014, a cameo in Anchorman 2, and that is it. Literally, a string of bad movies might have killed his career. After all, this movie began its shoots in October 2013, and a year later had to do reshoots. I guess the studio really did have no faith at all. Nor did the public, giving this the lowest grossing film opening of his career.

And it is sad to say that all of it is entirely warranted. This is a comedy in the sense that occasionally an amusing scene may happen. In no way does it ever give the minute after minute of laughter that you are hoping for with this movie. No, and it doesn’t help that this film has entirely too many serious moments in it, serious moments that don’t end up affecting the viewer on an emotional level. The movie isn’t just stale, but the entire time you are watching you are waiting to figure out just what the point of the whole film is.

The drama, the plot, the comedy, the acting for the most part is all terrible in this film. The pacing is all over the place and it honestly feels like everyone is super passive. Vaughn’s character is passive, the bad guys are passive. 90 minutes of people standing around and talking about doing great things, and of course, not.

The only reason I am giving it the 1 and not a 0 is, surprisingly, Dave Franco. He basically plays someone who is literally retarded. It was very strange and yet, it was very different for little Franco. His character was able to bring a smile to my face through his simplicity and his discoveries through this film journey. If we could have a spin-off movie of him traveling the world, that would be ideal.

The good news for Vince is that he is about to star in True Detective season 2. He is hoping to have some sort of Vaughn-Respawn for his career, just like the recent McConaissance.

There comes a time in Cinematic History where certain movies seem to leap bounds and fountains over the rest of the movies in that year. Unfortunately, these films are not always recognized for their greatness, and therefore never watched, like Little Shop Of Horrors.

In 2009, with such treasures like Avatar, Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs, Twilight: New Moon, and 2012, one film was overlooked. One film was passed on the side of the round (or trampled by the lazy). That film of course, was Year One.

YES. YEAR ONE. LET ME SHOUT ABOUT IT NOW FOR YOU.

No, I won’t actually shout.

This film is set in history, maybe roughly 1 AD, but that is a rough estimate.

In it, we have Zed (Jack Black), a bad hunter, and Oh (Michael Cera), an okay gatherer. Zed is feeling unloved, so he eats from the forbidden fruit tree to gain all the knowledge of good and evil! Well, that goes badly, and they are kicked out of the tribe. Now he will never get it on with Maya (June Diane Raphael), and Oh won’t be able to impress Eema (Juno Temple).

On their travels, they find that the world is actually a much bigger place than they thought. They run into Cain (David Cross) and Abel (Paul Rudd), and things (obviously) escalate from there.

They find themselves on run from an angry village, learn about the wheel, and end up in Sodom and Gomorrah where orgies occur nightly, and lets not forget about the sodomy. They not only join the city guard, but also become trusted slaves and chosen ones of the royalty. Queen Inanna (Olivia Wilde) takes a personal interest in Zed, to figure out just what the priest is up to.

Can the Chosen One and Oh save the day with their now stunning intellect? Or you know, will they just be sacrificed for rain? Also featuring Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Vinnie Jones, and Hank Azaria.

Don’t make that face. Vinnie Jones isn’t that bad.

I am agog, I am aghast, that I took this long to see this film. Especially when I bought it about a year ago and have had no real good reason to avoid it (other than, you know, other movies to watch). But this may not only be the finest movie I have seen with Jack Black, but Michael Cera as well, and he was in Superbad! Shit. That is why I had to move up my review o this movie. Originally it would be in two weeks, sine I am behind on posting current theater movies, but I really couldn’t let another day go by.

One major reason to talk about this movie is David Cross, who probably gives an Oscar worthy performance as Cain. He has to live with the guilt of killing his brother, living a life of sin and sadness, while at the same time, dealing with two primitive numbskulls who don’t understand how “modern” society work. I bet the only reason he was overlooked is because it is a comedy, and outside of Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, they usually ignore them.

Now I know why she has taken on a lot of bad roles since 2009. She just can’t live up to her past great work in this movie.

Year One reminds me of why I love Olivia Wilde, despite her recent mess ups. What a beautiful creature.

Basically, if you had seen Year One (and statistics show that you probably have not), you would know that every line is an ounce of wit, that popularized Arrested Development back in the day, and currently categories some great comedies like Modern Family and Archer.

Yes, it is historically inaccurate, but that should be a given when it also includes stories from The Bible.

I think I am going to have to forgo going to any future movies until Jack Black and Michael Cera are put in another movie together. Their chemistry (bromance?) seems to have towered over any comedic duo that I have seen before. Yes, even more so than David Spade and Chris Farley.

This movie changed my life in more ways than one (I’d say about four). Hopefully one day it can change your life too.