Tag: Michelle Monaghan

I feel like as a society, we should be at a collective point where people realize that the song Every Breath You Take is creepy as fuck. Sting has already said it is sinister and controlling and not a wonderful love song. And yet people still are oblivious and think its beautiful.

It is a creepy phrase and a great name for a movie. Especially if it involves a stalking romance.

Every Breath You Take doesn’t really involve romance (although there is some sexmance, if you will) and stalking. Maybe not the perfect title for this movie. But maybe the perfect title for a Casey Affleck autobiography?

Of course you can see every breath they take if you are that fucking close to their mouth. 

Philip (Casey Affleck) is a therapist, and maybe a good one, maybe a bad one. Really hard to tell. He did have one patient, Daphne (Emily Alyn Lind), who was really low and sore and couldn’t open up. And to encourage her to open up, he talked about himself. He talked about his wife (Michelle Monaghan) and kid (India Eisley), and his fears and regrets. He wasn’t trying to make her his therapist. He was just trying to be more relatable for her. And it worked! She talked and got better and he started to tell people of his discovery.

Well, then we find out that Daphne goes and dies. You know. Suicide. Shit was this his fault? We all know people will blame him anyways. Makes sense.

Maybe people like James (Sam Claflin), Daphne’s brother. Who ends up having to talk to him about it, for some closure. But then he just…keeps hanging around. He inserts himself into Philip’s life as they do funeral plans and deal with her belongings. He befriends the wife and daughter and show up in their lives when Philip isn’t around. He seems to have…ulterior motives for being there. Can Philip stop this man from stalking them all, when it would be hard to prove, and when he is doing his own shitty things?

Also starring Hiro Kanagawa and Veronica Ferres.

“Howdy lady, did someone break your car? What a coincidence. I fix cars.”

At times, Every Breath You Take certainly feels like a movie that was forced to be a straight to DVD film. Which times? Well, at least 90% of the time. Not that those movies have to be inherently bad, because this one isn’t shockingly awful or anything like that. It just never rises to any level worth really getting excited about.

Affleck feels like a broody sad version of himself that is in a lot of films. He did it better in Manchester By The Sea, he did it better in even A Ghost Story. So it doesn’t feel new in that regard at all. Claflin plays a wormy, charismatic, clearly evil being. It is frustrating how obvious it all plays out on the screen, because apparently all of the women in this movie are easily cast into his shady as fuck web. Besides that, the rest of the cast are just smaller parts in this film and not given a lot to work with. They don’t feel believable and this really drags the movie down.

And this is frustrating, because given the story, it could have been a wonderful movie overall, but basically every part of it falls flat. The twists are obvious, and then silly. The thrilling scenes near the end don’t thrill but are laughable. There are elements of people trying, but when those elements are few and far between, it is just a disaster of a film.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Mainstream 2018 (Part 1)! Basically, the popular movies I had missed, and need to really review, or else.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

In the face of this movie, I expected the worst. I thought this movie had to be a typical January release, something similar to
10,000 BC. But alarmingly, it came out in September, and when I finally got to see the movie it mostly met my expectations. It was surprisingly not amazingly bad, just regularly bad.

Gross CGI landscapes to recreate the before time, and a pretty uninspired storyline about the bringing together a “dog” and a man. The other sad aspect of this movie is that people might watch it and go, “Oh, so that’s how it happened! Domestication!” and take this movie as fact. That would be a shame. And I don’t know if people actually say that, because I barely know people who have seen it, but this straw man stands in my mind. A forgettable film, like most dog films.

Waiting for Mufasa to show up takes forever.

When I first heard this title, I really assumed it was sort of a joke. I didn’t know it was based on a book of the title, or why it was called that, but it just felt off. I thought it would be some sort of exploitative film that was a comedy no one would watch, and hey, it feels good to be wrong. A romance more than anything, this is a film about an outsider being brought into the world of ridiculously rich Asian people in Singapore. So we get all of the wealth, luxury, and snide comments with some back stabbing.

On its whole, it could have been a forgettable romance film. But the lavish sets went all out to display a lifestyle most of us can only dream about, while also bringing in new cultural elements to American cinema. Having the lead be the mom from Fresh Off The Boat was great, and showed she has at least some range. The ending teared me up too. And damn it, it is great in general to see different people on our romance movies. Bring on this wave of Asian-American films, damn it.

Out of the three adjectives in the title, I’d prefer the middle one myself.

“More Mission Impossible? I thought we were done with those,” said no one really ever. Or at least said people who hadn’t been watching them. I will go on record and say the only one I didn’t get enjoyment out of was the second one, and that one has a lot of stranger things going on. I just didn’t see them until I was already an adult, so it took me awhile to appreciate them. Because lets face it, there isn’t another successful American action franchise that is going into this level of detail and craziness for its stunts. It wants Cruise to do most of the work.

He is never going to be the level of some of our older or past martial artist stars, with the long choreographed fight scenes, but its at least a step in the right direction. This film is still exciting, but overall, it feels uninspired. It just isn’t as good as the last two modern MI movies. The stunts aren’t as sexy, even if they have bigger overall stunts. It doesn’t fill me with as much awe, and the story line just gets excessive as it attempts to continually top itself. The ending also feels really clunky and I never really feel that sense of dread that it is going for. A good attempt at an action movie, I just expect a bit more now from the franchise.

The biggest stunts are helicopters? Eh, I’ve seen helicopters before.

I am a huge Ocean’s Trilogy fan, and a huge Steven Soderbergh fan, and so even if the director wasn’t really involved, I was hoping to love this one. Heck, the stars are there too, with a lot of big names.

I will say it feels gimmicky, and not equal, to just go the opposite direction and make it an all female cast. It doesn’t feel natural, just like an all male heist would be with the large numbers (which is why technically the two sequels had…one woman in on the heist). In the movie, it does seem to make a lot more sense, given just the nature of the crime and the talents they needed to pull it off, so that is the good news. The biggest issue overall is just that the movie feels forgettable when it finishes. No one person stands out in acting, and the various twists to show how it was pulled off are for the most part guessable, especially thanks to the title.

I still hope they can do more. Go for it. Just lets raise the stakes.

Yep, eight people, like most of the advertising, spoiling a twist.

Finally, a film people maybe thought initially was a joke. A high budgeted comedy (and slightly action?) movie, about people playing tag, that has gone on with very specific rules for decades, and one person who never, ever gets tagged. So many stars, so little time, and such a ridiculous concept (based loosely on a real story). I wanted to enjoy it and was intrigued by the trailer. But like a lot of modern comedies, I think it really just needs a group of people or slight inebriation to really fully enjoy.

I’d prefer a comedy I can find historical alone, and this is clearly one meant for you to enjoy with your own group of friends, which is fine, but limited. Again, with a large cast, no one really feels like a standout, and some people seem to be doing the same sorts of character they are always type casted into. The ending also went a really strange place. Unexpected, sure, but something that feels almost like a complete genre switch.

Mainstream movies may be a broad title, especially when you compare them to the other quick themes I put together, but hey, its my themes suck it. I originally would have done genre, but too many films are multi-genre that I didn’t want to deal with that hassle.

I don’t really get Peter Berg. He is such an interesting person, but I don’t get him.

He gave us the Friday Night Lights TV series, and for that, I can thank him. Despite problems during the writer’s strike, we still got an overall solid project that came from a solid film.

And then he did Hancock, which had a bad second half. Then he did Battleship. The real low point. After that, he began to have his Marky Mark obsession, as Patriots Day is the third “real story” film he has done with the singer turned actor in a row. I liked Lone Soldier. I was disappointed with Deepwater Horizon. And Patriots Day seemed like something that was coming out way too soon after the events.

And somehow these last two movies have come out within just a few months of each other. Calm down Berg!

This time Mark has an average amount of guns, right in between the other two films.

Patriot’s Day of course is a film, detailing the events of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, about three and a half years old when the film about it came out. Our main character is Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), a police cop who is just returning to the force and has an easy first job back. Finish line at the marathon. Aw, how sweet.

Well, unfortunately, a bomb or two goes off, and a lot of people get injured and a police hunt takes off. And through the smoke, the fire, the wreckage, a lot of local heroes come out to help those wounded. But this is about the cops. And unfortunately, the cops do not find them right away.

Blah blah, the real story shows that they eventually get two suspects, in Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff). With a city on lock down, they try to escape, and eventually get caught. Or, well, one of them does.

Featuring a lot of big time actors, like J.K Simmons, Kevin Bacon, and John Goodman. Also Melissa Benoist, Vincent Curatola, Michelle Monaghan, and Jimmy O. Yang.

Not really a good image, so not really a place for me to make a joke.

After finally watching Patriots Day, I still only feel that this movie came out too soon.

First of all, it was apparently filmed on location. Where the guy hid in the boat? That was most likely the exact same neighborhood as it actually happened. Like those poor people need to relive those experiences so soon. A lot of footage from the film might also have been actual footage, I have no idea. Footage from police cams, or security cams. Either they made it all look as real as possible, or just used the real stuff, and either way I am uncomfortable.

The ending was the best part as, surprise!, it actually did switch to the real people involved. A real tribute to the cops at a baseball game after the fact, then brief interviews with some of the main people the film touch upon. Very brief, the whole thing takes just a few minuets before the credits. And holy shit, this is what the movie NEEDED to be.

In case you didn’t figure it out, it should have been a DOCUMENTARY! That is something truly respectable, something that doesn’t have actor cops and agents running around pretending a terrorist is loose again in your neighborhood, or recreating other painful memeories so soon after they happen. Fuck.

I know people complain about Hollywood being unoriginal, sequels, reboots, yadda yadda. But trying to rush out true stories to keep them relevant is the biggest scandal out of all of those. Most of the true story films that I enjoy end up being the ones I never heard about, where I learn something. I would imagine most people who saw Patriots Day were also glued to their TVs over these few days and even saw the guy get arrested in the boat. I didn’t learn much and it just felt…exploitative.

There should probably be a limit of at least 5-8 years before you film true events, just to give the world some breathing room.

For some reason, Happy Madison is developing a bad rep. Adam Sandler‘s production company has been around for awhile and has brought in such classics like, Jack and Jill and Grown Ups 2! Hell, just this year we already got Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.

With such a rich pedigree, how does a company like that get hated on? Hell if I know.

And then there was Pixels, their third film of this year, and one I thought would be completely animated given the posters. Whoops. I obviously figured it out before I watched it, but damn, I don’t think I have ever been fooled like that before. Sure, it could be loosely based off of a Futurama episode, but that was a cartoon, so everything is fair game.

Unless they wanted a giant Mickey Mouse here, then they’d have been fucked.

Brenner (Sandler) was a big deal, in 1982. He was the master of the local arcade, able to see the patterns in the games, creating high score after high score. Hell, he entered into the national arcade tournament and made it all the way to the finals. He lost though to Eddie (Peter Dinklage), a cocky son of a bitch though, because Donkey Kong has some real random elements to it, so he can’t quite figure it out. Oh well, it didn’t ruin his life.

After all, 33 years later, he is working for what constitutes a Geek Squad like company, installing technology in rich big houses. Oh hey, and his best friend, Cooper (Kevin James) ended up as president (married to Jane Krakowski too). But he is seen as a buffoon. Who gives a shit though, because Aliens are about to attack!

Oh yeah, there was a third friend, Ludlow (Josh Gad), who was pretty good at games too, but became a conspiracy nut. And looks like he was write about aliens at least!

The strange thing about these aliens is they are attacking using what looks like arcade games from the early days. You see, after the tournament, they sent digital copies of the games and a lot of pop culture items into a time capsule into space. And alien race took the games as a challenge and built giant replicas of these games to attack the Earth. Each side will only have “three lives” so the first to “win” 3 of these attacks, wins overall. If Earth wins, they leave, if Earth loses, everyone dies. You know where this is going: losers from the 1980’s have to save the day!

Also starring Michelle Monaghan, Matt Lintz, Sean Bean, and Brian Cox.

I’ve had a nightmare like this before. I was playing a real life centipede, but I had no ammo.
Basically insects just fell on me from the sky.

Maybe its the nostalgia, maybe the cool effects, or maybe Dinklage giving his impression of the guy from King of Kong, but Pixels wasn’t super terrible. I know everyone around me said it was bad and they hated it, but I also know they went in ready to rage on it.

Pixels definitely had its moments, but the best parts were the clever ways they “fought” the various levels that totaled the many cities around the world. Having Pac-Man terrorize NYC as they chased him with cars? Come on, that’s clever.

There are unfortunately some lamer elements to the film. Having a cheating subplot? Waste of time, and ruined some of the fun. Q*bert? Fuck Q*bert. That mostly felt like an annoyance more than anything. Creepy suggestion that a woman can be a trophy? Well, you know.

But overall for the most part, Pixels was entertaining. It could have had more fun real life battles instead of an all out attack at the end to cameo in games. If we got even more in depth levels, it would have been great. It was like an advanced Nick Arcade. Just one that probably should have gone for the PG-13 rating, since it probably didn’t deserve PG at all with some of the jokes and language thrown in.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

As promised mere days ago in my review of The Longest Ride, I present to you, my review of The Best Of Me.

It was released a couple of months ago, but I really had no reason to watch it. But I figured I should get it over with before my screening of The Longest Ride. So, despite watching this one first, the review came later, because who cares about this one at this point right? Old romances are stupid. Unless it is The Notebook, then instead, we must all love it forever.

Speaking of The Notebook, James Marsden got rightfully screwed in that movie. Poor guy. Women leave him all the time in movies. So I am glad to see he finally gets to star in a romance movie of his own!

Marsden: Losing the girl yearly since 2003.

In this romance, Dawson (Marsden) and Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) are our fate entwined lovers. You see, they actually used to date. Oh, 20 or more years ago. Yeah. True story. When they were in high school.

Young Dawson (Luke Bracey) was a bit of a problem child thanks to his rough family, but he was smart. Young Amanda (Liana Liberato). Young Dawson had to get away from his daddy (Sean Bridgers) and their crime ways, so he tried to set out on his own. Luckily, he met a neighbor named Tuck (Gerald McRaney), a loner. He trusted Young Dawson for some reason, so he let him stay if he helped out around the house. He was mostly lonely his wife had died of course.

Either way, the young couple were romantic, these older versions are not. They haven’t seen each other for a long time. Only reason they are together now is because they were given all of Tuck’s possessions when he past away and put in charge of it all. Now they have to deal with the fact that they had some falling out. That Amanda has a husband (Sebastian Arcelus) and kids. And you know. Other past demons.

But don’t worry. It isn’t entirely angst. Because about half of the movie is dang old flashback anyways, so sometimes you even forget that they became old and jaded!

The whole movie requires a suspension of belief. You have to assume that kid can grow up to look like Marsden.

The Best Of Me is not the best recent Sparks movie. I would say it is definitely worse than The Longest Ride, Safe Haven, and The Lucky One. That is not saying a lot about this film though, given the quality of those films already.

First main issue. So much fucking flashback. Like the first flashback felt like it lasted 15-20 minutes. Can he tell a good story without so much flashback? I don’t know, he has been using it a lot lately. The story was bad in the flashback. Typical teenage angst and a lack of plot where plot would have been important. We have this huge struggle with his dad and their crimes, but don’t actually give a lot of concrete details on either outside of them being bad.

Young Dawson looks nothing like old Dawson. What the hell casting department. Get that shit fixed. The girls were okay in terms of similar looks.

The flashback romance didn’t even feel that great, which explains why maybe the modern day part also feels forced. We had our token rain kissing scene, and it was terrible. They didn’t even try to conceal the fact that the rain wasn’t even really falling on our characters. The flashbacks in general just felt fake and unreal, compared to the rest of the movie. That could be on purpose, but I doubt it.

And then the ending. Such a shit fest. Let’s just say, I still feel sorry for James Marsden.

I feel like a bad Ben Affleck fan. Here I am, talking about his greatness, despite having finally seen Pearl Harbor, but I have not seen a third of the movies he has directed. That means the first movie he directed, Gone Baby Gone. I might not have really known it existed. Whoops. Of course he has his brother in it, but it is nice to know his first work that lead up to Argo, right?

Damn straight. Forgive me Affleck Fans 4 Lyfe, my former Myspace group that I was in. I have redeemed myself in your eyes I hope.

But maybe not in the eyes of Ben’s brother.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) is a private investigator, with his long term serious girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan). On the news, there is a story of Helene (Amy Ryan) who’s child has been abducted, and she is pleading for the police to find her quickly! The police chief (Morgan Freeman) is super sympathetic to the cause, because he has lost a child himself, and has made child protection his number one goal as head of the department.

The next day, Patrick and Angie get a visit from Beatrice (Amy Madigan), the sister of Helene, wanting to hire them to find the child. This is a special case, they do specialize in finding missing people, but that means people on the run, not people who have been kidnapped. The last thing they want to do is find the child in a ditch somewhere, kind of ruins the mood. Eventually, they agree to help Beatrice, Helene, and Beatrice’s husband Lionel (Titus Welliver), while also trying to not get in the way or ruin the police investigation at the same time.

What follows is the dark paths their investigation take them on, the reprecussions that follow, and the many months of aftermath of uncertainty and grieving. You know, without giving too much away. Ed Harris and John Ashton play cop guys, and Michael Kenneth Williams is of course a drug dealer.

OH GOD I HAVE SPOILED THAT THERE IS BLOOD IN THIS MOVIE. MY BAD.

To fully enjoy Gone Baby Gone, you definitely can’t multi task through it. There is a lot going on in this thriller, with many layers of information coming in at different rates. But it is also not your typical mystery to figure out the ending, because it is actually the last thought on your mind while watching it.

Nay, loyal readers, the main point of this is the characters themselves, and their lives as they are all affected by this simple child abduction story.

But then again, personally, I did think it was going a bit slow early on, after they agreed to take the case. You know, because clues are hard to find then. I just didn’t expect so much of the movie to take place after the case had been “solved”. Solved in quotation marks can mean lots of things, so stop guessing!

Either way, it is a well acted drama/crime movie, I just think it could have been a little bit more entertaining (or quicker?) with certain developments.

I was forced to watch Eagle Eye. I really didn’t want to. When someone asked me, “Hey man. Want to watch Eagle Eye?” I said this.

That was my way of both answering the question, and providing a reason why.

The movie begins with the US Army fucking up some terrorists. Or else that is what it looks like. They are at a funeral, but is also a guy they have been looking for, for a long ass time. It might not be him, but 51% chance it is! The secretary of defense (Michael Chiklis) says no go, but the President says go. So they do it. Whoops, civilians.

Long story short, this movie is about a super computer. That supercomputer can gather intel from pretty much anything electric or connected via remotes or on a network. Computers, cell phones are the big ones. It doesn’t like that the president and others put people at risk by ignoring its advice. The Secretary of Defense is cool though, in its mind, and thinks he should be president. So she tries to kill off the president and the other people on the chain of command.

Shia LaBeouf (slacker with a twin brother who was in the army, died, was super good at computer stuff) is being blackmailed, and so is Michelle Monaghan (single mother, who is being told her son will die if she doesn’t do the plan) are both being called by the mysterious woman (computer) and told to do things.

Which is basically get a bomb to DC and blow up the president. No biggie. Also Rosario Dawson and Billy Bob Thornton are trying to stop em, and figure out why they are so good at escaping shit.

“Is this Michelle? No no nononononnono!”

Know what I hate? Shia LaBeouf, and Spielberg’s fascination with him.

Know what I like? Super computers. Super computers being too good.

Argh! Opposing forces! This has a ridiculous number of action scenes and chase scenes, that also go on for long periods of time. Heck that is most of the movie. None of them even seem plausible, even with the possibility of a super computer. But hey, you can stretch some imagination. But that is all the movie has going for it. Those scenes, because there is very little down time or real development. So its just okay. I like my super computer movies to have some nice philosophical discussions in them too.

This must be a good idea! Two of the biggest names in Hollywood (there is a fat joke there) in a buddy comedy about travelin’ and happy times to see a woman give birth (gross) by her Due Date. Because, just like in real life, if people have to rush anywhere, they will have hilarious hijinks and missteps along the way that makes their lives completely difficult, but yet when they are finished, they can look back on it and laugh. Just like real life.

“And then after all that he still wouldn’t give us back my teeth! Hil-ARIOUS!”

I wondered why I didn’t hear much about it when it was finally released. To me, it must be because it did not live up to his potential. I can see that a large inspiration to this movie was probably Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but instead of just normal allusions or a quick reference, it seemed like some of the bigger plot points were just taken directly from PTA. But instead of done in a more clever way, they were just done in a more gross modern humor way.

One of the biggest moments of conflict between Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis is taken straight from PTA, and it makes it just seem lazy. The biggest differences between the two movies is that John Candy‘s annoying character is actually likable, and just misunderstood, and it has a touching ending that makes everyone feel good inside. Zack Galifianakis’ character just is annoying and I hate him throughout the movie. Yes RDJ’s guy is an ass, but I think it is justified. Could be my ass-side talking though. Overall it could have been a lot better.

Oh yeah, the wife is played by Michelle Monaghan. What? She was just in Source Code (my last reviewed movie). She is everywhere, damn!

This movie was a lot better than expected, but technically I expected nothing. I first didn’t watch it, because the cover made me think of Eagle Eye. (yes, even though I read the words “Source Code“) Eagle Eye!? yuck! Don’t need any Shia LaBeouf in my room!

Or my website.

Doesn’t help that the main woman, Michelle Monaghan, is the main woman in Eagle Eye too.

Anyways, this is a sci-fi (esque) action movie, where if you can ignore some plot holes in how everything works, it becomes pretty good. What plot holes? It is hard to explain, here and in the movie. More or less, they said that after a “big event” in the realities aroun…no I still can’t explain it. More or less, they have a way to send people back into an event, inside a person whom shares qualities with their sendee back, and can do things before the event occurs. Not stop it of course, because it has already happened. But some cool things, like figure out who did it, figure out what they will be doing next, etc.

Why is this good? Because some dude bombed some trains in Chicago! And is planning on bombing more things! If they can find out who it is, maybe they can stop him!

Unfortunately when dealing with alternative realities, paradoxes tend to happen pretty easily. The ending was beautiful, and cannot be mucked up if they ever try to do a sequel. So that is good. I am tired of also liking 6/7 of a movie and hating the end. This time I liked pretty much all of it.

Also, for those Jake G haters, you can watch him die at least six times in this movie. No, that is not a spoiler. Unfortunately, as I said it was set in Chicago. We can’t all be perfect though.