Tag: Lucas Black

FAST FAST FAST.

Nope. Too slow. Now you are just Furious 7. Look down. Look up again. You are Vin Diesel upset that Chuck Norris stole all of your internet jokes. Look at my hand. It is full of movies. THINK AGAIN. Just odd numbered Fast and Furious movies!

Blah blah blah. I have said before. I think the even numbered movies are either shit (2 and 4) or just okay (Fast and Furious 6). Some are well known to be bad, I went against the grain for the last one. Tokyo Drift has a good story though, which is why I like it and the first and fifth are entertaining. I was super stoked to watch Furious 7, before the death of Paul Walker, because I wanted the continuation from Tokyo Drift! I was ready for it all. And you know, 7 is an odd number.

And hey, Vin said this movie was amazing. Tears would flow and it should win Best picture awards. In that case I expect also hard hitting dialogue, some true events maybe, a new look at a modern topic, and maybe some death.

I don’t expect too much butt though.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT ALL OF OUR FRIENDS COULD RETIRE AND JUST ENJOY LIFE. Just right then. Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) shows up and starts killin’ people. He is the brother of the Shaw dude from the last movie and he wants revenge. Deadly revenge.

Well that is great, they have to deal with this asshole who has money, power, and explosives, and he will follow them around the world just to get his sweet deadly revenge.

Thankfully (?), a covert ops team lead by Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) wants to use Dom’s (Diesel) team to track down a computer program(er) (Nathalie Emmanuel) and a terrorist (Djimon Hounsou). If he stops the terrorist, they can use the special facilities to take out Deckard as well. Deckard of course will continually interfere with each step of that operation before he can be fully dealt with. Dom wants his crew though for the job. So he gets the leftover parts of the crew (Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris).

Action, cars, people being mad. Dwayne Johnson is back in his role, Jordana Brewster is still Walker’s wife, Lucas Black reprises his role kind of, and Ronda Rousey is in this movie because modern action films secretly hate us.

Furious 7 is making shit tons of money. It is also is breaking records while doing it. Why? Is it because of its extremely diverse cast? (which is by the way, ridiculously diverse. Look at that group shot and tons more not featured). No, probably not.

The thing is, this franchise always made a lot of money. Six made almost 800 million, so the fact that this one already hit a billion isn’t a surprise. Because let’s face it, regardless of how good or bad it is, people wanted to go see it because of Paul Walker’s death. Just like The Dark Knight.

Now, sure, I might have had a tear near the end. My emotions are easy to manipulate in a movie. But I am still disappointed with their choice. I think a much stronger movie could have been made if they went real crazy and intense with it. I even knew I wouldn’t get the more intense and tear inducing finale to Walker’s character, because they announced what would happen to his character months ago. A literal ride into the sunset. Kind of disappointing, but I get it. I do.

Either way, some of the stunts in this film were insane. Most of them just involve literally the cars flying through the air and surviving big crashes. They are thankfully in vehicles a lot, so it keeps up with the theme, despite only one (and a half maybe) street races. And it didn’t feature an incredibly stupid ending like the last film. And the characters, all of which were still decently over the top, didn’t feel like superheroes which was another complaint I had.

But also, this one featured The Rock in a great scene involving a cast. That scene made the movie for me. I just really hope they don’t make another one. End up on top. Please no more. Don’t piss off Paul Walker’s ghost.

3 out of 4.

For Legion, it is one the last of the main entries into Apocalypse Week.

I remember the trailers for this movie, and thought nothing of it. Random horror. I almost bought it cheap on Black Friday two years ago, but my brother said it was dumb, so I never bothered. But now, finally, I can see it. I love catching up on things I missed.

“…So then the bartender goes, why the long face?!”

The story begins with Michael (Paul Bettany) fighting off some demon looking mother fuckers, and being quite vague. Oh yeah, he totally had angel wings too, but has apparently got rid of them. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

Now we find ourselves at a diner in the middle of nowhere. We have quite a few people there, including: Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid), the owner, his son, Jeep (Lucas Black), their cook (Charles S. Dutton), and a pregnant waitress, Charlie (Adrianne Palicki).

Well, they have some customers too, but who cares. We care about Kyle (Tyrese Gibson) a dangerous looking man who is going to LA. Yes, dangerous because of his skin color maybe. Either way, eventually, some old ass lady walks in and starts causing a fuss, turns into a demon, and tries to get her kill on. Kyle saves the day!

Mass confusion, then enters Michael. Oh, yeah, he seems crazy. He also has a lot of guns. Just because a small army of people who turn into demons attack the diner doesn’t mean he isn’t crazy still. You see, apparently God has lost all hope with the human race. He wants to smite them down, so has sent creatures to take out the Earth. Michael didn’t like that so he abandoned the Angel status to save the human race. How does he do that? By protecting the pregnant lady, whose child is apparently the key to humans winning out.

Great! One against many! Let’s do it. Kevin Durand is Archangel Gabriel too? Heck yeah. I am pumped.

Keamy from Lost has never looked more “cool.”

The plot of this movie actually excited me. Shoot out at a diner in the middle of nowhere, protect the girl at all costs, Angels are the bad guys, also demon things? Why not?

Well, the old lady demon was pretty dang silly. They used the climb on the ceiling tactic multiple times, one as an old lady, the other with a young little boy. Apparently that is all they had going. All the other demons had nothing special going on with them, besides awkward jaunts and large mouths. But still, cool fights and guns right?

Well, I wish. It seemed like post Michael arrival and the mini army, which was promptly dealt with, the movie went into a long lull of boredom before the next wave or anything really happened. Sure, things did happen. But I wanted more guns and demons, damn it. It felt like hours waiting for more things to attack. We are also left with a lot of silly different deaths, that bug me more than anything. Sure they are diverse, but they don’t feel creative, they feel lazy. Don’t take out my favorite character by having him be a hero for no reason, kay?

Just saying. Could have had a lot more cooler deaths and shootouts, and not a lot of downtime in between cool scenes. Really loved the Angel fight too, for some reason.

2 out of 4.

First off, I am a bit disappointed. The movie 42 doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out the question of life, the universe, and everything.

Unless that question is baseball related. That’s right, 42 isn’t about The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but instead baseball, go figure. Not just any baseball story, like the forgettable Trouble With The Curve. This is baseball history! The story of Jackie Robinson, the first black MLB player. Well, technically the first black MLB player in modern, post World War II baseball. After all, Moses Fleetwood Walker played in the MLB for a season in 1884. But after that, sixty years is a pretty long time, with “Negro Leagues” put in place, so Jackie Robinson still turned heads in his debut.

Despite the turned heads, he still didn’t help us answer that dang question… 42 doesn’t focus on Jackie Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) entire life, but instead about 2.5 years of it. But before we get to Jackie, we first get to learn about Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers. If we listen to his reasoning at the beginning, he wants to try something crazy. That’s right, a black man on the Dodgers! Why not, that should increase ticket sales, and he will also do whatever he can to get his team a pennant.

So he picks Jackie from the pile, gets him on their minor league team, and hopes he can kick enough ass to make it on the MLB team, while holding back his anger enough to not let the rampant racism get to him.

This is a true story, we all know he makes it to the team after a year in the minors, and the rest, really is history. We also see a little bit into his relationship with his wife (Nicole Beharie), and I do just mean a little bit. There are other members of his team who all embrace in him different ways, some with petitions (Ryan Merriman), some with open arms (Lucas Black). Some managers didn’t give a shit (Christopher Meloni), and some made it their mission to make his life a living hell (The Phillies) (Alan Tudyk). But that is to be expected from a Philadelphia based team I guess.

This also has the smaller, yet still important, story of Wendell Smith (Andre Holland). He was the the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, but first had to travel with the teams for two years, writing articles about Jackie and his struggles. That means Jackie Robinson was influential on more than just the baseball level, he just chose to end racism through beating the other team’s pitchers and stealing bases.

Oh there is also a John C. McGinley cameo as the radio announcer, dropping classic line after classic line of old timey talk.

Jackie probably thinks I am talking far too much about white people in this review.Speaking of white people, I guess Branch Rickey was pretty dang important to this story, but no one really talks about him in popular culture. The filmmaker makes sure you know how much of this all falls on his shoulders, and how it would not have happened (so soon) without him. Yep, this just ends up being another civil rights movie where white people are the saviors. Just like The Help and The Secret Life Of Bees. This literally keeps happening in film, and it is kind of annoying.

Even though in this example it might be true, it is still frustrating to see that it is focused on so heavily just to sell more tickets.

I loved Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. I am glad they went with a relatively unknown actor for the role, because that was one of my bigger problems with the movie Ali.

Overall, 42 is a feel good inspirational movie and it succeeds at that level. There is some intense emotion in here, but it still ends with everyone smiling by the end. It could have dealt with a lot more of his life, but hey, after his first year, he wasn’t the only guy able to make the switch. He was a great athlete, and this is an acceptable (if not entirely accurate) portrayal of his life. I personally still left the theater happy, despite any real issues.

 

3 out of 4.

Get Low? Alright I will get it over with.

No more references to that!

Get Low stars Robert Duvall as an old hermit man Felix Bush, living outside of a town in the 1930s or so. A simpler time. Why does he keep to himself? No one is for sure, but every once in awhile he does go into town, much to the ire of the towns folk. For some reason, he heads to the local funeral home, run by salesman Bill Murray and his new partner Lucas Black (the kid from Sling Blade!) to set up his own funeral. He has everything already ready for it though, except for the “funeral party”.

Funeral Party? What? He wants to hold a gathering of people just telling stories about him for his funeral, but while he is still alive. Very weird concept, but Bill Murray needs money and will sell anything. So flyers are put up to invite folks, radio interviews, haircuts, new suits, etc.

Also, Felix agrees to sell raffle tickets, $5 a pop, and the winner (announced when he actually dies) will win his home and land, which is quite a large amount.

At first it appears as if the funeral home is trying to rip off Felix, but throughout the movie you are unsure of who is ripping who off.

The event gets canceled a few times, and changed a lot. We find out that he doesn’t just want random stories, he wants his story told. Why he has been living by himself the last forty years, and an admission of his sins. Also included in the cast are Sissy Spacek, as a past friend (maybe former lover?) and Bill Cobbs, as the Reverend from where he used to live.

This is also a good film to reflect on with the end of “No Shave November”.

By the end of the film, don’t worry, you will find out the answers to why he is doing the funeral party, why he is a hermit, and what he did in the past. To be fair, those are all kind of the same answer.

The acting in this film is way too good. I am a well noted Bill Murray hater (unless he is in cameos). I banked my getting into college on it. But even he did a good job (but since he was kind of a crook, it was easy I bet). The ending is of course sad too, and when you realize everything that Felix went through in his (fictional) life, you will just want to hug that old man.

The music and designs/costuming were pretty top notch as well. Despite the slow start of the movie, if you pay attention, you will be hooked early on and find yourself on a decent ride.

3 out of 4.