Tag: Michael C. Hall

The first trailer I saw for Game Night, I sort of knew I was hooked.

If anything, I would love to watch a movie about people who like to just play games. Board games and party games. I knew they wouldn’t get into the nitty gritty of great games, but any positive spin on board games is good in my book.

And yeah, sure, comedy and death. The other two things that go great with a nice game night amongst couples and friends.

And puppies. All gamers love puppies.

Max (Jason Bateman) met Annie (Rachel McAdams) on a trivia night at a bar. They were both captains of different teams, kicking ass, and knowing the same questions. It was love at first sight.

Over the years their competitive nature took them many places. Mostly to their living room, hanging out with friends and loved ones, playing games of skill and chance, and eventually getting married! But if there is one game they are not succeeding at, it is the whole pregnancy thing. Max cannot perform on that level.

And the doctors think it could be performance anxiety. It turns out that Max has a more successful older brother (Kyle Chandler). I mean, he looks better, he is richer, he wins all of the games against his brother, and just his life is so fucking awesome. And when the brother shows up, he wants to beat him at hosting duties as well.

He throws his own game night, with alcohol, and a game where people will come and abduct one of the guests! They have to follow the clues to find the kidnapped victim first, and the winning pair will win a goddamn car. Yeah, his game night is way cooler. Unfortunately, the brother was into some hardcore bad stuff. And the kidnappers this night are real, just the rest of the party won’t realize it until things are too deep.

Also starring Chelsea Peretti, Danny Huston, Michael C. Hall, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemens, Sharon Horgan, and Billy Magnussen.

“I throw my hands and guns in the air, like wayooooo!”

Bateman and McAdams play a delightful couple, who really care about each other and generally want each other to succeed. They aren’t perfect and they have disagreements, especially in the family department, but they work through it, they communicate, and they have a good time in the face of adversary.

In many ways, their coupling in this film is one of the best couples I have seen lately, outside of TV. TV usually has a lot more happy couples. Movie couples tend to have divorces. And that is a lot of words on just how great of a couple they are.

The film ended up disappointing me on the levels of shenanigans that were promised by the trailer. Honestly, everyone found out the truth of the situation way too early. If they could have had the characters think it was a game and really realistic for longer periods, there could have have been some much longer and happier jokers. But the jokes were too few and far in between.

Sure the overall movie is still amusing, or even cute. There are intense scenarios, surprise cameos, and twists you might not see coming. But these twists are more done for twist reasons, and don’t really end up making a lot of sense.

Game Night if anything has a lot of heart and can be a good time for those who watch it. It just doesn’t have any sort of repeatability factor and cannot live up to its plot potential.

Some single word titled films have become iconic. You know, like Jaws. Jaws is so famous world wide, you would never expect to see a newer filmed called Jaws about a completely different topic.

But here we have Christine. Christine, about a real person named Christine. Not about a Satan controlled Car. Just a name here.

Seems like a bold choice. They will now forever be compared to a Stephen King movie, regardless of content. They have made googling harder. All over a name, which there is no law that says a movie has to be the main characters first name. But hey, I don’t make the big PR money.

I make the sitting alone at a table writing money.

Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) (They should have named this film Chubbuck) is a woman in her late 20’s working for a news station in Sarasota, Florida. It is also set in the mid-1970’s. Christine has a segment about the community, problems they face, or good things that happen. People seem to enjoy it. But nice stuff doesn’t bring in the ratings.

So station manager (Tracy Letts) continues to encourage the team to get the more gritty stuff. After all, if it bleeds, it leads. Christine has a crush on George (Michael C. Hall), their lead anchor. And Christine is terrible at relationships. She lives alone, never has a long term love interest, and hangs out with her mom (J. Smith-Cameron) a lot of the time. And the other amounts of time, she hangs out by herself. She has one decent friend, Jean (Maria Dizzia), a camera woman, but that is it.

And then, the owner of the news show finds himself in town. Apparently he is scouting local talent. Apparently he is going to get a news station in Baltimore, a much bigger market, and he is looking for people to take. This puts Christine on her edge, trying to make her segments better, including succumbing to listening all night to police radio feeds.

Eventually? All of the pressures, stress, and unfair practices end up just getting to be too much. Based on a true story. And also starring Kim Shaw as a sports anchor.

Clearly the biggest issue is that no realizes that sex sells more than violence.

Honestly, most of Christine is forgettable. It is really just about one woman, going through hard times in her life, socially and at the work place, and trying to cope with it all. Alone mostly. Through depression, without medical help. Oh, and she does have a medical issue to, that limits her potential for children in the future. That news didn’t help either.

For those that don’t know how this story ends, ignore this paragraph. But this is a true story because it is about the real Christine, who in the 1970’s, attempted to end her life on live television. And so it should be obvious where the conclusion leads up to. This isn’t really a spoiler, because it is only about her for that one famous reason. And because of that knowledge, most of the film I just found myself waiting for the conclusion that we were all expecting.

Rebecca Hall gives a great performance. It isn’t over the top, but it is passionate. Everyone else doesn’t matter in this flick, so none of them really stand out at all.

This is not a film for an amazing story. It is just a character study, and it shines with a single performance, but the rest feels rather drab.

I have walked by this title a lot, mostly because I got it confused with a British television show that might be about Pedophiles, Peep Show. But Peep World has neither pedos nor Brits. Just Americans, a “dysfunctional family” and boner jokes.

Peep World is the name of a fictional book in this fictional movie. Written by Ben Schwartz, he is the youngest member of his family, and decided to write a novel about their lives. They didn’t know it was going to happen, but it became a very successful book, and even has a movie being made about it! Whether or not it is just based on them, or all true, that is the real question. Despite all of this fame for the youngest son, he has problems lasting in the sack, and therefore is flawed again. His assistant Kate Mara might be able to help.

He has two older brothers, one a not too successful lawyer (Rainn Wilson, took 8 tries to pass the bar), and a more successful businessman with a wife (Michael C Hall, Judy Greer). His older sister is Sarah Silverman, and is thinking of suing for damages, all while her friend Stephen Tobolowsky is trying to hit that. Oh yeah, and the entire thing is narrated by Lewis Black.

Lot of star power right there. Unfortunately just describing the plot seemed weird to me. Characters all there, and a dad, who really wants to bring his family together. That is about it.

A very odd film, no doubt, and had some humorous moments, but I am left wondering what the point was of it all. I just needed something…more!

More than Rainn Wilson looking like, well, a pedophile.

Gamer reminds me of Surrogates, in that both featured a way to control another “person” in a different environment. In Surrogates, everyone had one, and they weren’t real people. In Gamer, they can control actual human beings! Why? For games of course.

Which is what I imagine Sims 4 will be like.

But seriously. Michael C. Hall plays some rich genius, who used nanotechnology to replicate cells inside of a human brain, meaning that they can work like normal, but robot like! And with it, he developed a technology so these people can be controlled. Slavery? Probably. His first game, Society, pretty much was the sims, but where people used their characters to injure themselves on purpose, do nasty things, or run around naked. Because what else would you do? Then he made the game Slayers, featuring death row inmates! A real shooting game, that everyone volunteers for, because if you survive 30 rounds you can go home free. Woo!

Gerald Butler plays Kable and he has already survived 27 games! Can he make the final 3? Well, thankfully his controller, Logan Lerman, is a pretty damn good gamer. But what’s that? There is also a “Terrorist group” calling themselves Humanz, lead by Ludacris, who think Hall is just going to eventually make it so everyone can be controlled by him. Oh, and also Amber Valletta plays Butler’s wife, but she is stuck in Society too.

Shits crazy, yo.

So, this will be remembered as that shitty film with Gerard Butler in it, probably. Well, shitty action movie at least. Don’t want to get in the way of his rom-coms. But you know what this movie does randomly have? A song and dance scene with Michael C. Hall, and a fight! I even found it on youtube, but can’t embed it, but you will do yourself a favor to watch at least the first half of this clip.

Bet you didn’t know that Dexter like’d to boogie.

So, even if that was the only enjoyable thing, that’d bump this movie up to a one automatically. Sure there is some other interesting stuff. But not much. A lot of the “gaming” action too seemed especially boring, which was weird. But eh, can only do much with FPSs, I guess.