Tag: Malin Akerman

“Final Girl” is a term given to the last surviving female in a horror movie. This woman may have been in danger the whole movie. But somehow by the end she has enough gumption to slay the killer, or escape the building, or whatever. Hell, Ripley is a Final Girl.

Enough horror film had this happen for it to become a trope at least. I actually never heard about it until this year. Not just because of the movie The Final Girls that I am about to review, but because there was another movie also out aroudn the same time called…Final Girl. Yeah. It is pretty damn easy to get these ones confused. I haven’t seen such close titles for real unrelated movies since A Late Quartet and Quartet.

Now I will see Final Girl, some day. I have to given how easily it is to mistake The Final Girls. But to make matters even more confusing, they also share an actor. Somehow, Alexander Ludwig decided it’d be a good idea to be a lead in both films.

With an amazing shocked face like that, there’s no question how he landed the roles either.

Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman) was in a series of horror films back in the day, but now she is just struggling to find a job. All people remember her for is her role in Camp Bloodbath, now a cult classic, but a movie she doesn’t like too much. But this isn’t her story. You know, because she dies in a car crash early on in the film. Her daughter, Max (Taissa Farmiga) was also in the car but she survived.

Since then, life has been lame. Her best friends brother, Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), has apparently promised that Max would show up to a special screening of Camp Bloodbath. She agrees, reluctantly, as long as her friend, Gertie (Alia Shawkat) comes along. Chriss (Alexander Ludwig), a male friend who is totally into her, also comes along, which means the local bitch, Vicki (Nina Dobrev), who used to date him tags along as well.

And since this is hard to explain, I will be succinct: Some shit went down, and now they are trapped in the movie. Good news: Max can reunite with a version of her mother, that’s cool! Bad news: a masked man is trying to kill them all! But now that they are in the movie, it is harder to predict what would happen. Their mere presence changes the plot line for good, so they can’t rely on their movie knowledge to win this one.

Other campers are played by the likes of Adam DeVine, Angela Trimbur, Chloe Bridges, and Tory N. Thompson.

Honestly the only thing you need to be good at in a horror movie is your scared face.

Remember Cabin In The Woods? That was a genre bending, horror comedy that a lot of people didn’t know how to react to, but has eventually been accepted as a great and unique film. Cabin in the Woods is hard to define. The Final Girls is not hard to define, because I can look at it and say “It is like, Cabin in the Woods, kind of!”

A comedy horror means two things: It is usually funny, and it is usually not at all scary. They all just become parodies of horror without the fear behind it and this is honestly no exception. There are maybe “scary” moments, sure, but no one watching it will find it scary as per the norm.

Instead, The Final Girls should be judged on its comedy and it should be valued highly. Witty and fun, the cast of characters, and movie character stereotypes allow a lot of good deaths that follow and exploit common horror tropes. This is a PG-13 movie, which I feel limits some of the extremes they could have gone to, which is a shame. But the final fight scene felt nicely epic, some of the deaths were pretty creative, and the constant allusions that they were in a movie and not just a strange story were a very nice touch.

Overall, The Final Girls is a pretty good movie experience, and I hope they don’t mess it up with sequels. Hell, I like Alexander Ludwig now, and that is after I also saw When The Game Stands Tall.

3 out of 4.

I decided to watch Stolen because sometimes I hate my life.

Also, an editor friend told me he heard that it was advertised as “Taken, but with Nicolas Cage!” That seems like a stretch. So then I had to watch it just to be sure. Because surely it wouldn’t be the same plot as Taken, with a title that basically means the same thing. They wouldn’t do that.

Taken, but with a stuffed animal instead of a daughter. Will Montgomery (Cage) is a big time criminal, and he is going to rob a bank at night. Oh yeah. So hot. Too bad the FBI (Danny Huston) are on his trail, and staked out outside of a jewelry store to catch them. Also because they think he is going to rob a jewelry store, not the bank. Clever Montgomery.

So he is off stealing cash with his team Vincent and Hoyt (Josh Lucas, M.C. Gainey) and even a girl, Riley (Malin Akerman).

Well, things go badly. Montgomery gets caught, but he burns the money so they have nothing to pen on him. Eight years later, he is out of prison on parole!

Turns out some of his former team mates are a little upset. So is his daughter, Alison (Sami Gayle). She thinks her dad is an asshole who left her for prison. Whatever that means.

Long story short, one of his former buddies is pissed off that he never got paid that day. So he kidnaps the daughter, has a big plot to get the money back, or you know, he will kill the kid.

Hooray blackmail! Of course that means Montgomery will have to find the money, within half a day, while also avoiding the cops and other people who want him dead.

They are going to have to do a cavity search for that bear. [Holy shit, I didn’t finish this review. I really think I typed it up, but apparently it got lost. Whoops. Here is a quick analysis because I don’t give a fuck anymore.]

Either way, this movie was not entertaining. Yes, another action movie that has fighting, chasing, explosions, and guns. But fails to entertain.

The story is bad, the acting is whatever, and the plot twists are also bad.

My goodness, that man was hideous.

This is nothing like Taken, that is a fact. But maybe if they make a ridiculous sequel to Stolen it will accidentally be good?

1 out of 4.

Rock Of Ages is probably going to be another biased review. I’ve had the soundtrack for the musical for probably a couple years now. Wanted to see it since I first heard about it and love the soundtrack. Lots of mixes between songs, and interesting ways to do them. So when I heard about the movie version, I knew I had to see it as well.

So finally, months later, I got a chance to, hooray! Time to rawwwk!

I said rawk, damn it. Not stand their and look solemn.

This story is mainly about a small town girl and a city boy. Drew Boley (Diego Boneta) is working as a bar aid at the famous The Bourbon, a concert hall / bar in LA. A city some may say was built on rock and roll. Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) had just arrived from Oklahoma and looking to be a famous singer! She of course gets mugged right away, and Drew kind of saves her. But not really. They immediately hit it off, and Drew gets her a job as a waitress at the Bourbon, despite the owner, Dennis Dupree’s (Alec Baldwin), negative reaction to it. But thankfully Lonny (Russel Brand), the second in command and MC seems pretty cool with it all.

A new mayor is getting elected in LA, Mike Whitmore (Bryan Cranston) who’s wife, Patricia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is going to help clean up the streets. Using good christian values, and the best way to do that is to get rid of rock and roll! The center of it all, The Bourbon. Who also happen to be having tax problems.

But no worries, Arsenal, the kickest ass band ever, who played their first gig at The Bourbon is coming the next night to play their final gig, before frontman Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) starts his solo career. Big money time! And Drew is going to get to open for them! Oh man! Everything is going wonderful!

Until it doesn’t. Sexy stuff happens, miss-communications, Stacee is a crazy ass person, and love dies. The dream dies. The Christians win? With Malin Akerman as Rolling Stones reporter trying to find the real Stacee Jaxx, Mary J. Blige as a strip club owner, Paul Giamatti as scumbag manager, and Will Forte as local news reporter, will they eventually be able to save The Bourbon from being demolished? Will they ever stop believing?

Will they actually hit them with their best shot?

It should be noted that this musical, although the characters don’t know they are in a musical (like some of them do in Broadway) definitely makes fun of itself, and isn’t going for a serious thing. They just want nothing but a good time. And I belive they definitely deliver. The music is fun and catchy, lots of great songs and mash ups, and yet it is incredibly different from the broadway version.

I’m not negatively comparing, just noting, they have entirely different plots, and only the same main main characters. This lead to awesome moments, like the church dance scene for Hit Me With Your Best shot. Unfortuantely that was my second favorite song on the original soundtrack, as it had a german guy singing it, and it sounded amazing. Similarly, my favorite song was a mash up of Heaven / More Than Words / To Be With You, but in the movie they took out the Mr. Big parts, so no mash ups were ever 3+ songs.

They also in general had to cut out a lot of songs, and added new one ins, but kept some of the jokes. I mean, making the girl named Sherrie still, but cutting out Oh Sherrie? That’s just cruel.

But besides that, the movie felt pretty awesome. Some problems include Sherrie doing pretty much the same thing in every song it felt like (walking down the street belting lyrics. every damn time) and once they introduce Mary J. Blige she was also pretty much a part of every song after that, despite barely making sense.

But hey. The REO Speedwagon duet between Baldwin and Brand is reason alone to see this musical.

3 out of 4.

Wanderlust is a movie I really didn’t know much about. But Paul Rudd, I am sure it is good.

Something about hippies, and lots of sex. Not expecting much, but potential for a lot, hooray! Too bad its previews began with lies!

This scene is no where in the movie. This scene is a lie. Yet this scene was heavily publicized.

George (Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) are a couple in NYC! Just bought a “micro loft” which kind of sucks, and well, George’s company goes under and he loses his job. Yes, right after they bought the place. Linda doesn’t really work, but has different projects. Well they are fucked, so they head down to Atlanta on a really long and annoying road trip, to visit George’s dick brother, Rick (Ken Marino) and wife. But due to stress, and being tired of the car, they stop at the first place they find, a bed and breakfast.

Where they find a naked guy, Wayne (Joe Lo Truglio) and immediately try to run, messing up their car. So they have to stay, thankfully he is the only nudist. And in the middle of the night they are woken up by strange sounds, a party downstairs. Full of drugs and craziness. Turns out this is a place where a bunch of free spirited people live and just be happy.

Currently lead by Jesus looking Seth (Justin Theroux), the place features everything. Truth circles, sex orgies, whatever. But when a government company is planning on using the land to build a casino, because no one can find the original deeds to the land, what will happen? Lots of shit. Other hippies include Malin Akerman, Lauren Ambrose, Kathryn Hahn, and an elder, Alan Alda.

And because you wanted to make sure there was more naked people in this movie.

Wanderlust had all the potential to be an amazing film, but to me fell short when it only relied on dicks and lame sex jokes. That is dicks in the “hey we will keep showing you dicks” sense, and the “hey, a few of these people are super dickish, and thus funny” sense. The sex jokes end up disappointing, probably due to the lack of sex that actually occurs (aka none?).

Although moments did make me chuckle, I found them to few and far in between. It is hard to find a likeable character in this movie, and the ending just doesn’t seem fulfilling.

Not much else to say. Paul Rudd, stop doing very similar characters. I want some variety damn it.

1 out of 4.

Catch .44 is obviously going for some clever title, where instead of 22, there is instead a gun reference. That way you know “Hey! There be guns in dem dare movie!” It also flashes Bruce Willis on the cover, but his role is definitely not as some of the others in the movie.

Dude couldn’t even be bothered to put on some pants!

This film is a harder one to go over the plot for. The director/writer has only done like, one other movie before, and in this one he CLEARLY wants to be Quentin Tarantino. The movie is told out of order, has a Mexican standoff, some uncomfortably long scenes, cursin’ and talkin’ about pop culture, and kind of spoils the ending near the beginning. But hey, people like that sort of thing. So here is an attempt.

Three ladies, Tes, Dawn, and and Kara (played by Malin Akerman, Deborah Ann Woll, and Nikki Reed respectfully). If you are keeping track of names, that is Silk Spectre II from Watchmen, and a girl from True Blood, and one from Twilight. Way to capture the demographics right there.

Anyways, they are part of a drug syndicate lead by Bruce Willis. Their mission is to get to a location where a drug hand off is going down, stop it, and recover the drugs. Hopefully without taking on any casulties. There is also “mysterious” Forest Whitaker, who may be following them, killing some people, and sounding super Cajun. Also, Shea Whigham has an important role as well. He also works in the organization.

Because every movie Tarantino-ish needs a “conversation” at a diner, or cafe, or whatever.

Its hard to say what I like about the movie. It is an obvious rip off like thing. But I thought the acting for what it was, was decent. Camera work was nice. Parts in the beginning annoyed me, mostly due to confusion on when things took place, but eventually my questions were answered. Whitaker was super creepy to me the whole movie, could never tell just what was up with his character. But after all of that, it was surprisingly decent.

2 out of 4.

The only reason this movie caught my eye is thanks to accidentally seeing its trailer in another movie. Oh great, another sitcom star trying to do a big indie movie that is kind of comedic that he wrote and directed, with some low name actress who has been in fantasy related movie who will probably become big later on.

Not going to lie. That comparison was way too easy to make. This time the sitcom star who wrote/directed the movie is Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother, the woman is Malin Akerman who was previously in Watchmen. Saying she is going to be a big star later on though I can’t prove yet.

“I wear my sunglasses inside, so I can, so I can…

As of course this being an indie comedy, I was expecting to enjoy most of it and have a bad ending. By bad I mean one that just stopped. Indie movies love not having that “Hollywood everything wrap up” ending, when they don’t realize that having no ending at all makes the last minutes spent watching it just feel kind of pointless. I kind of lied up there too, Akerman is actually not the love interest, but the bald best friend (gross). Kate Mara, my new favorite ginger crush is though.

Thankfully this movie actually did end, because Josh Radnor said I deserve it!

The story is a bunch of 20somethings in NYC and their love lives, more or less. All of the storylines complete themselves by the end (but one. That is kind of up in the air), so that is good. People can be happy it turns out! The storyline involving subway kid was all unexpected and sufficiently awkward for me to watch. So yeah, this movie was better than I thought it would be, and I laughed out loud some times. Which is a weird thing to do alone!

3 out of 4.