Tag: Thomas Mann

I was wrong! Recently I released reviews for all of the Disney remakes this year (2019 for you future folk), all together instead of spaced out throughout the week. It was Dumbo, The Lion King, and Aladdin.

Silly me, it looked like only three remakes would occur from Disney in this year. But as Yoda says, there is another.

Lady and the Tramp was probably meant to go to theaters at some point, but they realized it didn´t have as big of a draw as other remakes, and instead decided to just put it out on Disney+ as an opening day movie.

Heck, I saw it up there and for some days just assumed that it was a TV series. Well its out, and here is a damn rushed review.

Aww, look at the little puppy. Someone pet her right now!

Jim Dear (Thomas Mann) and Darling (Kiersey Clemons) are an American rich couple living in a nice house/city in the early 1900´s. If I had to guess, I´d say 1920´s or 30´s based on the cars at the time, and no talk of war. No one finds this weird, so let us move on! They also recently got a puppy that they named Lady (Tessa Thompson).

Well Lady has lived a privileged life, hanging with her neighbor dogs (Sam Elliott, Ashley Jensen), getting collars, and nice food. But her owners are pregnant and a baby is on the way. A scrappy dog named Tramp (Justin Theroux) warns her that babies mean bad news for doggies.

Sure enough, it does, because the owners are overwhelmed. Thanks to a trip and some cats and some confusion, Lady finds herself collar-less, and in the big city, having to rely on Tramp to save her from the dogcatcher (Adrian Martinez). This is also where she will learn that even the scrappiest of dogs have good hearts. Just not cats, they suck.

Also starring Yvette Nicole Brown, and the voices of Janelle Monae and Benedict Wong.

Let´s face it, this is the only reason you are here. 

In the original Lady and the Tramp, not a lot happens. It is a product of its time, no one is really too evil. We have a dog catcher, some cats, and a rat. And that is very much true here as well.

There are not many changes from the source material. Jock is now voiced by a woman, whatever. The couple is interracial and the town very diverse, really weird for the time, but again, whatever. They changed the Siamese cats, which makes sense, to two regular cats and they have a very different song. If they had to change one thing, that is the big one. Oh, and there is no Beaver.

So what we have is basically just a regular remake. Nothing fundamentally different, nothing new to offer, just showing it in a new way. And honestly, it looks really great. The CGI pets are all really well done, and the voice acting is not as jarring as it was for The Lion King.

The spaghetti scene was cute and the songs were fine.

I am giving this movie an average review, basically because of how nice it looks. It is not going to blow you away, it does not change the game, and it is not going to get an serious consideration for watching in my own household. But if they had to remake something and not completely make it worse, this is a good way to go about it.

I find it very odd to see a lot of hype for the movie Kong: Skull Island. King Kong has happened over and over in film’s history, and given everything I know about the internet, they hate reboots, reimaginings, and remakes of other films, so they shouldn’t care about this one.

But alas, here we are. I don’t have too many fucks to give about it of course, after King Kong 11 years ago. Overly long and it didn’t really do anything different.

I guess this one is bringing in some hardcore CGI and bigger acting names. Maybe that is it. Or people are freaking out over the potential of a Godzilla and Kong showdown in the future. Needless to say, if this film doesn’t do anything different, I will probably be mostly annoyed.

I don’t care about context, these two people are not dirty enough.

Kong: Skull Island makes sure you get to see a giant ape really early in the film, when two crashed World War II pilots land on the island, start to fight, and then he shows up. But this isn’t set during that war, this is actually set in 1973, during the end of the Vietnam war.

Bill Randa (John Goodman) is some sort of scientist, who believes there is a lot to discover on this skull island they have found in the South Pacific. Ancient civilizations have talked about it, there are constant storms that surround it, but he wants a mission to explore what has never been explored. Let’s call it a geologic mapping mission. With a military escort.

He is able to gather a team. He has his own crew, a geologist (Corey Hawkins) and a biologist (Tian Jing), along with some extra scientists from another company (John Ortiz, Marc Evan Jackson). They have a legendary British explorer to help explore the jungles, James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), who is in it for some money. A prize winning photojournalist, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), who helped show the truth about Vietnam to the public. And of course a helicopter team lead by LTC Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and Captain Jack Chapman (Toby Kebbell), straight out of ‘Nam.

Most of them assume it is just a real exploratory mission. But really, Randa has an agenda and believes to be giant monsters on this island, and he wants to bring an end to them. They’ve got weapons of many sizes. Unfortunately, when setting off seismic blasts to detect the crust, they wake up these beasts on the island, and they do not like having explosions all over the place. Spread out over the island, the crew has three days to make it to the north side before they can be rescued.

Also featuring John C. Reilly, and a whole lot of soldiers: Jason Mitchell, Shea Whigham, Thomas Mann, and Eugene Cordero.

Turns out this Kong film has a lot of Japanese influence.

At its heart, Kong: Skull Island is an action adventure flick that wants to show us giant animals fighting some dudes with bombs. Which on its own could be enough for most of the people who want to see it. I will say there are some scenes that look a bit awkward based on CGI usage. It doesn’t always mesh well. But the more pure CGI scenes like Kong fighting with the giant lizards look amazing.

The film also doesn’t pussy foot around Kong. We get to see him in the first few minutes. Within 15 more we are on the island and Kong totally fucks up the helicopters putting our characters in a perilous situation. We get a lot of Kong and they don’t tease him out.

You know what we don’t get a lot of? Character development. Basically every character in this movie is weak on that level. There is no gain. They don’t change. Well, some of them die. We have exactly one character who people will care about and does change and that man is played by John C. Reilly. His character is wonderful, an amazing addition to the film, and worthy of praise.

But Kong: Skull Island is just going to be a interesting film that could have been a lot better. With its post credit scene trying its best to imitate The Avengers it leaves some hope for the future. But have to hope they improve the scripts first.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was one of the coolest and scariest things I ever heard about, when I learned about it as a freshman in college. I don’t even remember in what class it was brought up, but the real life experiment was so fascinating I remember running home to wiki all I could about it. After all, doing my own research outside of Wikipedia seemed silly.

Hearing about it lead to hearing about all the creepy things people ended up doing in the name of psychology, before jerky standards were set in place. So now things like TSPE cannot take place for scientific knowledge, because you know, humans and shit. So instead of crazier and more ridiculous experiments, this is one of the top tier ones and I guess it will stay that way.

And although they can’t recreate this one for science, they sure can recreate it for film and TV. They did it in season 3 of Veronica Mars, they had that movie five years ago called The Experiment, and more!

But now, this film is about the entire enchilada. Nut just the test itself. But also the people behind it and what occurred before and after, for realsies, in Stanford.

How do you know someone went to Stanford? Don’t worry, they will probably …err, not talk about this.

In 1971, hair was everywhere and government oversight was only a legend. The 60’s were dead, so it was time to get serious. Dr. Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) was a professor who wanted to simulate a prison in their own building. They would do it over the summer when not many students were around and offer to pay people $15 a day to participate in a two week experiment. After extensive interviews to make sure people weren’t crazy, they narrowed down the group of men and used a coin flip to determine who would be the prisoner and who would be the guards.

Zimbardo and his crew (Gaius Charles, Olivia Thirlby, and more), along with Jesse Fletcher (Nelsan Ellis), a guy he knew who went to prison to help “legitimize” the experiment, would monitor the halls 24/7. The men are kept to a strict contract, where the guards are in charge, the prisoners have very few rights, and there is to be no physical violence of any sort.

So the prisoners get brought in my volunteer police to arrest them at their homes to make it feel a bit real. They have to get naked, cleaned, and put into prison uniforms (which are closer to dresses to help break them down), and put into their cells. The guards try to break their humanity right away in order to maintain order and make it feel a bit more serious. The prisoners are referred to as their numbers not their names. They don’t get a lot of sleep. They are forced into exercise and other mental punishments, since they can’t just get beaten down.

And the prisoners break. They break quickly. Mentally and physically. It becomes quickly a torture job, as suddenly, the people who identify as guards feel they have to be mean and the prisoners feel like they are worthless.

And of course, even more dramatic and scary shit.

Some of the guards are played by Nicholas Braun, Moises Arias, and Michael Angarano, who plays the “worst” guard and calls himself John Wayne. He knows how to push buttons.

A lot more of the prisoners matter, and they are sort of led by Ezra Miller and Tye Sheridan. Other prisoners who play big roles include Johnny Simmons, Logan Miller, Ki Hong Lee, and Thomas Mann who joins later to fill in a spot after a prisoner has to leave.

Everything about this movie is real. Including the facial hair.

Want to see a bunch of male youths devolve into their primal forms and do bad things, but not on an island? Then this movie might be for you!

The filmmakers did an excellent job of really driving home the moments when people began to break under pressure. It is one thing to know that the prisoners were referred to as numbers, constantly having their number drilled into their head, and long amounts of time spent sounding off their number until the guards were satisfied. But it is another thing to see it happen. These, for lack of a better word, mental torture scenes are long, loud, and constant. Major props to everyone involved for making me feel sick to my stomach that things like this could have even happened.

From the prisoners, over half of the prison cast seemed to play an important role. There might have been 2-3 people who were just also there, but every single one of them had a personality that presumably matched reality and a lot of them got focus. We were able to see almost every single one of them break and lose any sense of hope. Seeing that is disgusting, but by golly, is it some fine acting.

For the most part, the guards were just lead by Angarano’s fine acting. Angarano has to play a person playing a role, not just some mean dude. It is sadistic and cruel, but surprisingly not physical. No, other guards devolve into physicality. He is just a mind fucker.

This can be a hard watch, but a good one if you want to learn some crazy shit about human nature, while also watching a lot of young new talented actors in the same film.

If there is one thing I like talking about on this website, it is me. Yes, movies too, sure, whatever. But I am far more important, because a review has to give his/her thoughts on the movie, and knowing how they felt on previous films of that nature is the only way to know if you are compatible with that reviewer. Not only that, but you should know how they feel about other topics too. Like sharks. Or potatoes. Or that bitch Sally from the sixth grade.

You should know everything about that person, even their deepest and darkest secrets. The movie isn’t important, it is clearly whoever does the talking.

So a movie called Welcome To Me just makes sense to me. That is what the website is secretly about. Me me me me me me.

And swan rides.

Alice Klieg (Kristen Wiig) has borderline personality disorder. That is very serious and not a joke, although it can lead her to doing weird things. She is living on government benefits, is very selfish, always has a TV on in her home (for infomercials and Oprah!), and spends a lot of money on the lottery. She even has only one real friend, Gina (Linda Cardellini), despite her quirks. Then Alice wins about 86 million dollars in the lottery.

Well shit yeah. Time to go live in a casino and do whatever she feels like! Like stop taking her meds despite her doctor (Tim Robbins) strongly discouraging the act. She is a bit peeved her planned speech was cut off on the air after winning due to talking about masturbation, so she goes to hijack one of the late night shows hosted by Gabe (Wes Bentley), who sells weird shit. They think she is nuts and cut her off too. But she is rich now. So after a long discussion, with their company losing tons of cash, the main owner Rich Ruskn (James Marsden) allows her to have 100 two hour long episodes of a TV show she calls Welcome To Me, since she is paying for all the costs up front.

And what we really get is a terrible show, where she cooks food, talks about whatever is on her mind, and has reenactments of past events in her child hood in order to get back at mean people. Don’t worry, this is not at all like Holy Man.

Also featuring Joan Cusack, Alan Tudyk, Thomas Mann, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Like all recent action movies, orange and blue also feature heavily in this film.

First thing of note, this movie does not make fun of people who actually have borderline personality disorder. That would be mean and awkward and not something that happens a lot nowadays. I think. No, this movie instead shows the reality of the disease, which can put people in weird situations. Yes it is a comedy, but you best believe it is also a drama. There are many melt downs where Alice’s character loses it and does the unthinkable. During these Wiig shows herself to be a gifted actor.

Any comedian could be completely exaggerated in their roles to make fun of a serious condition, but for Wiig in the film it all feels so real and natural. She gives the role proper care and restraint. She is also completely 100% full frontal naked in this movie too. So you know it is a serious role for her, and not some throwaway straight to DVD quick cash job.

I thought the movie had a nice balance of drama/comedy. The comedy in the film isn’t the type that will make you laugh every second, but it is still quite amusing at points.

Overall, this movie won’t be enjoyable for everyone. Just make sure you are in a weird mood before hand and it might surprise you.

My first introduction to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was described as “Like, The Fault In Our Stars, but better!”

Well, shit. Because I liked The Fault In Our Stars. It felt realistic, well acted, was surprising, and of course I cried. So I guessed this one was another teenage romance about dying kid(s). Or at least, this time the girl is the sick one. And judging by the actress, I can guess her fate since she seems to be type casted.

Regardless, this movie has an excellent title. It has a nice flow to it. So that gets my loins revved up regardless of any other factors. BRING ON THE DEAD TEENAGERS.

I meant literally dead. Not bored brain dead.

The titular character here is Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) and he is a senior in high school. He is your typical high school movie loaner. You know, under the radar, tries to please everyone yet stay invisible. His best “friend” is Earl (RJ Cyler). Very similar despite their different upbringings. They like old classic films, are generally weird/antisocial, and have secret parody films of classics that they make together.

Nerd alertttttttttt.

And then there is Rachel (Olivia Cooke), the dying girl. She has leukemia now, and leukemia generally sucks. Greg and Rachel were never really friends, but their moms are, and Greg’s mom has DEMANDED that he hang out with Rachel and make her feel better.

Kind of awkward. Making someone hang out with a person just because they have got the cancer. But he has to do it. And this is the story of Greg, Earl, and a Dying Girl.

Don’t worry! There are more than just those three characters. After all, Greg has TWO parents (Nick Offerman, Connie Britton), and DyingGirl has a mom (Molly Shannon). There are other school kids, like Ill Phil the Drug Dealer (Masam Holden), Scott Mayhew (Matt Bennett) leader of the Emo kids, and Madison (Katherine C. Hughes) a hot girl whom Greg tends to get nervous over.

And everyone’s most hated actor from The Walking Dead, Jon Bernthal, plays the history teacher that everybody loves.

Fuck, that kid can’t smile in anything.

I guess the easiest way to describe this movie, after seeing it, is like The Fault In Our Stars, but better.

I kid. They are pretty different. They might fall under the same overall genre, but The Fault In Our Stars is clearly heavily romance based and this one is definitely closer to the discovery of friendship.

I cant even begin to describe all the things I liked about this movie, but I will attempt anyways because this is a review and that is the point of a review. Mann gives a great performance as the lead, his best yet. Cooke hasn’t been in a lot of films/shows, but she is usually decent and she gives a very raw performance here. This is the first real thing for Cyler and he was hilarious in this as well. But literally everyone is great in this movie. Every single person. Well acted all around, good unique characters, and a touching story.

But that’s not all! The cinematography in this film is great. So many well shot scenes, conveying emotion through just the character spacing alone. Because the two males love old movies, the parody films themselves are brilliant as well. It is clearly a movie that loves movies, and as a movie lover, your experience will be even more gratifying. And of course, my personal favorite, some long, one shot scenes with some intense arguments throughout.

At the end of everything, I think I am mostly surprised at how funny the whole thing ended up being. I laughed throughout, even just a bit during the very sad points. I love a good comedy. This is actually Mann’s second comedy/drama film dealing with intense subjects. I also suggest giving It’s Kind Of A Funny Story a chance.

Another day, another unknown straight to DVD movie release, where I recognize someone on the cover.

At least As Cool As I Am is a phrase that almost sounds like it could be said by a human being.

Almost.

This movie fits in with Cracked.com’s theory on the actor, unfortunately.

Actually, this movie is about a family that isn’t your normal family. You know, like most movies. Lucy (Sarah Bolger) likes being from an unusual family. Her mom, Lainee (Claire Danes) is mostly stay at home mom, until she gets a job as a telemarketer in this movie to ease her boredom. Her dad, Chuck(James Marsden), is a lumberjack, and gone weeks at at time, only able to come back for a week before going back on the road. He must make decent enough money for that type of commitment to be worth it, I guess.

Anyways, Lucy is becoming a young woman and wants to experiment with her sexuality a bit. She kisses a boy. She then kisses her best friend, Kenny (Thomas Mann) who kisses back.

Aw, they are now dating.

And the rest of this movie involves awkward situations between her and her friend, her and other friends as she starts to fit in amongst other boys, and the falling apart of her parent relationship. Then it ends!

You recognize the mom from Homeland. You are welcome.

Awkward teen relationships. That is basically the entire point of this movie. That is a lie, just a small part. The other small part is her own parents relationship and how it affects here. The rest of the parts are about nothing much at all.

About nothing much at all? That is right. I am having a hard time describing this movie just because overall, not a lot happened, and then it ended. Hmm. Some arguments, some sex, then end of a movie. If it was a much better movie, it could be the type that just ends and gets away with it, if there was powerful acting, or anything worthwile, but that isn’t this movie. It is just pointless, and I’d want my money back if it ended up costing me anything.

Ahhh…okay. I do like that it is another movie where James Marsden technically gets cheated on. Dude’s been typecasted in such a weird way.

Also, there was a theme in this review. Pretty easy to figure it out. Was also really easy to do.

Supernatural Teen Romance is a genre now, in case you missed it. Yes, it existed before Twilight, but Twilight really made it take off in a big way. I think it even has its own sections in book stores now. Unfortunately, that means everything will then be compared to Twilight if it has supernatural romance in it, which is of course silly. Twilight is a straight up Drama Romance, while something like Warm Bodies is a Comedy Romance (but not a RomCom).

Beautiful Creatures seems to fall somewhere in between the two.

Don’t be so scared guy, it is just a witch dinner.

This film takes place in Gatlin, South Carolina, which means two things – Southern Accents, and the Bible Belt. This town is the location of a small civil war battle, but that is the only thing it has to its name, so the town celebrates the reenactment every year. Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) loves to read and learn, separating him from most of the locals. Of course when a girl from a recluse family moves back to town, they all assume she is a devil worshiper and bad news.

Ethan doesn’t care, she reads books too, so she is perfect. Who cares if Lena (Alice Englert) actually ends up being a witch? A witch who doesn’t know if she will be good or evil until her 16th birthday, you know, when all female witches have it chosen for them, based on their “True self”. Why just the women and not men? Not sure, sexism probably. Can he handle a woman with powers, and her family (Uncle = Jeremy Irons, Cousin = Emmy Rossum, and mother) forcing her in different directions?

Also featuring Thomas Mann as normal best friend, Emma Thompson as his super religious mother, and Viola Davis as his guardian/librarian friend. After all, a story needs normal people in as well, or else we have nothing to make fun of!

I think he looks like an older Eddie Munster. Does that add to the supernatural feel?

Beautiful Creatures is of course based on the novel, and from what I can tell, if you like the novel, you might hate this movie! Like all great book to film transitions, things change, and frankly I don’t care how different it is from the book, because I like what I saw.

The main two leads are relatively new to the movie scene and I haven’t seen them in anything personally, but I loved them both. Alden made me laugh almost every time he talked, and not just because of his strong accent combined with “smart people” words. Alice and Alden had great chemistry together, and despite being a quick teen romance, I found it believable.

The movie had its issues of course, sometimes it felt like it had B-movie special effects, and it definitely was predictable at parts. I am confused at why they cast Kyle Gallner as the brother, who looks far too much like Robert Pattinson. That is just asking for more Twilight comparisons.

More impressively, the “dinner scene” was done almost entirely without CGI, a rarity in movies these days, and pretty dang impressive in general. I say give it a chance, and try not to get lost in the paper thin religious towns people.

One of the advertisements for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters basically said “a classic tale with a darker twist!”.

Fuck that. Hansel & Gretel is one of the darkest fairy tales out there. Parents abandon their kids in the wood because they are too poor to eat. Only have some bread. They go to a house, made of candy. They get all excited. Oh no, locks and chains, girl forced to be a slave, boy force to eat. Witch is going to cook and eat the child, but they fuck up her shit and lock her in the oven in an escape. That is dark. I don’t think you can go too darker than that.

But I will say this tale probably has more foul language, nakedness, and blood.

Not to mention 325% more explosions!

For whatever reason, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) are immune to witch magic. With great immunities come great responsibilities, I think the saying goes. So they were orphaned in by a local town, as they were now heroes, and kind of just started killing all the witches. Unfortunately Hansel also developed super diabetes from all that candy. If he doesn’t get a shot of (somethingvague) every (someamountoftime) he will fall to the ground and die quickly! All that candy, damn.

They get brought into a new town by the mayor, because 11 or so children have been kidnapped recently and they don’t know by who! The Sheriff (Peter Stormare) doesn’t like the idea of other people doing this in his town, but since he was about to kill Mina (Pihla Viitala), wrongfully accusing her of witchcraft, they really really needed to step in. Also, money.

Eventually they find out that a blood moon is happening soon, and a lot of witches are going to convene for some sort of special ceremony, lead by grand witch Muriel (Famke Janssen). Shit. That is a lot of witches. And you know what they say, witches dig ditches. Okay, no one says that.

Also featuring Thomas Mann as their crazy obsessed super fan and Derek Mears as Edward the Troll.

I am not sure if attached to the back is as effective as they would have hoped it to be.

Whoa H&G, where did this come from? Not only are you rated R, it is a hard R. I was joking on the nakedness, but it is there. Fbombs a plenty, and the death scenes are pretty dang gruesome, for witch and human alike. The blood looks fake as crap, but there is a lot of it, and there is a lot of murder. I was a bit surprised.

In case you are curious, I doubt there is any real difference between 3D and 2D, so save the money in difference.

The movie was less than 90 minutes in length, and it did feel pretty rushed to me. I think they could have explained certain things better. Just because something is called a White Witch, doesn’t mean I should have to think of it as a good witch. Specific lineage plot points were also a bit strange to me, but I don’t know a thing about this world’s genetics, since they didn’t tell me.

In terms of entertainment, the fight scenes are pretty good. The acting from secondary people not as much. Also, H&G seem to make pretty crappy witch hunters. You don’t see a single hunt of theirs that actually works as planned or goes well. Yes, they always survive, but come on, prep better. I don’t want my heroes to barely survive every bout, you gotta be able to take these witches down.

Just when you thought we were done with Halloween movies, I pull a fast one on you. Fun Size is a barely advertised kids movie about the wonders of Halloween. It deals with teen problems like choosing a college, losing a parent, having weird siblings, and just trying to get some.

Get some what? You know what.

Dorothy and a Cat. Basically the two easiest costumes for Halloween.

Wren (Victoria Justice) is a high school senior who lives in Ohio. Her dad passed away last year, and her family has never been the same. Her mom (Chelsea Handler) is looking for love in younger men, and her younger brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll) hasn’t spoken a word since the incident.

But hey, it’s Halloween, the dad’s favorite holiday, so everyone is going to be a bit weird. Wren wanted to go party with her best friend, April (Jane Levy) at a cute boys house. A musician!  Wren doesn’t care that much, she is kind of nerdy, but April in their drive to stay cool has convinced her that he is the one for her!

Her other nerd friends too nerdy. Roosevelt (Thomas Mann), who has lesbian mothers, and Peng (Osric Chau) because he is Asian. But Wren’s horrible mother black mails her into watching Albert on Halloween, because that is the only way she will sign her financial aid forms to NYU. Unfortunately for Wren, Albert is a clever little devil and escapes on Halloween night to have his own shenanigans.

So she is forced to look for him with the nerds and April, while also figuring out what she wants to do in her life. Albert befriends a convenience store clerk named Fuzzy (Thomas Middleditch), who can talk enough for the both of them while he plans revenge on the man who ruined his last relationship.

(I apologize for the shitty image) but I think this movie might make the one armed Spider-Man a “thing”.

Yes, strange as it may seem, this was not the worst movie I have ever seen. When I saw it in the theater, I was the only one there. The only other time that happened was with Madea’s Witness Protection and usually it is a bad omen. But it was a made for kids, Nickelodeon movie, so I understood the target audience.

Sure, parts of it made me fill with rage at how bad everything was going. Yet there were still scenes I found enjoyable/funny. The acting isn’t great at all, most of the friend characters are all stereotypes. They do feature some character growth, but in an obvious way. You know how all the relationships will work out well in advance, and offers nothing new. But yet, it is charming in a way. Sure, the Albert character started out as annoying, but he really was the main reason this film could be considered average. I enjoyed his shenanigans with Thomas Middleditch, and how Thomas Mann’s character grew some balls by the end.

There might be an issue of loose morals going on with the movie, after all, it is Nickelodeon and it involves sex! But hey, kids need to grow up sometime. I actually don’t know a single person who I could recommend this movie too, but it is fun seeing Jane Levy in a role that is the complete opposite of her character in Suburgatory. The problem is I think the boring parts outweighed the interesting ones, and even though it isn’t terrible, it still isn’t that good either.

Project X, oh no, another hand held camera movie.

Oh noooooooooooooo.

Just kidding, I don’t care. It is not a “found footage” of the events after the fact. It is just a style to make it seem more realistic. They also used some camera footage from other party goers, and the news report, sure, but outside of that? Mostly just the one camera man.

The heroes of our story. Everyone loves them!

All of these characters have the same first name as their real name, so why not assume they share last names too? Thomas Mann is about to be a real man, by US standards, not Jewish ones. He is turning 18 AND his parents are leaving him for the weekend. What?! He is a good kid. They trust him. No way he ruins the trust. Just a few friends can come over, he can borrow the van, but not the good car, simple enough.

His friends are dedicated to making it special, especially Oliver Cooper, his friend with “connections”. He knows where to get drugs, how to spread the word and get hotties to come. Allegedly. Him and Jonathan Daniel Brown are doing it mainly to get laid, of course, and get their friend laid. Pretty much the reason why teens do anything.

But who is behind the camera? Some AV club emo dude, Dax Flame. Don’t worry about him. Also there is another member of their gang, Kirby Bliss Blanton, but she is a girl, and therefore isn’t as important. Minus the fact that she might like Thomas.

But they got this thing ready. Drugs, alcohol, DJs, signage, and security, by two younger guys Brady Hender and Nick Nervies. Heck, they even think Miles Teller is going to be there, a local college superstar, and that means the possibility of college chicks.

Needless to say, the party grows to unexpected proportions. The party goes inside, extra drugs are found, older people show up, police can’t do shit, neighbors are mad, midgets in the oven, naked legal chicks, pool party, and a day that they will remember forever. For all the wrong reasons.

Just a little bit out of hand.

So against all expectations, this movie kept me entertained basically the whole time I was watching it. Which was a problem because I was trying to pack up some things at the same time. Very little packing got done.

It is hard to explain the appeal of this movie to me. The plot is just about a party that gets really fucking crazy. And I was almost scared at what would happen. Everything kept getting worse and worse, and it was clear there was no turning back or saving these people from the ramifications. And it was intense.

It is pretty obvious what this movie is about, and expectations should match that for an appropriate experience.