Tag: Richard Ayoade

What’s this? An animated film from Dreamworks that I was actually looking forward to, that didn’t have anything do with Dragons or Pandas? This must be a mistake. Dreamworks has been given me trash for years!

The main reason I was a little bit excited about The Bad Guys as a film, we because I knew it was based off of a popular series of graphic novels for kids. I only knew that because I think I own half of them. I haven’t read them, but I heard it was funny. Characters that were perceived as bad, trying to do good, and failing along the way, but hey, at least their heart was in the right place. That seems like a nice story.

Also, after watching the trailer, I enjoyed the animation style they went with. Not a standard CGI, but something maybe inspired by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. It is kind of like cel-shading, while being very active and distinct. The characters certainly pop.

The last time I cared about a new property from Dreamworks was Home, strangely enough, and that one ended up only being okay.

I can already tell this film will get into some kinky shit.

Set strangely in real life Las Angeles, California, we are in a world with both humans and anthropomorphic animals coexisting together. There are also regular animals I guess, but we won’t talk about them right now.

We are going to talk about a group known entirely as The Bad Guys. Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina). Yeah, their names are just their animal name for whatever reason. They are notorious for stealing things, but the newly elected Governor, Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz), decides to announce that she feels bad for the Bad Guys, as they are clearly just misunderstood animals who need help.

Huh? How dare she take that approach with them! Time to steal a really famous award, given out specifically to NICE members of society. This next one is going to Professor Rupert Marmalade IV (Richard Ayoada), a pretty swell guy. Unfortunately, while going for the trophy, Mr. Wolf accidentally is put in a position to…HELP someone. Ugh. And strangely enough, it feels good. It is a feeling he wants again, to chase.

After they get arrested, Mr. Wolf convinces the authorities that they can be taught to be good, and enlist the help of Rupert to show them the way. Mr. Wolf also convinces his friends that they can do it just to have a bigger and better heist later. But Does Mr. Wolf want to actually turn over a new leaf?

Also starring Alex Borstein.

Yep, still looks like a kinky film.

While the animation for The Bad Guys was certainly a plus, the plot is what ends up making this mostly an okay movie. The plot is standard, and pretty obvious, and I am not sure if it is entirely based on the books. This movie serves as an origin film for them I guess, as it is about The Bad Guys when they choose to be bad, and then eventually, choose to be good, whereas the books are about them already trying to be good.

The twists you can see coming, and honestly, most of the conclusions.

And then here is where I can get nitpicky about the world building. This is a world where animals and people coexist as…humanoids. Sure. But I find it uncomfortable that the leads all just have generic names. Mr. or Ms. and their animal name. That is completely ridiculous, because we know there are more Wolves and Sharks in the world, it isn’t just one of each kind. There’s no reason for the generic names, outside of code names for their team, but they literally just have those names no matter what. The only other two main animals have regular names, so there is no reason for that distinction.

On that note, this world also has regular animals. What? Huh? How can that seem to be? The story of Wicked tried to tackle that similar idea, of both bipedal talkative animals along with regular animals, and they did a much better job than this film, because it was just ignored. How are there regular Guinea pigs when there is a main character that is also a Guinea pig. I am uncomfortable with this.

I am also uncomfortable that there are apparently scientists who do testing on animals, when again, see the above point. I believe all the scientists are shown to be human. I definitely am pretty sure every single cop in the movie, of which there are hundreds, is also a human. This film could go into some pretty deep places with this territory, but it is just all background and not important, despite the strange and uncomfortable implications.

Another plus though, is the voice work. I thought Rockwell and Maron knocked it out as the main two villains. I was surprised Ramos and Robinson used very different voices in the movie too. There was an attempt to be a character, not just featuring their normal way of talking. It is great when actors, you know…act.

If you are like me, a humble movie critic, you also have never heard of the name Louis Wain in your life. Are they a fashion designer? That was my first bet. But the movie does use the word electric. So maybe he was an inventor? Maybe he is someone made up because movies are allowed to tell fiction stories if they feel like it. It could be a new super hero, Electricity Man.

It turns out The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is about an artist. Did he use electricity in his art? No, not really. But he did love to draw portraits of cats. And cats doing things. And cats being silly. A cats doing cats stuff.

Alright, sounds like a good enough reason for a movie to me. Deal? Deal.

Ah yes, the perfect family.

Louis Wain (Benedict Cumberbatch), is a typical “eccentric artist” who can barely function being a person, but does good art so people like his quirks. He is from a big family, with a lot of sisters, and supposed to be making that money, but finding a job is hard for him. You know. Because he is out there, or whatever.

But he does get a job a local newspaper finally, to do quick sketches, and they like that his stuff is on time, quality and that he doesn’t really make a fuss or gossip. But the paper owner (Toby Jones) wants to put a two page spread in a special insert of cat drawings, and that? Well that really gets popular.

Wain’s name becomes as do his original cat paintings and sketches. But that doesn’t get him out of the poor house, or out of the gossip columns, as someone who married the teacher (Claire Foy) for his sisters, what a scandal. He just wanted to do his art thing and hang out with cats though, so a kindred spirit with a lot of us now. I guess, according to the movie, his artwork helped people like cats more and start keeping them actively as pets and bringing them in the house? I don’t know anything about cat history, so sure, why not.

Also starring Phoebe Nicholls, Andrea Riseborough, Richard Ayoade, and Taika Waititi.

Why send dick pics when you could send cat pics instead?

Louis Wain was a troubled artist in some amount, that much we know. But do we need another troubled artist film? Not really. And definitely not if the focus of the film barely goes into it.

To me, the filmmakers treated Wain’s “quirks” as something amusing or even, quaint, and the fact that any sort of real psychological problems that someone had was ignored or made to seem terrifying. Later in life he was in a mental institution for schizophrenia, and critics could “see it in his artwork” whereas in the last twenty years there have been claims that clearly he was just Autistic and society sucked. And I don’t think this film dealt with that in any meaningful way at all. It did make sure we knew that people gossiped though, and that he had a hard time dealing with people.

Maybe it is just me, but the “quirks” he had seem like the closest thing to an antagonist in this film, because they are what prevented him from being an ultra successful painter that everyone knew, who was rich, versus a famous person who lived in squalor because of society. Case in point, they called this film “The Electrical Life of” to note his love/obsession with electricity, which I assume isn’t made up for a movie. But his life itself didn’t feel electrical at all in the movie that had this title.

Cumberbatch was fine in this movie, Foy was barely in it, and none of the other characters mattered enough to me to warrant speaking about.

I actually think the art itself though is pretty damn cool. And again, not sure if it warrants its own movie given how poorly they treat his life just to tell his story. There isn’t anything I can really take away from this movie except his name as the guy who drew cat pictures in the 1800’s/1900’s that I probably have seen at some point in my life.

By all means, tell me that the movie is done by the people who did Wallace and Gromit. Yes I will watch it every time. I won’t always like it, but I respect it enough to give it the shot it deserves. It’s very weird, very British shot.

So why not Early Man, which is going to combine cave man jokes with very British football jokes. Ones I probably wont even fully understand.

And the best news about it is that the cast only has 3 or 4 recognizable names. They are giving roles to actual voice actors, instead of just laying us down with 40 celebrities, some which probably would have only had five or so lines.

Lava is always a nice bonus, in any movie, regardless of context.

A long time ago, dinosaurs! Also this movie is saying cave people. Let’s let it slide. Meteor wipes them all out, not the people somehow. They find the hot meteor left over that created a giant valley, where it is really hot, so they decide to kick it to each other. They invent the game of football, get really happy, and live their lives in the valley.

Now, some time later, we can meet our new crew of cave people. They don’t know soccer anymore, they are relatively stupid as well. Dug (Eddie Redmayne) is young and a thinker, but the rest of the crew are content. They are content until some mammoths with armor come trampling in, as the rest of the world has decided to stop by and say hello. They are stone age cave people meeting for the first time a bronze age civilization, who is intent on mining out their secret valley for minerals, and letting them die.

Thanks to Dug who infiltrates their society, he learns that they play this game of football on the grand, coliseum like scale. This is their main religion! The only way they can probably get out of their jam and get their home back is by challenging their champions to a game. Dug saw these football paintings on their walls, but they never knew what it meant. But if their ancestors played the game, then they probably can figure it out as well!

Also starring Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Richard Ayoade, Miriam Margolyes, Nick Park, Rob Brydon, Johnny Vegas, Selina Griffiths, Simon Greenall, Gina Yashere, and Kayvan Novak.

With that much armor, this thing looks a lot more like…football, than football.

Early Man is one of those basic “ragtag team of misfits pull together to do a sport thing better than professionals, due to teamwork, friendship, and shenanigans!” You know the kind. Despite being the type of thing that we have seen before, Early Man still manages to bring something new to the table.

It has a lot of tiny jokes throughout, a lot of puns they worked towards. And yes, there are some modern British football jokes that mostly would have flown over my head. But I got one or two.

The characters are likable. The caveman crew has a lot of complete characters, who have their individual good jokes or moments to shine. I don’t feel like we only have a few supporting people. The whole crew got to feel supporting, always a great thing in a movie like this.

This is not going to be a game changing animated film. But it is still really well done, at points clever, and tells a fun story. Hell, even the final soccer match seems to deviate away from the norm for these sorts of things. Still some surprised out there for everyone.

Let’s face it. Trailers for the most part suck. Every once in awhile you get a Walter Mitty trailer, but those usually end up only being a first edition trailer, and later trailers ruin everything. Too much plot, too many spoilers, all of the cool shit, they can leave nothing exciting for the viewers when they finally see it on the big screen or awkwardly on their sofa on an iPad a year later.

The Boxtrolls is a big exception to that rule. I only remember two trailers for The Boxtrolls, this trailer and this second one. The former gives us a look of the many models and work that went into the movie behind the scenes, while giving us a song and showing some scenes but not ruining the plot. The second, just a song and scenes, no plot.

And I loved them both so much. After I saw the first one, I really really wanted to see this movie and assumed it would be one of the best animated films of the year. The second trailer only helped secure that notion in my head. And it was brought to us by Coraline / ParaNorman team (the latter, I guess, I didn’t really love, shh).

So, I was totes excited to see this movie, especially because I really didn’t know any damn thing about it. Ahhh, bliss.

I guess I also knew that it starred some of my cousins from up north. You know. Those cousins.

Here. Let me ruin my experience by telling you a little bit about the movie. Just a little bit.

In the town of Cheesebridge, we have humans, and we have Boxtrolls. Boxtrolls are troll like creatures, who wear boxes as armor/clothing. Their name is based on what is on their box. They like to build and tinker, stealing trash from the humans. The humans are lead by those who wear white hats, the elite, those who love the cheese.

Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley) wants to be a white hat, he only has a red hat. Who cares if he is allergic to cheese. He wants dat prestige, and will do anything to get it. Even if it means starting a fear mongering campaign against the Boxtrolls, declaring he will capture and kill them all, ridding the town of the pests, and saving the day, earning the white hat.

Yeah. You go Archibald! Unless he is lying, like saying a box was killed by them, when instead, the Boxtrolls saved the boy and raised him on their own. We shall call him Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright), because that is his box name. Raised by Fish (Dee Bradley Baker) and Shoe (Steve Blum), Eggs doesn’t really know if he is a human or a Boxtroll when he gets older and starts feeling things down there. If he is a human, he is a Boxtroll of a human, and if he is a Boxtroll, then he is a human of a Boxtroll. That reference might be too vague for some of you. I don’t care.

Also featuring Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade and Tracy Morgan as Archibald henchmen, Simon Pegg as an inventor, Jared Harris as the head White Hat, and Elle Fanning as a girl who has a punch in the face look the entire movie.

She is made of clay, she can totally help the way her face looks.

Early on in the film, The Boxtrolls had me a little bit uninterested. Sure, the stop motion was really rockin’ hard, but I thought the plot wasn’t moving fast enough and didn’t really enjoy any of the characters. But it surely got better, and somehow the animation even got better. This is by far the best animated film I have ever seen with stop motion, and I am sure it is not just because when I saw Coraline, my 3D glasses sucked. I really need to rewatch Coraline.

Either way, even in one tiny chase scene at a ball, I was wowed at how amazing it all looked knowing what they had to do to make it look amazing. Speaking of the attention to detail, I loved the existential crises that the henchmen were having about good vs evil and how they seemed to acknowledge they were in a movie at times. Had my laughing pretty hard.

The story got better and it ended with a tremendous bang. I wish this was an original story and not based on some book so I could give it even more praise for coming up with these tale out of nowhere. Those guys are good, with the stop motion and clay. I hope they keep giving us high quality work such as this.

I don’t think this is the animated flick of the year, I think at least 3 are better, but it is surely up there and you cannot go wrong with watching this in theater or at home. Very entertaining and a movie I could watch many times and not get sick of it. Yay! I don’t feel betrayed by the trailer!

The Watch had a lot of negative press surrounding it. Unfortunately its first previews started to appear right before the Trayvon Martin shooting down in Florida. Which was done of course by someone on a Neighborhood Watch patrol. Bad timing indeed!

But really this has very little to do with the plot of the movie. Because this movie is dick jokes and aliens.

Lets count how many dicks and aliens you see in this scene.

Evan (Ben Stiller) is a normal middle aged man living in Suburbia in Ohio. He founds a lot of clubs and cares for his community. But bad things happen. Very bad things. Like the security guard at Cotsco, HIS STORE, was brutally murdered and had his skin shaved off. Pretty damn gross. He realizes the cops in the town are pretty incompetent. There are only eight, and the main two hate him (Will Forte and Mel Rodriguez). Plus they think he is a suspect, since he had the ability to get into the store!

Well damn. So Evan founds the Neighborhood Watch while his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) is away for a weekend, but interest is limited. He gets Bob (Vince Vaughn) a rich man who loves capitalism, but has to raise his daughter (Erin Moriarty) mostly alone because his wife travels for business, and really just wants some nice man friends. There is also Franklin (Jonah Hill) who now lives with his mom, wanted to be a cop, but failed all the tests, including the mental one. And Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade) who also really wants to just hang out/fit in after a divorce, and has an Asian fetish.

This rag tag group of people are forced to do mundane things, until…Evan hits something with his car. And it has green slime! And there is a weird ball that explodes whatever they point it at, assuming they actually finger all the holes. Turns out it is Alien technology, and they might be dealing with a giant alien invasion in their small town Ohio!

I’m sure the creepy skin talking neighbor (Doug Jones) has nothing to do with it. Also Nicholas Braun is in this movie, as guy trying to get with Bob’s daughter. So you know he is going to get fucked up as well. And why does Evan not want to have sex with his own wife? Damn it, Evan.

Oh, so he lets out his steam another way? Do go on.

DICK JOKES. Dick jokes on dick jokes on dick jokes.

Honestly, I’d say that 85% of the humor in this movie was about the male genetalia. It just kept coming up, and came quite frequently. The other 15% would be spread out between some racial/ethnic humor, bromance, and then miscellaneous. But wow.

I didn’t think the plot was that bad. But a movie needs to penalized if it strikes the same funny chord as its go to mechanic. Thankfully the dick jokes were actually, mostly, well connected. But at the same time, it got quite annoying.

Vaughn played a character he always does, and Stiller basically the same. I would say Ayoade and Hill brought something different, since at least with Ayoade he hasn’t really been in an American film yet, and Hill got to play a pretty psychotic military character.

So sure, a bit disappointing, but thankfully it wasn’t complete trash.