Tag: Wendell Pierce

Bad Moms thankfully came out the week before or during my vacation in the summer. A glorious time where I missed, frankly, a lot of terrible movies.

I am judging Bad Moms not just by its cover, but by the actresses picked, the trailer, and the marketing they went through. I read it was originally going to involve Judd Apatow and star Leslie Mann instead, and that made the previews make a lot more sense. It looks like a movie he would make about this subject, if it was more dramatic and had an additional 45 minutes or so.

But to come out with this film, with the lame title, the same year Dirty Grandpa [Editor’s Note: This made more sense when I said Bad Grandpa, but that was years ago. I am too lazy to change this joke]? As Bad Santa 2? Come on, we all know 2016 sucked, but was it really necessary to make so many bad films?

The worst thing a mom can do is drink when her children are 12 years past breastfeeding, don’t cha know.

Amy (Mila Kunis) is a hard working mother. She makes breakfast, she works extra hours at her part time job, she comes home and makes dinner, she volunteers with the PTA, she takes her kids (Oona Laurence, Emjay Anthony) to after school activities and helps with all of their projects. Her husband (David Walton) has a relatively easy job, but it brings in the money. Except he doesn’t help with all of the extra stuff, leaving it all on her.

And then she finds him jerking it to a cam model, live, and he has been doing it for 10 months now. So she wants a break. She kicks him out and goes out drinking. She meets Carla (Kathryn Hahn), another single mom (with a much older kid) and they have a blast. They eventually gain Kiki (Kristen Bell) as well after Amy defies the PTA president (Christina Applegate) in front of the entire PTA. Kiki is even more overstressed and needs to have fun.

So you know, they go and have more fun. They make their kids make breakfast, do their own work and start focusing on themselves more. I know, very bad moms indeed. And when the PTA president gets angry at Amy’s kids for defying her, Amy decides she is going to run against her and promise a whole lot less work.

Also featuring Jay Hernandez as a single dad who Amy likes. And J.J. Watt as a soccer coach. And Wanda Sykes, Jada Pinkett Smith, Wendell Pierce, and Clark Duke.

Bad moms apparently are real big jerks in grocery stores.

Damn it, here I am, spending my time, trying to watch what might be the worst of the worst in 2016, and then I find myself wasting time with Bad Moms. Because Bad Moms isn’t the worst of the worst. Is it great? Hell no. But it isn’t downright terrible either.

Yes, I am disappointed that I didn’t hate it more, but it had a handful of amusing moments. Sure, Hahn’s character was just terrible. Bell has done better way before. And Kunis never feels believable in this role. Technically the best person in their role might be Applegate as the stuck up, stereotypical, PTA President. Which is a weird place to see her career at the moment.

Bad Moms is full of wish fulfillment, and of course the message that moms matter too, so they should have fun more and let their kids grow up without them always holding their hands. And that dads should be involved. A fine message, but something that feels like it doesn’t need to be said at this point in human history. Maybe 30-40 years ago.

It is jam packed with the latest party tunes, to date this movie further in a few years. There are several party montage scenes, at the bar, at the grocery store, and a much longer one of mostly average looking middle aged women partying like a college party. And that almost seems to be the entire point of the film.

Bad Moms isn’t terrible, it just is far from a great or even a good or okay movie. Better casting and better jokes would have went a long way with this film.

I’ll be honest, when I first heard of the movie Selma, I had no idea what it was about.

When I found out it was a pseudo-biographical film about a moment in MLK’s life? I assumed Selma was his wife.

Nopers, I was way wrong. Selma is actually a city in Alabama! Yeah, who knew? Not only that, but it was a huge staging ground for civil rights in the mid 1960s, and it had nothing to do with sit-ins, busses, or fire hoses. That is pretty exciting on my part, because that means I will actually learn something new instead of the same few tales they teach us about in school. As it deals with race relations, it will probably end up being topical too in some way.

Not sure how, but I am sure someway it could be topical. Hmmmm.

Martin (David Oyelowo) (We are on cool enough terms for me to just use his first name) had just received his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, but he wasn’t done yet. This was after his I Have A Dream speech. There was a big issue with Jim Crow laws in the south. Sure, technically, everyone now had the right to vote. But people were getting in the way of that.

Poll taxes, literacy tests, inconvenient hours, and rude as shit clerks made things like that hard. Not to mention the general threat of violence for those who might attempt if they were black. Martin wanted LBJ (Tom Wilkinson) to make fixing this issue a priority, but LBJ wouldn’t have it. He had other issues like poverty he wanted to work on. So Martin and his comrades (Common, Andre Holland, Wendell Pierce and more!) found the staging grounds for their next battle in Selma, Alabama.

A student group (Stephan James, Trai Byers) was already working there, building up community support, and of all the registered votes, only 1% were black despite about equal numbers. It was a great battleground. Even had a super racist sheriff (Stan Houston)! Martin just also has family issues with his wife (Carmen Ejogo) while all this is going down, so, pretty intense stuff.

Oh and a whole lot of people are in here as smaller or villainous roles as cameos. We have Tim Roth, Giovanni Ribisi, Cuba Gooding Jr., Martin Sheen, Dylan Baker, and Oprah Winfrey.

People walked a lot more back then, just a matter of fact.

Thinking back on it, I don’t think I have ever seen a high quality film about MLK and his life. He has appeared in other movies I have seen, like Nelsan Ellis last year in The Butler. But filmmakers seem to be afraid of his life, despite clearly being a popular figure. I wonder if people are afraid of doing him badly and not living up to his larger than life persona?

Well, if they were afraid in this movie they shouldn’t be. David Oyelowo did an INCREDIBLE performance. His walk, his talk, his power, he had it all. His looks weren’t perfect, but man were they believable. And when he did his speeches or sermons in this movie? Yeah, his voice carried it hardcore, and not in the same stereotypical way people normally do Martin’s voice. It had its own uniqueness and similarity that made it seem just as awe inspiring and just as real. Shit, the final speech he gave? I was almost certain it was an actual recording instead of Oyelowo, but I was wrong. It almost made me tear up.

My only issues with the film is that despite its superduper lead, the supporting cast didn’t seem to catch up with him. I think this is the worst ever portrayal of J. Edgar I have ever seen. Out of no where it all seemed more comical instead of serious. Roth was awkward as the evil Governor and he also felt quite cartoonish. I couldn’t take these guys seriously, limiting the seriousness of the film.

I learned a shit ton about the subject though and it is an incredible story, even if certain aspects are fabricated. A very nice watch to learn about a very overlooked yet important event in American history. And damn Oyelowo. You good, you good.

I miss sexy movie titles. Just a last name (or even a full name) are boring titles. They don’t even say anything about the movie unless you already know the character they are based on. Parker is actually not the first time this character has been in film. At least five other movies have featured Parker as the main character, based around the crime novels by Donald Westlake/Richard Stark, but most of them at least have interesting titles.

On an unrelated note, I am a little bit interested in the movie Bullet To The Head.” I bet you can figure out why.

Because Stallone wont be attempting to be a British man faking a Texas accent.

Parker (Jason Statham) is just your ordinary crook with a few simple rules. Don’t hurt anyone innocent, don’t steal from those who can’t afford it. That usually means organizations with insurance, and the money goes to himself, so don’t consider him a Robin Hood character. His girlfriend (Emma Booth) knows all about it, because her father (Nick Nolte) is an ex partner of his, who now just sets up criminals for bigger scores.

Which of course he does with Parker and another group of guys. Robbing the Ohio State Fair, a score of about a million dollars, $200k each. Pretty solid. But it turns out the other four members of the crew (Michael Chiklis, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins Jr., Micah A. Hauptman) have their eyes set on a bigger prize. Another job for five people, worth millions, but they need some start up cash first, all of what they just got.

Well, they are vague, Parker says no, they try to kill him and run away. But of course he doesn’t die. That would be a sad and short movie. So he creates a new identity, and heads off to West Palm Beach to stop the guys who tried to kill them by killing them first, and of course getting his money back. Shouldn’t be too hard. After all, Jennifer Lopez plays a real estate workers strapped for cash, being chased romantically by a local cop (Bobby Cannavale). Parker basically has his own small army with J-Lo!

Too bad it will take at least 3 small armies to remove his grimace.

The previews for Parker make it seem like a giant revenge action flick. A crime occurs, guy gets wronged, he goes back for vengeance. If anything, it was the exact opposite. Yes, the heist goes off and he gets wronged, but he doesn’t start killing all the people involved on a warpath. No, he has to plan it all first. Here is where my brain starts to get all weird.

I like that it is planned, that the movie looks before leaping and sets everything up first. That way we get to see how smart our main character is! Smart and his great ability to survive despite all these injuries. But then it became too detailed, and a little bit boring. Honestly, after the two hour movie, I had felt like I was in the theater for four hours. It is hard to describe, but things definitely go way too slow.

It didn’t help that watching every little step of his recovery/run/planning made me  hate the Parker character. Apparently Parker hates people who break his rules and his creed! Well, so much for the stealing only from those who can afford it. It was almost comical, watching him steal car after car, location to location, without actually knowing anything about the owners of any of them. His creed didn’t mean a dang thing when it actually mattered.

His actions ruin the image of the charismatic thief for me, just a bit. Compiled with the snail crawl of the film makes it hard to recommend to anyone.