Tag: Scott Eastwood

I Want You Back is by far, The Jackson 5’s best song release, and I will fight you over this statement.

It can be a good name for a movie too, but in 2022, it does have a creepy vibe to it. Winning back someone’s love is really something that should be reserved for a film, and probably not practiced in real life. If someone has moved on, we need to respect that, and they don’t need to be harassed by you.

Maybe I should reconsider the song being their best, given the message and what I know now, today? (Editor’s Note: Nah, I am fine with it being in a time capsule from the 1970’s. And I don’t want ABC to be the best song anyone’s done either).

With a name like I Want You Back, will a film do very creepy things and write it off because woo movie romances, or it will accept that times are a changing and acknowledge the awkward messaging behind that line? Well, let us go and see.

This is a scene where a break up happens! 

Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) are about to get DUMPED. They are in kind of long relationships, no engagements yet, but their partners are done. Peter’s ex girlfriend, Anne (Gina Rodriguez) acknowledges that Peter is charming and fun to be around, but she wants to have someone who is more experienced in life and is working on improvement, like the new drama teacher at her school, Logan (Manny Jacinto), whom she is going to start dating.

Emma’s ex boyfriend, Noah (Scott Eastwood), is a personal trainer, very athletic and outgoing, and is tired of Emma being at a stand still in her life. She has no direction, no drive, she is fun and funny, but she doesn’t seem to care about her future. The new person he found? Ginny (Clark Backo), has her own restaurant, meets with important people and has a big following.

So their exes have moved on, and Peter and Emma are left behind in a rut they did not see coming. They didn’t know each other, but they ended up meeting when they both went to a stair case to cry at, and hey, a friendship was born. Thanks to their similarities, they do find out about each other’s break up and hatch a plan to help win back their exes. Yep. Good idea. Emma is going to volunteer at the middle school musical rehearsals and seduce the drama teacher, so that Anne will think she made a mistake. Peter cannot do the same thing at all, so he will instead try to befriend Noah, become a client of his, and maybe convince him that his last girlfriend was clearly way better than his new one.

Nothing will go wrong, and everyone will get what they want and no creepy stuff at all, nope nope nope. Also featuring this kid, Luke David Blumm, in a weirdly more important role than anyone would have guessed.

This is a scene where a breakup happens!

The problematic nature of trying to win your ex back, I do believe, is noted in this film. At no point does a character say, “Oh wait, this is really toxic and messed up, lets stop.” No, not that. However, in the process to try and win them back, a lot of bad stuff does happen. And characters learn that what they did is bad. So for comedy sake, the things did have to occur obviously, but hey, the characters learned lessons, achieved growth in several different ways, in the process. That is a much better story than the classic win back your ex romcom of the 80s and 90s. Success!

Day and Slate are WONDERFUL together. Once I first saw the poster for this, I knew it would just work well. As far as I can tell, they haven’t worked together in the past, but they are both comedians, have played frantic characters, and have gone to the extremes. I knew their vibe and likely improv would play well together.

For the rest of the supporting cast, most of them do a great job as well. Eastwood is given the most time to really show off his own humor skills. This is only my second time seeing Jacinto in a role, and it is very different than his part in The Good Place. Both of the males of the new relationships are the focus, so the other women are given the least amount of time. Rodriguez has to play someone uncomfortable and nervous mostly, so it isn’t as strong as a role to remember as the rest, given her character is meant to not really stand out. And Backo, out of everyone, really plays the “straight” role here, for more context away from Slate, so they barely focus on her at all.

I did not expect there to be so much Little Shop of Horrors in this movie either. So that was a pleasant and welcome surprise. Hell, I cried during one of the scenes, because I love Little Shop of Horrors and because I am a basic bitch. Also one of my favorite jokes definitely came from a pun related to that show and its lyrics.

I think this movie is an example of a Rom Com that really dives into the comedy elements and goes hard for laughs, and definitely delivers. I chuckled to myself a lot, despite watching it by myself. The only part I really didn’t love is the last, 50 seconds or so. It makes sense for that scene to happen, and it is one of those that you could telegraph and guess before it happens. But still, it is a bit uncomfortable at the same time. Not enough to suddenly dislike the movie, but it is a definite eye roll.

“Is Guy Ritchie finally back?!”

That is the question I ask myself every time I am about to watch a new Guy Ritchie film. I believe the last time he was actually “back” was when he did The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and I wouldn’t define his Sherlock films as really back either. So maybe he has been off for over a decade for the most part. Taking on strange projects. Nothing that feels like a Guy Ritchie film based on the movies he gave us in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

I could list his many duds, but it is unnecessary. You all know it is true. Duds or okay films or weird sell out films.

But is Wrath of Man, with his favorite actor ever, his return to his roots? This is what we want, after all.

Are these security guards? Nope. Killers.

Hill (Jason Statham) is just a regular average guy, who has done some security work in the past, looking for a new job. He is going to be a security officer who rides in an armored car that picks up and drops off large quantities of money. It is a dangerous job apparently, because people really love to steal from armored cars.

The company he works at now, that he barely qualifies for, is known for having good trained officers and not getting robbed as much, so they get the big business. But when a crew takes out their drivers and steal from them? Well, the drivers are now more shook. So Hill joins them at a strange time. But he quickly puts the stop to another robbery, bad ass incarnate and all, and becomes a hero to them.

But why, why did he join, and what connection does it have with the robberies?

Also starring Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar, Laz Alonso, Chris Reilly, Holt McCallany, Rocci Williams, Josh Harnett, Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Deobia Oparei, Raúl Castillo, and Andy Garcia.

Is that a construction worker? Nope. A killer.

Maybe…maybe Guy Ritchie is back?

I left Wrath of Man liking it, and it did have a lot of similarities to his earlier work. We didn’t just get the good guys point of view, we got the bad guy point of view as well. Hell, our good guy isn’t really a good guy either. This is about different tiers of bad guys, and some good guys who also get involved. It has betrayal, many named important people getting killed, and it is told non chronologically.

It is also a relatively simple story, given the situation. The only leap of faith we have to take is a society where armored cars get robbed all the time.

It was nice to have the scale be relatively small with so many people being typical bad guys. Criminals vs criminals is the type of action film I can get behind. Especially if one is technically doing some good, even if for selfish reasons.

I don’t think there is anything inherently special about Statham’s “acting” here just like his other work. The twists are pretty simple to determine. It was nice to see various people in the random roles throughout the film. And you can even see Post Malone as Robber #6. If that appeals to you as well.

A few years ago, Oscar Winner Guillermo del Toro directed a fun little giant monster movie named Pacific Rim, that was meant with not real acclaim, but most people admitted it was at least a bit fun.

I remember going to the opening night release, a theater full of guys, and my now wife being the only (presumed) lady in the audience. It was a fun experience. It had a lot of fun characters and great actors, some of which hammed it up sure, but they put an end to the goddamn apocalypse.

This next film, Pacific Rim: Uprising, has no del Toro directing it, was put off of the line up indefinitely a year back, and is just now finally coming back. It is set later, so we can have a mostly new cast, and uhhh, I dunno. I guess it is about monsters and robot stuff still.

I think I will just refer to them now as battlebots.

Set ten years after the first film, the humans have won the war, no more alien sightings, and they are just living their lives. Some areas have never been rebuilt on the coast, others are back to normal. The Jaeger program is still kicking around, building a few machines and training new recruits just in case another attack comes. But for the most part, they don´t do a lot.

Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) thought about living up to his father´s legacy, but instead he would rather live in an abandoned city, stealing Jaeger parts and other items for junk food and dollar bills. Hey, YOLO and stuff.

But during a theft gone wrong, he ran into a younger girl, Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) who built her own very tiny Jaeger on her own stolen parts, small enough to be run by a single person, not two! They get into trouble, arrested, and now Jake has a choice. Join the Jaeger Pilot program (again!) or, you know, jail. His older ¨sister¨ Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) is sort of leading the thing again, so she gave him that totally not forced option.

Long story short, this movie has a lot of cadet training, and worrying about the future of the Jaeger program. Will they switch to drones? Why waste money at all? What did the Kaiju want? And why is there a rouge Jaeger running around, kicking ass and killing people? Oh wait, what?

Also starring Burn Gorman and Charlie Day reprising their roles, along with other newcomers like Tian Jing, Jin Zhang, Adria Arjona, and a loaf of bread. I mean Scott Eastwood.

Well, if anything Eastwood is an incredibly attractive looking loaf of bread.

¨Hi, my name is Pacific Rim: Uprising! Allow me to make a film full of boring cliches and not a lot of fun action!¨

Boring cliches you say? Well, we got a son who doesn´t want to associate with his dad´s trade beside his knack for it. We got in general, cadet training programs of teenagers (with attitude!) who aren´t doing as well as hoped. But you know by the end, those same kids are going to have to be the ones who save the day. The band of misfits who struggled and grew together, not only learning how to be heroes, but to…love.

Other mistakes this sequel wanted to make was killing off old characters in dumb ways just so we can focus on the fun spunky youths more. It took WAY too long to get to some goddamn robot versus monster fighting action, which is what we signed up for in this film franchise. We had to see robots fight for each other for awhile, and obvious plot twists instead. Timing was very strange throughout the film, with the implication they did a lot of things fast that felt like weeks of work, despite having a huge time crunch to do it.

But hey, I won´t completely shit on it. Here are some pros. 1) The final fight was long (and really our only robot/monster battle), but entirely during the day, so you know, you could mostly understand what happened. 2) The Jaeger battle armor to control them didn´t have boob plates for the ladies. And, 3) There was a bit of talk about geology! Not a lot of it, and not necessarily accurate, but still, geology, what fun!

Okay, let’s start this with my fast and the furious order of liking the films.

1, 5, 3, 7, 6, 4, 2.

And now that I have seen The Fate of the Furious, I would either put it after 7, or after 6. The trend continues, that I would have mentioned in a few of the previous F&F reviews I have done.

The even ones are not as good as the odd ones. It is science, bitch!

I think this is also some science.

F8 begins with Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) in Havana, Cuba on a honeymoon. A honeymoon! Hooray! And it comes complete with a street race so absurd and contradictory, you can accept anything else the film has to offer.

While walking around, Dom runs into a stranded woman. Car problems, sucks to suck. Turns out it was a trap, this lady is named Cipher (Charlize Theron) (A name that always means villain in any movie that features it), and she has something to blackmail Dom with. She needs him to run a mission, he can’t tell anyone, and yes, it will involve betraying his friends and loved ones to do it. But part of the film is learning about the mystery, so why would I tell you now?

We have a lot of returning characters, including: Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Tej (Ludacris), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Deckard (Jason Statham) and Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), Elena (Elsa Pataky) and Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). For some reason, no Brian, although he is mentioned a ton.

But also new characters! Mainly featuring Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood), underling of Mr. Nobody who is going to be geared towards our new Brian, Rhodes (Kristofer Hivju), Cipher’s main muscle, and Helen Mirren doing something or another.

Ending with Mirren is like popping out a secretive submarine out of nowhere, right car guys?!

What is it like to enjoy this movie? I truly cannot fathom it. It seems to be plagued with issues, from ridiculous character decisions, to plot points, to plot twists. I understand that not every character should be smart, but this group of people has now turned into an international task force that deals with apparently world ending problems, so they have to have some intelligence.

But instead we get a main character who says that ¨It doesn matter what is under the hood, but who is behind the wheel¨ before a street race. So when he is called out on that quote and given a shitty car, what does he do? A whole lot of quick modifications in order to change what is under the hood. Ah, thanks Dom, so it does matter, okay.

And that was just the beginning of the film, with the rest of the movie falling straight in line with those scenes.

We have a few mentions of Brian, but terrible reasons for not involving him. We have returning bad guys, meaning you actually have to remember the inane plots from previous films, and then watch as these bad guys gain sudden redeeming qualities and everything is fine again. We get a build up of a big fight, and it never gets to occur.

And again, we get poor decision after poor decision. In one of the above pictures we have all the cars driving in reverse to keep the middle car in place. Before that, they were just breaking to keep him stopped. But at this point in the film I had to scratch my head, wondering what their plan was going to be to actually stop him, because keeping him in place with a lot of moving tires is clearly not a good idea with no end goal. Before this scene we had a great idea with cars being hacked and forced to get in the way and block up traffic, but for whatever reason, that tactic had to be thrown out of the window for these scenes.

And you know what? The ending explosion and save rivals Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That might sound harsh, but it is true.

Some amusing banter aside, if you like superhero films where there power is driving and surviving explosions, while also having lower than average intelligence, you will enjoy The Fate of the Furious.

Hey, you hear about that Edward Snowden guy? He leaked a lot of USA secrets, namely what they were doing to the American people. Spying on everyone as part of the NSA.

Yeah! Big crazy stuff. And this patriot is now still living overseas in Russia, granted a temporary asylum. He is willing to come back to the USA if he would get a fair trial, but he knows he won’t and thus, a giant stalemate.

And if you watch the documentary Citizenfour, you will get the inside scoop of how he leaked the data to a few press markets and their plan for getting him out to safety. It is thrilling and great, which is why it was nominated for so many awards. Hell, it won best Documentary.

So this Snowden movie, off of its success, is meant to tell his story before the leak and a little bit after it. A regular biopic. But also, Oliver Stone directing, so you know a lot of shenanigans.

Computer shenanigans are some of my least favorite shenanigans.

Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a smart dude, worked for the USA, stole from the USA, and is about to be on the run. The USA didn’t know he stole from them until the leaks began to happen, but he was a paranoid sun of a gun who knew how to keep his tracks hidden and knew how to keep his profile low.

He tried to join the military in his youth, he really did. But he broke something during a drill and got booted out, with knowledge that his foot was frail and had a big potential for more ouchies. So he instead found himself getting a job with the intelligence agencies. Sure, he doesn’t even have a college degree, but he was self taught and really fucking good at computers.

So Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans) gave him a shot. They knew the next wars would be fought with computers, not nukes, and they had to make sure the USA had the biggest and best computers for when it all started.

But what drove Snowden to eventually stealing and spreading out the secrets? Did he get a moral code? Did he get beat up at school? Or was it his very liberal girlfriend (Shailene Woodley)?

Also starring Nicolas Cage, Scott Eastwood, Tom WIlkinson, Timothy Olyphant, Melissa Leo, and Zachary Quinto.

Her color choices make her look like a cartoon compared to Snowden.

Snowden is the most important thing to leave Elizabeth City, NC since the Wright Brothers left it to go to Kitty Hawk and learned to fly. And in a way, Snowden sort of taught us all to fly, didn’t he?

The problem with a biopic after a really good documentary is that it has to be really fucking good or else it won’t stand up to its predecessor. If they really want a biopic, they gotta come out before the documentary if they want a time in the sun. Just ask the movie Nina.

And in this case, this movie goes over so much the documentary does not, but still, it feels shallow in comparison. Honestly, who cares about them before? Unless Snowden also is the reason the spying happens, his life and story before the point are insignificant. The only part that’s that matter is how he got access and why he decided to tell the world.

So don’t see Snowden. Watch Citizenfour, get active in politics, do something. Don’t just continue to watch Oliver Stone movies and move on with your life.

Sparky spark sparks.

Nicholas Sparks. Famed romance novelist who writes a book and then immediately turns it around to also make a movie. A genius. Basically gets a movie a year!

Even better, these films don’t usually have crazy budget requirements. He really just needs two young fresh faces, maybe middle aged, depends on his story. Just needs some attractive people, a couple of flash backs, and a romance.

So now we have The Longest Ride. And don’t worry, I saw The Best of Me the day before, I just wanted this review to come out first because it was more relevant.

I went in seeing no trailer or a plot description. Just a hope that it was about a rodeo and not a road trip.

Rodeo confirmed! Excitement technically more than zero!

This isn’t just about the rodeo, this is about Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood), who is one of THE best bull riders out there, from a little old state called North Carolina. Well, Luke had a big fall, he couldn’t conquer the biggest baddest bull Rango [I have found out this bull is a real bull for bullriding competitions and actually was one of the best. I say was, because he passed away before the premiere of this film after 7 years]. Now, a year later, Luke is back in North Carolina and ready for his come back. He had to take quite a bit of time off, but he wants to get into that big championship tournament again, so he needs to get back to riding.

And while riding, this North Carolina boy meets this New Jersey girl, Sophia (Britt Robertson), who is about to finish up her degree at Wake Forest University. She falls for him, despite the fact that in 2 months she is moving up to NYC to start an internship as an art curator or something. Well, Luke, being a country boy from North Carolina trying to save his families farm, he wouldn’t get that art stuff. He is a farmer! Not an art-er!

Unrelated, they find a car crash one rainy night. In it is some old dude, Ira (Alan Alda) who has a special box, which unfortunately isn’t a surprise dildo collection, but instead, letters and shit. They were all to this Ruth (Oona Chaplin) chick. So we get a side story of his love with her during World War II, she an escapee from Italy, both of them Jewish. Super sweet I guess.

But yeah. North Carolina Rodeo boy! New Jersey art girl! How could they live and love? And what can they learn from that old dying man???

Also with Melissa Benoist randomly in another movie as sorority girl, Jack Huston as Ira in the past, and Lolita Davidovich as Luke’s momma.

I can never get over how much Scott Eastwood looks like his daddy.

Did I mention that Luke was a local boy, from North Carolina doing all this? Because the movie made sure you knew. Basically every time an announcer was talking about Luke, often multiple times in the same event, they would bring up his North Carolina-ness. I mean. It is a southern state. They have rodeos there too. They make it seem like he is the lone person to ever rodeo out of the place. As if it was a Hockey player from Kenya.

Lately, Sparks’ movies have tried to have more layers in them. I blame Dear John. Maybe it has always been a thing and I didn’t realize. But I guess he can’t write a simple romance anymore and just let it be a romance story. This one is plagued with flashbacks, in the form of the old guy/WW2 story. And it feels incredibly long and doesn’t add a lot to the story. Are parts of that plot line necessary? Sure. But to include so much and take us out of the romance promised to us, it felt annoying. This is the longest movie this guy has done too, so it really weighs on that parts feel cuttable. Especially when the side story seems to have its own side story included.

Parts of it are sloppy too. Some of these flashbacks are shown to us when character is reading a letter. However, thematically, these parts make little sense. If he is writing a letter to his lover, would its contents actually be a full on description of what they just did? Hell no. One letter he prefaces with the fact that the night was a great one. It was about their first kiss and dating. Yay. That same flashback letter also apparently included a long love montage and eventual engagement. Jeez. Some day indeed.

I just hate bad flashbacks. Later on they made sense because it was the old guy just telling a story to them. But fuck the early ones.

My other biggest issue is the actor who played young Ira. He looked nothing like Old Ira, he was painfully awkward on the screen, and sucked up the place. The lead lady had moments of weakness too. But flashback Ruth and modern Luke? They were pretty decent for the most part. I gotta stop talking about this, because I have almost hit 900 words. But overall it was okay, and its biggest weakness is Sparks’ trying to get too many layers in his stories. Sometimes simplicity can work.

Texas Chainsaw 3D? Fuck it, lets go.

Okay, so far not disappointed.

Like most of the movies after the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this one takes place after the first one and ignores the rest. Like, directly after the first. Didn’t see it? Well don’t worry, in the intro credits, you will see flashes of the first, a lot of the kill scenes, and the main heroine escaping covered in blood in a pick up truck.

Well she called the cops, and one Sheriff Hooper (Thom Barry) is the first on the scene. He convinces the family, who are fully stocked with ammo, to send out Leatherface (Dan Yeager) and he will get a fair trial. But then the townsfolk show up, lead by Burt Hartman (Paul Rae). They don’t give a fuck about the law right now, that family is fucked up and evil. So they torch the place and shoot it down. Everyone is dead, they are heroes!

Except one yokel finds a woman and his baby escaped to the barn. The baby is fine, but the woman is close to death. So he finishes her off and takes the baby as his own!

Twenty or so years later, Heather (Alexandra Daddario) is finding out she has a dead grandmother, even though she thought she was out of them already. AND THERE IS A WILL? IN TEXAS? WHAT?? She is adopted, whoa whoa whoa.

Good thing her friends were already going to New Orleans for a trip, so they are willing to stop by that small Texas town to sign the will papers and move on. This includes her boyfriend (Trey Songz), her slutty friend (Tania Raymonde from Lost), and her new boyfriend/friend of other guy (Keram Malicki-Sanchez). Heck, they even pick up a friendly hitch hiker Darryl (Shaun Sipos) who pays for gas and food and everything! What can go wrong!

Oh shit, free house? Hells yeah. It is a mansion. But is she really the last of her original family alive still? Will she find the truth about the incident all those years ago? Will bitches be killed by chainsaws? How about that cute new cop Carl (Scott Eastwood)? What is his deal? MORE QUESTIONS?

If the movie can exploit T&A then so can Gorgon Reviews.

I feel like going the PRO/CON list.
PROS:
The movie ties itself into the original movie, and ignores the previous fails, nice.
Alex Daddario and Tania Raymonde are hot.
I really would not have expected the ending or the second half plot of the movie. Trailer did a nice job of leaving a lot of surprise.
It is a bit humorous at parts, the death scenes never feel scary. Hard to really make a straight scary one of these movies now a days.

CONS:
Gratuitous teasing. No nakedness in this film, just a lot of closeness. Come on people, an R rated slasher flick, someone needs to get naked. It’s a rule.
3D was bad, very bad. Had no real purpose, was pretty shitty. Not Silent Hill: Revelation shitty, but close.
Bad acting throughout.
Questionable main character motives. At the end of the movie, the main characters decision doesn’t make a lot of sense. Her friends are dead and killed! Why would she do /that/? Come on now.

Despite that, I still think the movie was average and not just a shit storm. Definitely had some entertaining moments, and it really doesn’t take that long to get into the killing.