Tag: Katy Perry

To answer the first question on everyone’s mind, yes I did dress up like a Smurf for the premiere of The Smurfs 2. It was smurftastic!

Initially, watching the trailer, I was enraged at the plot. In a nutshell, Gargamel (Hank Azaria) tried to create a couple of Smurfs, but they turned out grey and evil. He needs to know how to make them blue, to extract their essence and then become a powerful sorcerer. But they can only get the formula from Smurfette (Katy Perry), who they have to convince to be naughty and join their force.

NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY.Why does that upset me? Because I know that Smurfette was a Gargamel creation in the first place (Despite the first movie contradicting that statement). He wanted to create chaos in an all male Smurf society, by introducing a woman. That makes sense. So why did he have problems creating more Smurfs? Oh, because the movie changed things up a bit. More importantly, they explained it all and made it completely reasonable.

In this world, Smurfette was also originally gray, until Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) turned her true blue and into a happy go lucky Smurf. Yay! Now everything is okay! Only her and Papa Smurf know the formula, which is why they steal her back into the real world to beat it out of her…with kindness. It is also Smurfette’s birthday, and as the Smurfs tried to keep the party a secret, she assumed no one remembered and felt quite sad. Poor Smurfette.

Due to some miscalculations, the rescue team consists of Papa Smurf, Vanity Smurf (John Oliver), Grumpy Smurf (George Lopez), and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin).

Oh, but they aren’t alone. No, they have human friends from the first film! Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays), their son, and Patrick’s step-dad, Victor (Brendan Gleeson).

Can this rag tag group of Smurfs find and convince Smurfette they love her before time runs out? Or will the Naughties, Vexy (Christina Ricci) and Hackus (J.B. Smoove) get to her first?

But let’s not forget about dat cat.I actually left out a lot of the minor plot points in this one. You’re welcome, that means the movie will be a bit more surprising if you head out to see it. Honestly, it might be worth it if you have a family.

You don’t have to see the first film to understand this film, you just need to know that they have some human friends. Pretty standard for a family film.

What can you get out of the Smurfs? A lot of smurfin’ puns. Smurf this, smurf that, puns everywhere. Hank Azaria continues to be a smurfing excellent Gargamel. The work he puts into the voice and that character is beyond phenomenal. It is smurfing nuts!

I laughed quite a bit at some of the jokes. The fact that the plot made sense in this universe only made it better. However, there were a few smurf problems.

Vanity Smurf? I wish they killed off some Smurfs. As one of the three main personalities on the trek, being narcissistic, he ALWAYS talks. Unfortunately, everything he says is the exact same vain pun, over and over again. It got smurfing real fast. At least Grumpy Smurf had an interesting plot line. Clumsy Smurf was ignored completely. They had the chance to branch out and give us some newer Smurfs to highlight, but they didn’t.

Really, if they make another Smurfs movie, I hope they keep them in their own world. If they want, bring NPH and the other humans to them this time. Their world has plenty of lore, magic, and fun to be a great setting. Most of all, it has more than a handful of Smurfs, so everyone can fight for the metaphorical spotlight.

 

2 out of 4.

My last foray into the 3D movie territory was with watching Coraline, but that was using the classic blue/red scheme and everything in my brain got messed up. But this new 3D that they are using at theaters? I tried it once, three years ago, with Avatar. Movie is pretty old now, turns out. So three years have passed since then, I’d like to think that the 3D technology and jumped leaps and bounds at this point, and should be all BAM. IN YOUR FACE.

THE THIRD DIMENSION.
YEAH.

So of course my second ever attempt at a new 3D movie, I figured why not go to Katy Perry: Part Of Me.

Aww, look at the happy couple. True love and all. Err.

Speaking of concert movies, this is my third one, and second one to be based off a single famous artist. First of course was Bieber, and second Glee. And just like before, I have no idea how to review them.

This movie is suppose to show a different part of Katy Perry, and more of her past, that the average person doesn’t (or doesn’t care to know). All this with a world concert series that she was going on for almost a whole year, with roughly only a few days off ever 2-3 weeks. And what did she do with those few days off? Go see the love of her life, her husband, Russell Brand of course!

Now I forgot in my timeline when their divorce happened, and assumed it was in the summer. I thought all the talk about their love was just a tragic joke, and the movie was finished before they broke up. But nope, that definitely did happen during the movie, and it was sad as shit. But you know what? Katy Perry still did her show that night. Didn’t cancel a single thing, despite all those tears. That’s some dedication.

Katy’s youth was with a super Christian family, her parents traveling preachers. Her first album as a teen was signed to a gospel production company outside of Nashville. But she wanted more. Turns out when she got to LA for music purposes outside of religious, she was pretty much signed right away. Since 2001. But clearly wasn’t famous yet. She didn’t like kissing a girl until 2008, leaving her 6-7 years of struggling musicianness before getting it big. That was while writing a lot of her own music too, and the normal story of “oh I don’t want to be the new Avril / Spears, I want to be me!” like talk.

I am sure it is real, but maybe overblown for the purposefulness of the film.

Ohhh, I get the cover now. She dreamed of being a star in her room, and now she is! How clever!

So yeah, despite being an overnight sensation, she wasn’t an immediate success, which is nice to know. And (although it obviously has to be a part of the reason), she doesn’t seem to be some girl hired for her boobs to sing other people’s songs with lots of autotune, a pop standard. The movie did a real good job of humanizing her.

Honestly, if you didn’t feel sad while she laid int the chair realizing Russell Brand wanted a divorce and could not stop crying or talk to anyone, you are a robot. Which would explain your dance moves.

The actual concert spliced through it seemed really well done and entertaining. Surprisingly, Firework was not the last song. Go figure. I think it just needed (like all of these) less fans freaking out and recording stuff, I don’t care about other normal people’s love. They can stop that.

Also there are some mini interviews, including Adele and Rihanna. Why? Because Katy Perry had 5 number 1 singles from 1 album, only person to do that besides Michael Jackson. And he got a movie recently too, so why not Katy?

The review of this doesn’t matter, you won’t see it if you hate her music probably. You probably also won’t if you like her music. I will say it is a bit more interesting than the other concert films I’ve done. But if she is just a fad in five years, then ehh, who cares.

2 out of 4.

A live action movie about The Smurfs? How can that smurfin’ work? That doesn’t make any smurf sense. But, by the end, it was definitely pretty smurfy.

Oh don’t worry, I am done doing that.

I won’t explain the back story of Smurfs. Should be pretty public knowledge. But in their magical world, before the Blue Moon festival, a few of the smurfs accidentally get transported, along with Azrael and Gargamel (Hank Azaria)! They must figure out how to return, and you know, not turn into magic juice.

Also! Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays are expecting a baby, while NPH has to make a new ad design for the cosmetics company he works for and his boss Sofia Vergara (from Modern Family).

Which smurfs made the cut into reality? Of course Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) and Smurfette (Katy Perry). Without them, who would watch? We also got Brainy Smurf (Fred Armisen) for “problem solving”, Grumpy Smurf (George Lopez) for “lols”, and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin) for conflict building. I think Gutso Smurf (Alan Cumming) was created for the movie, but they needed a more kick ass smurf I guess. A lot more famous people for other smurfs, but those smurfs aren’t as smurf important.

This movie (or at least NPH) ask a lot of questions normal people wonder. Like if they are named after their major personality, do they get a name later in life, or born with that name. The movie answers the question, kinda.

In terms of CGI, it is pretty good. They fit the smurfs into the real world very well. Nothing (too) cheesy, and I was able to believe it.

What was pretty weird was the Guitar Hero scene, though. Guitar Hero is dead.

NPH and Jayma were fine. Azaria made a GREAT Gargamel. I was hoping for Danny DeVito to be him personally, just on looks. But Azaria just had it all going for him. Also, super cheesy. But you could hear the Moe Sizlack in his voice. Also interesting.

Story line was also interesting. I was entertained throughout, which is really all you can ask from a family centric movie. There was enough subtle jokes in there too for adults to enjoy as well.

I was going to watch this with “Smurf-O-Vision” too, as it was advertised. With an iPad/iPhone, you could download an app to go with the movie. It made it seem like if Smurfs would fly off of of screen, they’d fly onto the iPad, and other weird things. A new dimension of fun! But what really happens (I tried this for 5~ minutes, app took forever to load too) is a bunch of stupid things. Also it ruins the movie. In this version of the movie, the main smurf cast are also watching, and often the screen will shrink and you will see their reactions too. I was like “okay, as long as it doesn’t ruin the movie”. But then once it shrunk again and the director appeared and talked over dialogue, I was immediately done and calling it a failure. Just meant as a way to distract kids more so, I think.

Besides that, the movie is smurfy.

2 out of 4.