Tag: Michael Ealy

I had multiple chances to see Think Like A Man Too early, but things kept coming up. Heck, one showtime had both Kevin Hart and Drake in attendance. I didn’t go to that one because I knew there would be a long line and require at least 7 hours of my life to see it.

But hey, at least I was able to see Think Like A Man before hand which was my biggest worry. Given the way the first film ended, and that this one has nothing to do with Steve Harvey‘s book, I imagine the biggest worry from Kevin Hart was to make a lot of money.

That’s his wild eyed, stuffing his pockets with cash, face.

The couples established from the film are all still together. Their relationships are just facing new issues all around the same time! Very convenient.

But they are now in Las Vegas. Why? For an extravagant wedding, because getting married in LV at not a quickie chapel is apparently a thing too.

Our Mama’s Boy (Terrence Jenkins) and Single Mother (Regina Hall) are getting hitched, the main reason they were picked was of course to include the nagging mother (Jenifer Lewis) in this movie as well. Their plot line, outside of getting married, is yes the mom still doesn’t like the girl and stuff will ruin their wedding.

The Non-Commiter (Jerry Ferrara) and The Girl Who Wanted A Ring (Gabrielle Union) obviously already got married, but now they are talking about having a kid, and it is scary for one of them.

The Dreamer (Michael Ealy) and the Woman Who Is Her Own Man (Taraji P. Henson) are both still in love, but their careers are taking them to different parts of the country.

And finally, the Player (Romany Malco) and the 90 Day Rule Gil (Meagan Good) are having commitment issues. And by that, the girl is afraid of his commitment, due to the number of women from his past that apparently live in Vegas.

Finally? Just kidding. Cedric (Hart) is still our narrator and freaking out over Best Man duties. We still have our happily married white guy (Gary Owen) but his wife is in this movie too (Wendi McLendon-Covey), and they don’t have many issues.

Also featuring Dennis Haysbert as smooth talking Uncle Harris to get the mom off their backs, and Adam Brody and David Walton as our Mama Boy’s old frat friends who join in the shenanigans.

Just like real life, they all wear generic colored outfits.

Overall, Think Like A Man Too is a movie that shouldn’t have been made.

For bad reasons, this movie is being compared to The Best Man Holiday. You know, both sequels in the last year, with large black ensemble casts. Although Holiday was given to use 14 years later where they had time to find a good story, and Too we had only a two year break if that.

But yeah, a lot just didn’t feel natural in this movie. Too much (all?) of the aggravation involved people not willing to speak truthfully to their loved ones. What? This is years later and they still have the same issues? I doubt these couples should be together.

Whenever it looked like something actually funny and interesting would happen (like the strip club), they ruined it and put the characters in a very unfunny place instead.

Actually, by the end, when stories were resolving, I thought some of them were cute. I thought the mama trouble plot line ended teribly, along with the job couple. The other two were fine endings, just the player past shouldn’t have been an issue at all.

Occasionally a funny moment, but overall, can easily ignore it. Here’s hoping there is no Think Like A Man Thrieve or whatever.

I am already starting to get overwhelmed with these movie screenings that are available to me. Too many a week, with too much of a time commitment. Why the review of Think Like A Man? Why, because it’s sequel, Think Like A Man Too is coming out shortly, of course! I missed the first one from 2012 some how, probably because I lived in the farming midwest and it never came to a local theater.

But then I move down South and I got the tickets to see this movie early. I would have, too, but first I had to watch the previous movie, damn it. Also, I didn’t want to drive 75 minutes, to wait two hours in line, to watch a two hour movie, and drive 75 minutes back home. No, that sounded dreadful.

But it gave me time to relax and watch Think Like A Man, without staying up super late at night to get it done!

I also had sports to watch watch.

This movie, based on the book, is about four relationships, and a few other people around them. All of the guys are part of a group of friends who play basketball together, which include Bennett (Gary Owen), “the Happily Married Guy” and Cedric (Kevin Hart), “the Happier Divorced Guy”. Thankfully, the four couples that exist are all presented in a nice way to split this review up into parts.

“The Mama’s Boy” vs. “The Single Mom”

Michael (Terrence Jenkins) is a man who listen’s to his mother (Jenifer Lewis) and helps her out with everything. He is about to start seeing Candace (Regina Hall), who has a son, the father is out of their life for good, and really wants someone that won’t just leave at the first sign of trouble.

“The Non-Committer” vs. “The Girl Who Wants the Ring”

Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara) and Kristen (Gabrielle Union) have been living together for awhile now and everything is just cool. Hell, Kristen likes everything Jeremy likes and doesn’t care that their relationship doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Psyche!

“The Dreamer” vs. “The Woman Who Is Her Own Man”

Dominic (Michael Ealy) has problems keeping jobs and relationships, because he has goals, but he never sets out to accomplish them all the way. He is about to meet Laruen (Taraji P. Henson), a young black woman CEO of a large company, successful, rich, and someone who doesn’t need anything from a man, but still would like one in her life.

“The Player” vs. “The 90 Day Rule Girl”

Finally, we have Zeke (Romany Malco), a guy who hits the clubs and sleeps around, who runs into Mya (Meagan Good), who is tired of “giving up her power” and sleeping with men just for them to forget her name and not return phone calls. So she decides to resist the temptation, and make this new guy wait.

What do they all have in common besides basketball? The women have all found and read Steve Harvey‘s Book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man, which is a real book in which Steve “sell’s out his gender” and gives women advice on how to secretly control their men and get what they want out of the relationship. However, two can play that game, as the men also find the books, to play on defensive.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES, GO!

Steve Harvey is Public Enemy #1. How could you Steve?! How. Could. You?!

Well, I will just say that I think there were far too many characters involved with this film. Four couples, means eight people. Some have additional characters like friends, parents, children. Then we have Kevin Hart, Steve Harvey, and Gary Owen too. I guess Gary was mostly ignored, but Kevin Hart was butting into most of the friend’s lives, so there was just so much going on.

I am not going to say it would have been better without Hart, because he was decently amusing, mostly serving as a good narrator. Just. There was so much going on, in two hours, to make it not confusing, they had to make the narrative structure very simple to follow in order to not get lost.

So, it is good that it was super simple to prevent us from getting lost, but at the same time, it was still super simple and didn’t break too much new ground in the making of this movie. It is like four different romance/comedy plotlines, only two of them which could probably stand on their own legs as their own film (dreamer/OwnMan, and noncommiter/wantaring), but then, they have been done before too.

The film had some amusing moments in it, and it also had some lame moments in it. Overall, it was adequately average.

Ah, nothing creates a romantic Valentine’s Day movies like remaking films from the 1980s.

About Last Night… is seen as a classic romance movie by some, starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, and others wildly hate it. So why did they decide to remake it? YOLO, that’s why.

The remake, About Last Night, is quite different from the original with one big huge glaring difference. Yep, they got rid of the ellipse in the title.

I am so color blind, that I have no idea what any of the pictures I post on this website are. They all look like blank.
DO THE JOKES MAKE SENSE? I DON’T KNOW!!

The story is about four people who go about love in different ways.

First, Bernie (Kevin Hart) and Joan (Regina Hall) meet at a club and have drunken incredibly weird sex. But they love it, and they want to meet up some more, so they both bring their friends to meet each other too. Joan brings Debbie (Joy Bryant), her “boring” roommate, and Bernie brings Danny (Michael Ealy), his work bro.

Somehow Danny and Debbie hit it off, thanks to their mutual disgust they both show from the excessive display between Bernie and Joan.

Aw, everyone is dating now. But Bernie and Joan hit troubles and really quickly start to loathe each others existence. However, things for Danny and and Debbie are progressing quickly. They turn their adulterous relationship into love, and even move in with each other. Aww. But in the end, both couples seem to be making poor decision after poor decision.

Maybe none of the four actually have all of the right answers?

Also, Christopher McDonald is in this movie, and he doesn’t play a villain. That was maybe the most surprising element.

Even more surprising than that Halloween “costume.”

It has been a long time since I saw the original movie, so I don’t actually remember how much the new version differs. The expected plot lines and times throughout the year when they occur are the same, but everything else from what I can tell is different.

And it is hilarious. Technically, the main plot line is serious and dramatic and sad and romantic. But the side plot line with Hart and Hall killed it. It absolutely had me in stitches. Their charisma and banter was amazing. I am willing to say that the humor presented by these two is worth the price of admission.

I am not saying the dramatic elements from our main two characters are bad, they were good too. But they weren’t super entertaining. It was just “okay” acting, and the characters made strange decisions that I never really understood. But I got over it.

The enjoyment I felt overall from laughing every time Hall/Hart were on the screen overpowered the lesser aspects that presented themselves in the story. Is it the best movie ever? Not at all, but About Last Night makes me feel a bit giddy, and that’s why I ended up liking it.

If I learned anything about the advertising campaign of Last Vegas, it is that sometimes people don’t like seeing the same ad every fifteen minutes. Last Vegas was produced by CBS Films, so it has the benefit of being advertised on a channel that is watched by the millions during football games every Sunday.

Unfortunately for the movie, I know plenty of people who wrote it off solely on overexposure, a likelihood probably expressed around America.

At least the suits are colorful.

Last Vegas takes us into the lives of four kids who grew up best friends, but into their adulthood, their lives began to veer in different paths.

But Billy (Michael Douglas) is getting married, finally! To a girl half his age! So he wants to invite his old pals to the wedding: Sam (Kevin Kline), who is currently living a sad life in Florida in a sexless relationship. Archie (Morgan Freeman), who is living with his son (Michael Ealy), while constantly on pills. And even Paddy (Robert De Niro), who hasn’t left his apartment since his wife died a year ago and also really really hates Billy now.

Why does he hate Billy? Well, that is a spoiler. But he gets tricked into showing up for the bachelor party / wedding.

Thanks to pension funds and a little luck, the four gentlemen end up having one of the wildest weekends imaginable, while also allowing time to air out their grievances and fix their standing in life. How awesome is that?

Mary Steenburgen plays Diana, a lounge singer who helps create conflict, Romany Malco, their butler-esque character, and Jerry Ferrara, a recurring jerk.

Old dudes, doing young things. Hilarious!

I think I figured out a pattern in new comedies. First we had a group of guys in Vegas with The Hangover in 2009, then a group of girls in Vegas with Bridesmaids in 2011. Another two years later we were given old guys in Vegas, so I expect in 2015, we will get either old women in Vegas, or elementary school girls in Vegas. It depends on if this relationship is linear or a ramping sine wave, respectfully.

Overall, I guess this movie delivered exactly as the previews showed. A lot of old people jokes. Old people jokes are a subset of jokes, where everything is funnier, just because the characters involved happen to be old. So old people talking about drugs, going to clubs, flirting, being hungover. This movie has the bonus aspect of seeing Morgan Freeman do all of these things, one of the more revered older actors currently out there.

But after awhile, it becomes obvious that all of the jokes are basically the same, so it is hard to still find them funny across the entire run time. The movie also took its sweet time ending, with what felt like at least three endings thrown on.

Of our actors, Douglas was not at his best, which is a shame given his last role in Behind The Candelabra. De Niro was also hit and miss in this film. The best two were Kline and Freeman, arguably supporting actors in this movie.

Most of the plot lines for the characters went the obvious routes, so nothing felt surprising. Everything gets wrapped up by the end, the conflict presented isn’t too huge, and it is just a simple movie. It was odd to see E from Entourage, so thin. There were two cameos: LMFAO, an already outdated reference, and 50 Cent, who was a welcome surprise.

If you go into Last Vegas expecting a lot of cheap laughs and some touching moments, then you will overall enjoy it. Not a game changer by any means in the comedy genre, but an okay one all the same.

This movie Margaret (which has no character with that name, but taken from a poem) has had a shit storm of post processing nightmares. I think the filming of this film took place somewhere between 2005-2006. Yeah, way back in another lifetime almost.

It was originally scheduled to come out in 2007, but the version of the film the director wanted was about three hours long. What! Studio wasn’t having that, said 150 minutes max. So a lot more editing, a lot more saying “it can’t be done!” Then some lawsuits were issued in 2009. This film was going to take awhile to come out, damn it. Eventually it was put to 150 minutes exactly, with the help of other people. The longer version can be seen on the DVD which comes out nowish, but uhh, I wanted to see the 150 version instead.

All of that is interesting, since this movie is about a long law suit as well.

Lisa (Anna Paquin) is just a girl, either senior in high school or freshman in college. One of the two. Legal is the important point. Still lives at home with her mom though, so a local college if that is the case. She is more or less normal, has some favorite teachers, like Mr. Aaron (Mattttt Damonnnn) who teaches math. Debates in some psychology/politics class.

Well one day she just misses a bus, but runs after it anyways, She is at the door, but the driver (Mark Ruffalo) doesn’t care, even almost makes fun of her. Waving his cowboy hat around. Well this causes him to not pay attention to the road, where he ends up running a red light and slamming over a random woman (Allison Janney). Leg, totally off.

So Lisa and a crowd get to gather around, try to make it so she doesn’t die before an ambulance gets there. Doesn’t happen. Nope, she has a woman freak out and die in her arms, and she is partially to blame. This phases her pretty damn hard. But while giving her testimony, she looks at the driver, and thinks they have a “mutual look” to cover it up, and she says the light wasn’t red from her memory.

Well that guilt tears at her. She becomes more sexually active (than before of not at all) with her classmates (Kieran Culkin) and maybe her teacher. She gets more angry in her debates about terrorism. She tries to reach out to the driver, who isn’t having any of it, saying her recollection of the story is wrong, and doesn’t know why she’d “lie” in the first place.

This makes her mad, so she wants to change her testimony, which is a big problem. Wants to go to court, finds someone who can actually press charges, and part of the reason is just to get the guy fired. Not looking for money (she wouldn’t get any anyways, the family would, who doesn’t know this is even going on). But lots of factors get in her way, which doesn’t help her anger, or help get the justice she feels is necessary.

We also have Matthew Broderick as a small role as a teacher, and Michael Ealy as a legal friend to give advice on all the shenanigans.

Post accidental cause of bus accident syndrome face.

I really cannot imagine a longer version of this movie. Either even more angst and lashing out fight scenes, even more negotiations with a lawyer while trying not to get screwed over, or they took out another subplot entirely and left the others in tact. Who knows. I am pretty sure I won’t try to watch the longer version ever.

I will say yes, Anna Paquin acted pretty great in the movie. I loved the emotion and confusion her character conveyed. But I think they had way too much going on, and a lot of it I didn’t care for.
So well done Anna.

Ruffalo was decent too. But all this movie really teaches us is that life sucks, and then sucks a bit more.

When you see the cover for Takers, you probably go “Hey! I know some of these people! It must be good!” To be fair, some of the people are known for being in some decent, and some bad movies. We have Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen, and Matt Dillon, who at least classify as actors. Then Michael Ealy who would be a lot less know, along with Zoe Saldana who people are only starting to recognize.

But then you see Chris Brown and T.I. YES! If you love their music, you will love their acting! I guess that is the idea.

I am probably just upset that 50 Cent didn’t get the call.

Lets see! It’s hard to really put a finger on what I didn’t like about this movie. Mostly because my finger isn’t big enough to hit everything at once.

Dillon and some other guy are investigating a very well done bank Robbery. Done by all the guys listed above, but not T.I. or Zoe. Why not T.I.?! (Boom, all 3 “endings in a row). Because he was in prison! From five years ago, he got caught while the rest got away. Thankfully he ain’t a snitch. But he does come back after that bank robbery, when everyone is happy, with a new mission right away. In five days.

Seems legit, if not rushed. Russians are involved, just an armored car thing. Some people don’t like it (so soon!) and what not. But it happens. And then. Betrayal. (WHO SAW THAT COMING?)

But yeah. A lot of movie happens before the heist, and then the heist actually takes some time. But after the heist, when backstabbing may occur, I think it is only in the last 20 minutes. I think a lot of the “pre-heist” stuff is just super slow, and not well done at all. The actual heist? It was kind of cool. I will give you that. Even with the fuckups. But I had so little interest in the rest of the story, it was crazy.

But not as crazy as the fear in his eyes there. Man up!

So uhh yeah. I would rather watch Armored again than this.