Tag: Mark Wahlberg

I wouldn’t consider myself a gambler. The one time I got to go on a river cruise, I left broke and learned a valuable lesson. Never lose out in the first hour of a three hour cruise. The last two will feel like forever. Might as well just slots the whole time instead.

The Gambler came out on a Christmas, and once I found out it was doing that, I would have bet money on it making close to nothing. I think I would have won that bet. Despite its technically A-List celebrity lead, it was barely advertised, and was a very awkward movie to come out on Christmas. There isn’t a super ideal demographic that it is appealing to, at least not one that might be wanting to go see movies on Christmas.

But again, I don’t gamble. Not with my own money. I now prefer gambling with higher stakes, like when lives are on the live. Then it is more than gambling. Then it is charity work, kind of.

Like teaching (for pay) entitled college kids at a big university is charity work.

Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) is not your typical heir to a huge fortune. Well, he is in that he became a writer, because only rich people can be writers. He made a good book and rode that success into getting an English teaching gig at a University. But he hasn’t written well sense then.

Oh, and he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not to something decent, like, tax people, or people his corporation stole money from. Nope, he owes it due to gambling a whole bunch, borrowing money to gamble, and never paying it back. Every time Jim gets some money, he gambles it for more and never knows when to quit.

Sucks! Especially when he starts dealing with more and more violent people. He owes money to quite a few by the movie end (Alvin Ing, Michael Kenneth Williams, John Goodman). And these people have a code. They have RULES. This isn’t ‘Nam!

We also get to see his very rich mother (Jessica Lange), the only person in his class with writing talent (Brie Larson), and a huge star college baketball player (Anthony Kelley) who might get picked #1 overall. Seems relevant.

“Shut the fuck up little Donnie!”

Movies about gambling usually involve smooth talking con men, or men who are smart and can out bluff opponents with their sweet or non sweet poker hands. This movie is just about a guy with a problem.

Gambling addiction is a real thing. So are nervous breakdowns. All of this can make compelling film, usually things that will be overly dramatic and make me cry. But those types of stories require either a better script or better acting, both of which this film is probably lacking.

I am not saying anything is wrong with any of the actors in this movie. They all did fine. No one really stood out as great though. Maybe this new guy, Anthony Kelley, he was pretty good at his smallish role. Everyone else was just very “mehhh”.

And of course it is disappointing that the movie didn’t have anyone being a smooth talking con man or smart battle of wits person. It was just all a regular dude who ranted to his university class and could take a beating. It tried to avoid cliches throughout, but the ending was a bit terrible, ending with some cliches and just ending…well flatly. It was extremely disappointing, and again, I wonder why the fuck this came out on Christmas.

1 out of 4.

Transformers. Michael Bay. Cash Money.

That is some of the reviews in a nutshell. I didn’t check up on what people said about Transformers: Age of Extinction ahead of time, because I knew I would probably agree with them. I figured the film might be full of inaccuracies that I would find painful, but I’d rather go in and see what I can find on my own without researching afterwards. Like the cringe worthy Washington, D.C. desert in Transformers 2.

But this is a start of a new “trilogy” because we can’t have things not in trilogies anymore. Not when they print so much money for the companies. Our lead human has an upgrade, no longer Shia LaBeouf who is doing some sort of joke on public with his awkward break downs. I mean, no Shia? That is great news on its own. This movie can’t be that bad for that reason.

It should be noted that I am not a Bay hater. In fact, his movie last year Pain & Gain I gave a 4 out of 4. But with some of the advertisement material, I can say that it looks like the Transformers franchise might be running out of gas.

Heh. Hehehe.

This film takes place let’s say, I dunno, five-ish years after the last Transformers. The Autobots are now on the run, because public opinion has somehow turned against them. Sure they fought with our military and helped us defeat people, but the government says they are bad now, so, they are bad now. After all, they fucked over Chicago completely, taking out about half the city and millions. Millions? Did I say millions? Well, just kidding. The media said (I think) 1300 died at the end of Transformers 3, which we know to be ridiculous.

Either way, Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) is a tinkerer, who invents gadgets in his garage. He is behind on all bills, but who cares, he will make it one day. His daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz), the 17 year old sex symbol for this movie, is graduating soon and they need college money. As luck would have it, Cade finds a Transformer (Prime) who they could sell to the government for lots of cash.

Needless to say, government is corrupt. The hired assassin (Titus Welliver) tries to kill them too, so they escape and a man hunt begins. This man hunt involves at least three or four different plot lines that are wrapped up in the very short 2 hour and 45 minute movie. But trying to explain them all would just take up time and energy that isn’t necessary. But Kelsey Grammer plays a high up in the CIA, Jack Reynor as Tessa’s secret Irish boyfriend, T.J. Miller as a guy who works with Cade, and Stanley Tucci as the head of a science corporation in Chicago.

Chicago? Yes. Because apparently despite its huge widespread destruction, they basically rebuilt it all up very quickly exactly the same way it was before. We only know that because we go back to Chicago and the bots fuck up a lot of it again.

We still have more characters though. More women, like Sophia Myles, a “geologist” who doesn’t do any exciting geology, and Bingbing Li, a scientists from China who allow the film to end in China so that this movie can make a lot more money over there. Which is what a lot of films are trying to do now, including Iron Man 3 which literally had extra scenes in the Chinese version to get more cash. Blah.

Let’s not forget our voice actors. We have Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), a man made Transformer Galvatron (Frank Welker), a Samurai-bot? (Ken Watanabe), some evil bad guy Lockdown (Mark Ryan), a Trenchcoat-bot (John DiMaggio), and literally a Transformer that just appears to be John Goodman (John Goodman).

Optimus Prime’s sword is voiced my Sir Swoosh-A-Lot.

Did you notice I didn’t mention a specific Transformers based entity that was heavily featured in all of the advertisements? The Dino-Bots? Yeah, they are in this movie I guess. They don’t talk, their plot lines are questionable, and they are in at the end to help fight bad guys. So, they do exist, albeit for twenty or so minutes. And to be fair, their action scenes are pretty bad ass. They are just grossly underused based on the advertisements and felt like a let down.

Speaking of annoying. More technicalities. A plot point puts them in Beijing. A big bad bot wants to blow up a bomb in the biggest city on Earth. Beijing is 2, so that is close enough. One of our characters knowing this goes on the run with the bomb. To Hong Kong. What in the fuck? First they make it seem like Hong Kong is a few hours away, and its really fucking far. But Hong Kong itself is a giant ass city with millions of people too. How is that better? There is literally thousands of miles of empty space all around China and they do the riskier thing?

This movie, like the third one, features tons of human casualties that they decide to brush aside and ignore. Early on it also does its best to ignore the Transformers completely. Like during a chase scene and a battle, they show mostly the humans running away from humans, than Prime fighting Lockdown. One of the biggest complaints of the franchise is too many humans (and too many women just around for their looks) and this film has that going on too. It is hard to understand why this keeps happening. It is of course also a giant advertisement for GM and other sponsors, such as Beats and Victoria Secret, which have moments that stand out in the worst way.

Some parts of the movie are delightful. Some of the fights are kind of cool. But the dialogue is terrible, acting is whatever, and there is just far too much going on for not enough payout in this movie.

1 out of 4.

Lone Survivor has the pleasure of being one of the lamer movie titles of 2013, while being based on one of the cooler military operation names ever.

Why is Lone Survivor a lame name? Because really, it gives it all away. Yes, it is a true story. Yes, that was the name of the book too. But still. Knowing it is about four Navy SEALS, and only one comes back is kind of upsetting. Especially from the advertising, only focusing on one member of the four, we already know who will survive.

Shit, even the beginning of the movie wants to make it clear to you. Only one of those people who survive. That person is Mark Wahlberg.

And to think Ben Foster actually liked his odds.

I tried to figure out why they would do that so blatantly. I guess, out of respect, they don’t want the movie to become some sort of guessing game. They want to actually respect the men who were involved in the operation gone wrong. By letting you know how it ends, and which character, you can respect the story too as you watch and learn about the other men who did lose their lives.

In 2005, four members of SEAL Team 10 were sent on an advance/scouting mission as part of a larger operation known as Operation Red Wings. (Thus, I like the name. Go Detroittt). Literally the name chosen because of the sports team. Sexy (minus the whole, everything going wrong part). The four marines assigned to the job were LT Michael P. Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), SO2 Matthew ‘Axe’ Axelson (Ben Foster), SO2 Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), and Navy Hospital Corpsman Second Class (I don’t know the short hand!) Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg).

Well, while they were on the mountains overlooking the bad guy camp, three goat herders came upon their area. Clearly Taliban supporters, they stumbled upon the American’s who were quickly left with a shitty situation. Well, civilians are never targets, so they can’t kill them and they can’t tie them up on the mountain and leave them there to die. Their only option is to let them go, even though they know they will just run down and give away their position.

Sucks to suck. Now they just have to try and survive until hopefully they can get picked up. Eric Bana plays the head of their actual SEAL Team, Alexander Ludwig as the newest recruit, and Jerry Ferrara (Turtle) as a communication dude.

Come on guys. We can’t ignore the 6th and 7th most important guys (assuming the bad guys aren’t on the list).

War. War never changes.

More or less that works for war movies too. I don’t think an actual serious war movie ever glorifies war, but they always respect it and its affect on the lives of everyone involved. Obviously, with a topic with so much death, there was no glorification here, but neither did it feature hero worship. Just respect of the people involved.

It is a shitty story, but a good one about never giving up, even in the face of extreme odds against you. It also can serve as a “falling down a mountain” simulator, because they do that a lot. Shit, surprised they could survive each fall given how graphic and awkward the movie made each tumble seen.

All four of our leads did an excellent job, didn’t really feel like any one person out shined any other. I am glad to see Taylor Kitsch growing up and doing a serious role like this. This is not Ben Foster’s first time playing a soldier, so he knows how it is done. Emile Hirsch still just looks like a really skinny Jack Black doppleganger.

Also, that speech thing in the trailer? About being a Navy Seal Diver? That was good. They need more chants like that in movies. Much emotional feels.

A pretty good movie. Go America. Maybe the best war movie since Tropic Thunder, but I don’t remember many war movies over the last few years.

3 out of 4.

With The Smurfs 2 and 2 Guns releasing on the same day, I thought I would be clever and do a joint review called “Smurf 2 Guns.” Get it? Hilarious! Too bad Entertainment Weekly beat me to the scoop. Sigh. I will beat those guys one of these days, I swear.

Because of that, instead, we get a regular movie review! Hooray! I will jump right on in.

With two stars at their finest, we hope. Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Michael Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) are about to rob a bank.

Let’s back up. These individuals are working for Mexican Cartel Kingpin, Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). They just traded him 500 Passports in exchange for $100,000 in Cocaine, but he gave them cash instead. Lame. Now in order to take him down, they will have to rob a bank with his safety deposit box. In that box, there will be $3 million or so in cash that they can use for tax evasion charges, or something. Wait what, take him down?

Let’s back it up again. Bobby is secretly DEA, working undercover to bring Papi Greco in to authorities. He has been working on this case for three years, but his boss is about to pull the plug, and the only one who trusts him is his on again / off again secret lover Deb (Paula Patton), another supervisor.

Stig secretly works for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Yes, trust me, that’s a thing. You may be aware of its acronym, NCIS. Why is the Navy doing any sort of investigation into a Mexican Drug Lord, and in Texas? Don’t ask me. Don’t ask Stig either. He is just listening to orders from his superior, Quince (James Marsden).

However, after they rob the bank, they find more than $3 million waiting for them. In fact, there is over $40 million in the small town bank. Damn. Something isn’t right. When they try to reveal their actual identities right after, nothing goes right, and they are left on their own to find out just what the heck is going on. Things take an even bigger turn for the worse when the mysterious Earl (Bill Paxton) shows up in town, questioning just about everyone as to where HIS money ended up.

2 guns. 2 guys. 2 ropes. If you get what I am sayin’.2 Guns is billed mostly as an action comedy, a genre made very apparent from the trailer. A lot of nice one liners and wise cracks. Good show. While the action element is certainly there, the comedy element is incredibly light and sporadic in the actual movie. Wahlberg’s character makes a few jokes early on, but they quickly seem to disappear once all the betrayal starts. Heck, I found Paxton’s character to be the most humorous, but that was only because he was mysterious and a cowboy.

Speaking of characters, the secondary cast members weren’t used very well. Paxton (as I just described) was at least a bit interesting. The fact that James Marsden is in this movie almost feels like an oversight, with no real reasons for a big star to be in that roll. They also reduced the CIA to mere money hungry meanieheads, without any real explanation at all. In fact, the NCIS, DEA, and entire US government is seen as corrupt and inept, for no real reason at all.

In terms of plot, it is all over the place. They tried (very little) to explain why Stig was even investigating Papi in the first place, but it didn’t make any sense. The actual scene itself was quick too, just in case you wanted to understand the plot.

So half of the movie I am confused, trying to figure out how any of it makes sense. When they did finally explain why it didn’t make any sense, their actual reasons feel unacceptable.

Not a spoiler, but someone was pulling the strings secretly behind all of it, and set them up to rob a larger amount of money than they expected. Surprise surprise. But given how long these men have been working their posts, there is really no way anyone could have orchestrated any of the events that would lead them to rob a bank, without other people finding out.

The factual details are also out of whack. I could only shake my head during the “break into the navy base” scene. It felt comical, in the bad way, how little they cared about accuracy with it.

I initially thought I would forget about 2 Guns in a few months. Now I might forget about it within 2 weeks.

1 out of 4.

I am not going to harp about how Michael Bay is the worst guy since whatever. Yes, he did the Transformer movies, and fucking Pearl Harbor, and he is about to kill the Ninja Turtles, but he has some decent stuff. Like. Independence Day. I love Independence Day!

I am just saying, there is no reason for me to assume Pain & Gain will be bad. The trailer just makes it look…weird. And apparently a true story. Okay, yeah. Sure.

So far, Michael Bay is clearly experimenting with different light refraction techniques. He is growing!

1995. Miami, Florida. Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is the current main manager at Sun Gym, after serving a short sentence in prison for fraud. He promised his boss (Rob Corddry) that he would triple the membership and get the gym back on the map, and boy did he ever. Through some questionable means, but who cares when you got dat income.

He is great friends with Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), another former criminal and bodybuilder. But they are both poor and tired of it. Tired of a bunch of assholes, like Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) who are self made rich men, and think everyone else is a piece of shit. After all, Danny is a doer, not a donter (lessons he learned from Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong)).

Doers do, and so Danny had the simple plan. Kidnap Victor, torture him until he signs away everything and ruins his life completely, then kill him and live the life of luxury. Just need a third man. Like Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson). Paul just got out of prison, was a cokehead from NYC, but found Jesus and wants to turn his life around…but he also needs cash.

Simple plan, nothing can go wrong if they have enough can do attitude, muscles/fitness, and positive thinking! Yeahhh… Ed Harris plays a private investigator, and Bar Paly a stripper turned confidant.

Step 1: Identify self to kidnappers. Step 2: ???? Step 3: Profit

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. It is not cursing if you take 10 seconds to say it.

Hot damn, this film was awesome. And amazing! And abstract. Abstract? Yes. Totally. I wasn’t just looking for more A words.

Seriously, this film was definitely something special. Who thought Bay had it in him? I was laughing and cringing, often in secession. There is just so much ENERGY in this movie, I’d find it impossible to lost focus at all.

Dwayne Fucking Johnson, I don’t even know you anymore. He acted the fuck out of this film, and was 100% the best part. Not saying Mark Wahlberg wasn’t amazing (because fuck, he was!), he just had to compete with The Rock! The two of them were out of their minds the entire time filming this, and made their characters their bitches. That is the only way to describe it. Literally. No one else has tried. If they did, they used those words.

Just. Aggh! The true story itself is a fascinating one, which is also not as funny as the movie took it out to be. Check it out here, but be warned it is a long read (so…its like reading the book version?). I am not saying the movie made light of the events in the film, because very serious shit went down and they talked about a lot of it. Just still had a more comedic tone overall, while also splashing your face off with shock juice.

4 out of 4.

For my initial impressions of Broken City, I obviously can only look at the trailer. Lot of high energy music, camera flash noises, very exciting. Sexy scandals! Government cover ups! Black mail! Potential boredom!

To be honest, the strange flashing parts near the end of the trailer gave me a bit of a headache. Thankfully, as we all know, trailer music never makes the actual movie. Presumably there wont be awkward shutter noises either.

Here is the most actiony shot of the movie I could find on the internet. Consider it an action epilogue.

Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) has done a bad bad thing. He killed a man, multiple shots. He claims he was defending himself, the other man had a gun. He was just a cop at the wrong place at the right time. The town claims it was cold blooded murder, but they had no real evidence. He was found innocent, but the public outcry was so strong, and new evidence was covered up, so the police chief (Jeffrey Wright) and mayor (Russell Crowe) had to let him go anyways.

Well, seven years later, he is a PI with an office and an assistant (Alona Tal) and a huge debt! Well, the mayor said he would remember his name, and he gives him an offer. $50,000.00 to tail his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), take pictures of who she is sleeping with, and find out the name of the man. Half now, half later. He also needs it quickly, because the election is a few days away, and the new guy (Barry Pepper) is giving him a lot of crap.

But why would the mayor care so much about the affair this close to an election? There has to be more important things afoot, damn it. Also featuring Kyle Chandler as the campaign manager for the new guy, and Natalie Martinez as the long term girlfriend of Billy.

“Women be cheatinnnnnnnnnnn” – Crowe

Don’t watch the trailer, don’t watch the trailer, don’t watch the trailer? You saw the trailer? Don’t watch the movie. No point.

Turns out the trailer gives a lot of it away, in terms of how the movie is going to end. It is sparse on the actual plot details and many of the characters, but outside of that, the jig is up. When the movie ended, I was mad. Why would they do that, given the trailer?

I am supposed to judge a movie on its own, but I feel like if the trailer gives you too much information, and is plastered everywhere, it should be included if it does something so egregious. I was disgusted and appalled. Heck, after the movie I found myself more confused because the trailer had scenes that were not in the movie. I had to go back and watch it to make sure. They were there, but the context was so out of place, it was pointless.

Yes, I am saying the trailer both gave too much away, and created scenes that just were not true. It can do both.

I didn’t hate the acting from Marky Mark either. Zeta-Jones felt wasted in the movie, Crowe looked weird with that skin tone/hair.

However, a lot of the plot bugged me. The actions of the characters confused me. I don’t think they explained why he was just invited into a murder scene by someone completely random. Why people let him stick around. I had no idea what was happening in the plot, and yet the whole time I felt like I knew the ending. That is a strange way to see a movie.

Confusion is not a substitute for suspense, movie makers.

1 out of 4.

Ted kind of came out of no where for me. I think I first heard about it a whole week before it came out to theaters. Weird huh? And honestly, it seemed like a kick ass idea. I was also willing to ignore the fact that it was a Seth MacFarlane movie, creator of Family Guy and most of the Fox Cartoons, and that the bear sounded identically to Peter Griffin.

Take it you dirty dirty register.

Young John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) had no friends as a kid growing up in Boston. But when he got a teddy bear, he was finally social. With a stuffed animal. But when he wished for him to be alive, his wish came true and he had a new BFF for ever and ever and ever. Ted (MacFarlane) got super famous initially, but then no one cared, and he was just a talking stuffed animal who grew up to be a nice slacker, like John, at 35 years old.

But hey, he has a girlfriend of four years, Lori (Mila Kunis), who really wants him to be something better than an Enterprise car worker. She kind of blames Ted for him still acting so childish, kind of wants him to move out. But if he does, can he actually grow up, or will he still just hang out with his buddy and get high all the time?

While their rocky relationship is going on, Lori also has to deal with her creepy boss (Joel McHale) who keeps hitting on her and Ted has to worry about a grown man (Giovanni Ribisi) who has been a fan of Ted for a long time and really wants to acquire him for his son, and his first long term white trash girlfriend Tammy-Lynn (Jessica Barth). John just has to deal with them.

Holy shit that plot is really simple. We also have Patrick Stewart as Narrator, and Norah Jones and Sam J. Jones (Flash Gordon) as themselves.

HOLY FUCK STAY AWAY FROM MARKY MARKS NOSE, YOU MIGHT GET SUCKED IN AND NEVER RETURN.

So this movie did make me laugh a bunch. Sometimes. Occasionally. Mostly through crude and drunk jokes though. As someone who considers themself a pop culture junkie (not Taratino levels or anything), I found a lot of their pop culture jokes falling flat. I mean, most of the current ones don’t have staying power. In the first 5 minutes there was a Justin Bieber and some other people joke. It didn’t feel forced or anything, the joke just felt really lazy. A lot of them were on par with the “Still a better love story than Twilight” joke, which is not only over used, but never really funny. Just people hating to hate.

So that was my biggest problem with the comedy. Similarly there was maybe a bit too much drama, and a bit too much of Marky Mark being a complete dumb ass. I don’t know if I will care about movie at all in a year. I did love the concept, of a talking bear who grew up and became a dick, but just felt like the writers didn’t try enough after that initial concept. Oh well. Moving on.

2 out of 4.

Two things I assumed from the tv ads for Contraband when I first saw them in January.

One: With Mark Wahlberg, how does this look like anything but The Italian Job 2?

Two: With a name like Contraband, why does it only remind me of something like Armored?

What’s that? I haven’t reviewed Armored yet? Then never mind. But still. The trailers made it look like some heist movie, similar to point 1. More so just a smuggling movie, and very little stealing going on.

That is real counterfeit money right there.

Mark Wahlberg doesn’t do crime anymore guys. He is clean. But…when his relative gets in some shit with a local thug, he has to do another run. Smuggling is a dangerous situation. If the US Customs office checks the items you have to dump it and usually the sides are okay. But this crazy asshole, Giovanni Ribisi, doesn’t play games like that. He wants the money or the cocaine within two weeks or else his family will pay. Marky Mark doesn’t like that when he is married to Kate Beckinsale, so he agrees to go get the money.

But first, he leaves his friend and former illegal trafficker buddy Ben Foster, to watch over his wife and family.

So he has to get a crew back together, and get on a ship to Panama, captained by germaphobe J.K. Simmons. They mess up some stuff to get themselves time, to try and transport counterfeit money. But thanks to a lack of trust at home and other shit going down, they also have to help another heist happen and possibly take on cocaine and some other merchandise too. But if the customs gets involved again, can they risk dumping the cargo a second time while their loved ones are at home alone?

Never trust a thug who also looks like a rapist.

Ben Fosters character may not be as buddy buddy as you had assumed. But I doubt you assumed that. Look at him. LOOK AT HIM. He is never a straight shooting guy. Not even in X-Men The Last Stand.

I overall found it decently entertaining. About halfway through it I thought I was almost done with the movie though, didn’t expect to have “That much more” “plot” left to it. Mostly a lot of deception. Normally bad people get killed, but in this movies case, they all pretty much get arrested in separate ways.

I don’t like how unrealistic certain things were, such as Kate’s character. She got hit in the head so damn often, and its like nothing phased her. Must have a plate there. I definitely thought certain characters should have been dead, but “somehow” they weren’t and just unconscious or some bullshit.

I will give props to Giovanni Ribisi. Normally thugs are all tough guy, smack you around. But he is small and weaselly, and gave a different element to his fear mongering. I enjoyed that part the most.

2 out of 4.

I have apparently not reviewed a single movie that includes any of the four main actors/actresses from The Fighter.

That is odd, given the list, and that I know I have seen many other movies from each one of them. I think we can all agree that the fault lies with the reader, for not requesting more of their movies to be reviewed. Yes.

Really. Isn’t this movie about friendship and not fighting and crack? Right?

Movie begins with a movie! Well, a documentary being filmed. Christian Bale‘s character used to be a decent boxer from Lowell, Massachustes, and claims to have once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in a fight (When in actuality he tripped). But since then he is on crack cocaine, and kind of a annoyance to the city. He believes the documentary is about his possibly comeback. Also involved is his brother, Mark Whalberg, who never really became a successful boxer, and is more of a stepping stone for up and coming boxers.

Ah-ha! This movie is actually about Marky Mark. Finding possible love in Amy Adams, and possibly disappointing his quite large family. See, Marky is starting to hate his family. In an early fight, his opponent his ill, but they agree to let him fight an obviously bigger opponent, putting him at a huge disappointment, so they can get that monies. He broke his hand and is seriously considering leaving them all, with Amy, to go to a non family operated training facility, where he actually can make money just training for fights. This also makes his mom, Melissa Leo, pretty upset. And her gaggle of daughters.

I feel like going into more detail kind of spoils it all. Lets just say that the documentary isn’t what he thought it was, that someone might end up going to prison, and the movie might end with a certain family member overcoming all the odds to win. And maybe bigger family disputes and eventual forgiveness.

I’mnotsayingthatiswhathappensbutIamjustsayin’.

Fighting aside, the star of this movie is Christian Bale. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and won that shit hands down. Melissa Leo was also nominated for Supporting Actress, and also won. You know who wasn’t nominated? Whalberg, the dang main character. Bale took this role to heart. He lost tons of weight, to the creepy skeleton looking face, to try and be a crack addict. He also did a lot of fast talking and it just felt real.

Only reason I won’t give it a 4/4 is because the the “side story” (arguably still part of the main story, but come on, its not “the main story”) is better than the main story. Marky Mark does a good job, and even Amy Adams plays her roles as Yoko Ono pretty believable. But while watching it I didn’t care as much about the boxing aspects, just the family stuff. Because that was cooler. Unfortunately, it being a “True story” and all, the boxing had to happen instead of something sexy like Curling.

3 out of 4.

Tina Fey has been in a surprisingly low number of shows/movies, based on how famous she is for her work and writing. Seriously, look at that imdb. Weird right?

I only mention that, because when I went to review Date Night, I noticed I hadn’t tagged her really in anything yet, and that is why. There really isn’t anything there! If I ever review Baby Mama, I’d be pretty much done.

Too bad I have loathed everything Amy Poehler has done, outside of Pars and Rec.

Fey and Steve Carell play a married couple with kids. They are super busy, but they still have time to force themselves to go out and eat, to have date nights! Or else their relationship will get stale. But out of fear, from another couple getting divorced, they decide to spice it up, go out to the city (NYC), wear nice clothes, and eat at Claw, a way fancy place. Without reservations. Dumb. But they are sneaky, they steal someone elses table who isn’t answering, and become the Tripplehorns!

I know right. Scum of the earth. Who the fuck takes someone else reservation?

But when two thugs (Jimmi Simpson and Common (I am mad that is his “name”)) come up to them, thinking they are the Tripplehorns, and demanding a flash drive, shit gets real. Then is a night of running from them, from the cops, and trying to figure out what is actually going on. With the the help of Mark Wahlberg as “private investigator sexy man”, and some help from James Franco and Mila Kunis (the real Tripplehorns), can they not die?

Also what the heck is going on here?

But was it good? This movie was about as slapstick as I would guess, but also more. Tina Fey and Steve did a good job together, very believable, and they both have made a career out of being awkward. This movie also features one of the best stunt driving/chase scenes I have probably ever seen in the last few years. Seriously. The car/taxi thing? Brilli-fuckin-ant. Also laughs were had, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to watch it again. Minus the car scene. Holy shit yeah. Ending wasn’t the best either.

2 out of 4.