Tag: Zac Efron

Ricky Stanicky was watched early as a screener. It comes out on Amazon Prime on Friday, March 8th.

Dean (Zac Efron), JT (Andrew Santino), and Wes (Jermaine Fowler), are best friends, and have been since they were little kids. You know, when they went to burn some dog shit on someone’s porch on Halloween. It was a mistake, and they were almost caught! But thankfully a fake name was written on the clothing, Ricky Stanicky, and the whole thing could be blamed on this other kid, who lived in another town.

Flash forward to many years later, and they’ve been blaming things on Ricky for decades now. It lets them hang out, go on trips, all with the excuse of Ricky, while avoiding their real responsibilities. You know. FAMILY. DATING. FAMILY. JOBS. Yuck.

But eventually their lies have caught up with them. And they need to produce Ricky, or else everything will crumble around them. So of course they hire some guy, Rod (John Cena), who sings covers of songs and turns them all into masturbation jokes, to play Ricky. Nothing will go wrong!

Also starring Anja Savcic, Jane Badler, Lex Scott Davis, and William H. Macy!

The cowboy hat is how you know he likes to party. And the screaming. 

Well, you already know how it ends. We all already know how it ends. It ends the same way all of these comedy films based on lies end. The people get found out, and admit it, and get a hard lesson. Sometimes that hard lesson is a life set for loneliness, like in Dear Evan Hansen. Sometimes they get everything they wanted despite the lie, because lessons learned. And none of them really feel like they are worth the after school special lesson.

The only thing that could save Ricky Stanicky, would be its humor and being funny throughout. But my goodness, did I not chuckle. It barely was a bleep on my radar. Over the top John Cena, does over the top things, and people have a good time because of it.

Honestly, this friend group had such low chemistry? All three of them. They did not mesh well. And this is not some strange situation where “Efron was good, the rest did not follow,” because no, Efron was also not good. He was probably in his least charismatic role I have ever seen him. I cared not for any of their characters, and that made this movie harder to sit through.

This is a straight to the internet comedy for a reason. And that reason is, because you have already seen it.

Oh hey, remember how everyone wanted a new Scooby Doo movie? Nah.

Okay, that is fair, we don’t have to ask for a movie to come out to get one. Sometimes the studios know what is up. For example, I bet people did ask for a live action Scooby-Doo movie in the late 90’s early 2000’s, and what it gave was a really cheesy strange story, with adult jokes, some obvious some not. And honestly, it sort of filled a really good niche back then. Go figure.

So even though this animated version is going full CGI, and is dealing apparently with the childhood beginnings of the gang (ehhh), as long as we got mysteries to solve and people in masks, it shouldn’t be too hard to make it work. Unless they decide to go for the “monsters are real” gag, which basically every Scooby Doo entity has been doing for the last 20 years, so it is kind of getting annoying. Please, give us weird people in masks.

Remember, if a movie has an exclamation point, it should be a musical. Scoob! should be a musical. 

Ah yes, origin stories, like a superhero movie.

Alright, here we go! Shaggy (Will Forte) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) meet on the beach when they were younger. Shaggy needed friends. Scooby-Doo needed a home.

Later on, at Halloween, some bullies mess with the duo, and some other kids help the two out! Their names are Fred (Zac Efron), Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), and Velma (Gina Rodriguez). Also right after that, they end up solving a mystery of a lot of stolen goods that no one even knew was a thing! They just had to meddle.

Alright, years later, many mysteries, they want to expand their operations. Their Mystery Machine needs work, so they want bigger clients, and higher paying jobs to become a success. And then they bring in Simon Cowell for some reason, who barely insults Shaggy and Scooby who leave as a result.

The other friends don’t go and stop them, so eventually, Shaggy and Scooby get attacked by robots. And then abducted by aliens? Nah, it is actually Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg), Dynomutt (Ken Jeong), and their assistant, Dee Dee Skyes (Kiersey Clemons). They know that Scooby-Doo is important for something. Because Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs) is looking for him and some ancient skulls, to maybe summon dog Cerebus from the underworld. Ah yes, real mythical monsters.

Also starring Christina Hendricks and Tracy Morgan.

What nice chairs. And I feel like a hater not showing Daphne/Velma/Fred.

It is really early on in the film when you realize this is not going to be something you want to see again, and for a lot of people, that is when Simon Cowell appears. But before that, I will acknowledge they did a version of the original intro. It was okay in the singing department, really basic, but they did recreate parts of the intro and use it as a montage of solving some mysteries. That was nice.

That was also where most of the Scooby-Doo action remained. The kid mystery was very awkward, because when a ghost appeared in the house they already had their goal completed. They could have just…left, like any normal person. Having this long run through the place and eventual capture of the ghost to find it was a masked person didn’t even make sense. 

But let’s get back to Cowell. This movie came out in 2020, why the hell is Cowell in this movie. This is not 2004. Kids for the most part won’t understand that at all.

In terms of how Scooby-Doo this movie is, it is Scooby-Not. Most of the time the gang is split up (which happens a lot sure, but not to this scale). This is a superhero movie. It is about Blue Falcon, and Scooby-Doo wanting to feel more special. It has a real monster and issue to deal with, and…it is just a mess.

A lot of the voice acting felt off. I especially did not like Jeong as Dynomutt, because it just sounded like Ken Jeong, not a robot dog. 

It was a boring film for the most part, with some other Hanna Barbera properties thrown in for fun. It is really easy to see where the movie is going, where the conflicts will appear, and what will happen at the end. It is such a waste of a nice property. It felt like something they would try as a third or fourth film of a reboot, not right away. This was barely Scooby-Doo. Focus on the basics first.

And obviously it wasn’t a musical, but it did have a lot of modern music because that is easier to get the kids to love it. 

When you claim to watch bad movies so others don’t have to, you often get asked if you have seen certain bad movies. I would say the film I have been asked about the most by a landslide would be Cube. Because I like shit like that, and math. Didn’t see that coming did you? Well I’ve seen Cube now and the first sequel.

The movie most requested after that would easily be The Room, something I didn’t rush out to see. I saw the “best scenes” compilation on YouTube and just put that in a “one day” bucket. Then The Disaster Artist has to go and not only come out but receive awards nominations. shit. That meant I HAD to watch The Room finally. I couldn’t go in blind. What’s the point?

So I saw it still slightly reluctantly. Powered through. I get the appeal but I still won’t see it again. And hey now I can watch others talk about it!

Just not in the goddamn theater, that’d be rude.

Sometime in the late 1990’s, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) was a struggling young adult. He thought about being a famous actor one day, and he was even taking acting lessons. He just wasn’t any good. At all. At. All. Nothing helped, he didn’t display any emotion, it was a lost cause. But in those same classes, he found a dark and mysterious man named Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). Now this is a man who knew how to channel his emotions and really bring that raw talent to the stage.

So Greg wanted to work with Tommy, and Tommy agreed. He was a bit weird, but he really brought it out of Greg and Greg started to feel confident. After years of friendship, they moved to LA, with Tommy financing everything, to become real actors. After it didn’t work out well, especially not for Tommy, Tommy started to write and figure out his own movie. This piece became The Room, a film that is iconic today, and the rest of this movie is how it was made, the trials they faced, and the hurdles that were overcome. Also how Greg began to move on by getting a girlfriend (Alison Brie) and trying to separate from the Tommy umbrella.

And only some talk about being a vampire.

Given the people who made this, it is no surprise how many famous actors are in this film: Seth Rogen, Paul Scheer, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, Charlyne Yi, Bob Odenkirk, Hannibal Buress, Joe Mande, Nathan Fielder, Andrew Santino, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullally, June Diane Raphael, Jackie Weaver and Ari Graynor. I could have also swore a minor character was Margot Robbie, but the credits won’t let me confirm that.

As we learned in The Room there is never a bad time for football.

I wonder how much your perceptions of this film changes based on your opinions of The Room. If you have seen The Room many times since it came out, were totally in that cult movie aspect, I think you will enjoy The Disaster Artist a whole lot more than someone new to the topic. Obviously this is a film where you sort of need to see The Room before seeing it to really get it at all, but there is a huge difference between me watching it a week before The Disaster Artist and years prior.

Because hey, The Disaster Artist is a pretty funny film. The Francos do a good job of setting the stage, building up the Wiseau mythos and so on. And sure, I can agree that James acted well, only because we obviously have a real person/character to compare him to. But if this was just a movie about a bad production, this is the type of thing that would be panned for unnecessarily ridiculous director guy.

So it is a very hard thing to judge. Was it actually well acted only because he acted like Wiseau accurately? Or does well acted need to be something more than accuracy to a subject? It is a hard subject to answer, and not one that I will go into real detail here. But it is something on my mind and something that certainly would tell me that it certainly shouldn’t be winning awards for its acting.

The Disaster Artist was a film that made me laugh and remind me of a shitty film at the same time. It is a very strange genre of movie, very meta, and it will gain its own cult status I am sure. Double features for the next 20 years! However, in reality, I really just want to read the book to get the full story and won’t bother too much with the film version many times in the future.

On May 12, 2016, I received an email from one of the production companies who handles pre-screenings in the Houston area. They like to send out emails letting us know what films are coming up and their release dates and studio. It is to make things nice and smooth. Well, the week before on May 5 that email only went to the end of 2016, but for some reason this email added everything they currently knew about for 2017. And at the end of the list, was something called The Greatest Showman on Earth for a Christmas release.

That title intrigued me, so I looked it up. Once I read the plot description and actors involved, at that point I declared it was my now most hyped film of 2017. And it has taken a long time to get here, over a year a half, before I finally got to see it.

I kept away from the trailers, from the soundtrack. I acknowledged that there has been no buzz from the Oscars at all about it, which is a bit surprising, given the genre and cast and subject. They obviously changed the title since then to a much cleaner The Greatest Showman, but I just want you to know, I have been hyped for almost 20 months, and it wasn’t a superhero movie.

Superhero movies aren’t allowed to show too much drinking.

Phineas Taylor Barnum (Hugh Jackman) grew up poor, his dad a tailor, him an assistant. They were looked down by the elite who saw them as poor people, because they were poor people. He had dreams of one day hosting the greatest show in the world. And despite his dad’s early death, he was still able to marry and run off with his childhood love, Charity (Michelle Williams), who grew up rich.

They had two kids and had a middling live of above poverty, but it wasn’t good enough for Barnum. He needed more, he need luxury, he needed to prove to the snobs and the elites that anyone can rise to their ranks.

And eventually he bought a museum of oddities. Weird stuff, stuff that people want to see. It gradually grew over time, including live acts, like a little man (Sam Humphrey), a bearded lady (Kaele Settle), acrobats (Zendaya) and so on. He gained a rich playwright to help him draw in the rich people (Zac Efron) to mixed reviews. And at one point he brought in a famous Swedish opera singer (Rebecca Ferguson) to get the expensive tickets in the seats. And some would say, he did it all, just to get back at Charity’s dad (Fredric Lehne), who never believed he was good enough for his daughter.

A big show requires a big cast, so here are some kid actors, performers, and side kicks. Cameron Seely, Austyn Johnson, Alex Wong, Ellis Rubin, Skylar Dunn, Jacqueline Honulik, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Paul Sparks, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

Some would say that the beard deserves its own tag as well.

I would like to say that I am hard on musicals and judge them rightfully, because I have high expectations for them. At the same time, if my toes are tapping, my body is moving, and the show in front of me is eye candy, there is also a good chance I am liking it. Do I like all musicals? Who know. But I must be biased towards them, often having them near the top of my end of year lists in some capacity.

This is probably what is happening for The Greatest Showman. Because on one hand, this film does not accurately depict at all a beliable/realistic version of P.T. Barnum. Sure, some elements are true, but most are complete fantasy and in a very forgiving light. That is going to piss some people off. The plot itself is all relatively weak, or at least, not too new when it comes to story telling of rags to riches and the meek inheriting.

And yet I was so engrossed, I cried four times. I cried over sadness, over love, over happiness, and over the future. Every time Jackman smiled, it was contagious and it felt full of love as well. The sets were colorful, full of fun costumes, unique characters who were really in tune with their dancing.

And the music, the music! I tried to not listen to it ahead of time, and went in mostly blind. It starts off odd, but over time the opening song (The Greatest Showman) definitely grows on you. My favorite is probably This Is Me, their Freak Flag song so to speak, as Keala Settle just fucking rocks every line. Rewrite the Stars is beautiful, heartbreaking, and has the choreography one would expect for a number like it, best in the film. And The Other Side is such a fun song between Efron and Jackman, featuring a nice bar dance and so many shots it is easy to lose count.

Hell, even the tiny details of the songs were great, including the giant character banging on the ceiling to create the beat in our finale song.

It is so easy to get lost in this movie. It is so surprising that it is under two hours long, and honestly, I wish there was a lot more.

One final nitpick that doesn’t change the grade. We got a famous Swedish opera singer, so it felt really annoying to hear her singing what amounted to a modern pop musical song, that didn’t match her description at all. That song is also amazing, but it just felt very odd at the same time.

Never watched Baywatch, never watched Baywatch Nights, but I understand the appeal of it all. Womens, womens, and David Hasselhoff. Sure, good.

And then they said they would do a movie reboot of Baywatch, decades later. My initial thoughts: FUCK YES!

But why? Well, history has shown to me that taking a serious show and putting it in a comedic modern reboot leads to extreme laughs. Sure, I only have 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street to base that opinion off of, but what if Baywatch is as good as those two films? It has the actors, it has a lot it can work with, it should be a sure sign of success!

Then I will eventually realize that it is just Phil Lord and Christopher Miller being an insanely funny directing duo, and not anyone else pulling the strings.

I didn’t want this generic photo, but it was one of the few that actually was decent.

Over somewhere in California, I guess, is a bay that totally needs to be watched. The lifeguard team is led by Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson), his second-in-command Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera), and CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrbach). There are other people on the team too, apparently, but they are background characters with no names or words. Normally they only add a single member to their team a year, but this year they have spots for three people!

Spoilers, the spots go to Matt Brody (Zac Efron), an Olympic swimmer who needs community service and sort of just gets the spot against the wishes of Mitch, Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario), a girl who just likes life guarding I guess, and Ronnie Greenbaum (Jon Bass), a guy who doesn’t give up, is basically a tech person and lusts after CJ.

Anyways, Mitch likes to go above and beyond his duty, trying to solve crimes outside of his jurisdiction. Because he has no jurisdiction, because he is a lifeguard. This gets him into problems, with the above people and all of that.

Starring Priyanka Chopra as the villain, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as a cop, Amin Joseph and Jack Kesy as Chopra’s bodyguards, Rob Heubel as the boss, along with Hannibal Buress, Oscar Nuñez, David Hasselhoff, and Pamela Anderson.

The sexiest shot in the film.

Goddamnit, Baywatch. You could have been something special, but all of the worst components were overplayed, and they didn’t try to make it better.

First of all, the humor, sure jokes were made, but it wasn’t a laugh a minute riot fest like I had hoped (again, comparing to 21 Jump Street). They decided to feature a lot more action and serious moments that weren’t really impressive, nor did they really bring the viewer in on any emotional level.

Secondly, there are only six~ characters in the Baywatch team they decide to highlight, 3 guys, 3 gals. And guess who gets all of the plot, character development, and good scenes? Yep, the guys only. Hadera as “second-in-command” has absolutely nothing memorable happen, she is basically a background character. Daddario is brought in to have someone else famous hang out with Efron and Johnson, but she is the third wheel. And Parker exists only to be a sexualized object to Bass’ character, an ideal woman in her looks and kindness. And yes, they hook up by the end.

Yes, when people think of Baywatch, they think of slow motion women running and bouncing, sure. But that show also had a lot of woman characters with a lot of backgrounds and plots. This movie somehow decided to be WORSE for women than the 11 seasons of a show for people to get their jollies off. That is unacceptable for a modern remake. It is not hard to give six people real characterization throughout a film, but they didn’t even try.

Those are the main two points of contention. If the film was at least funnier on many levels then I might have been able to get around the weaker characters. But because it isn’t that funny, the problems stand out a lot more. The plot was also weak, the “bad guy plot” felt pointless, and everything was just so obvious.

Apparently this movie is bombing, so we won’t a Baywatch 2. But if it does, it should go the Baywatch Nights route, just get it over with.

Mike. Daveeeeeee. Two pretty bro names. Played by two people who can be pretty bro-like. Maybe a match made in Heaven.

For the most part I tend to miss new comedies that come out because they normally screen against films that seem more important. Not necessarily better films, because they could go against worst movies, just more “important”. Like the first biographical movie of some famous person, or literally any musical, or a blockbuster, etc.

But hey, I got to see Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates! Aka Zac Efron‘s third comedy released this year and it is only halfway done, holy crap. When did Efron become such a comedic working star? Was it…Oh yes. It was with That Awkward Moment when he posed almost completely naked on top of a toilet. That was probably the moment.

“This movie is sexist! It should have been called Lady1 and Lady2 Need To Get Their Free Vacation On!”

Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) are brothers who like to party. They finished school, but have made their adult living selling liquor to bars, which sounded cool, and is cool! But also unfulfilling. Blah blah blah, family drama, Dave is actually a good artist but he just wants to hang out with his older brother and chill hardcore. And their younger sister, Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) is getting married! To Erik (Sam Richardson), yes a black man, and their wedding is in the wonderful Hawaii. However, there are concerns over Mike and Dave’s party behavior from Jeanie and their parents (Stephen Root, Stephanie Faracy). Every time they get drunk and hitting on women, disasters strike and they ruin the party.

So they give them the task that they have to bring wedding dates. Some nice girls, so they will flirt with them and not hit on everyone else and ruin things. They post an ad on craigslist, this gets them pseudo famous, and it gets Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) interested. Free vacation! Alice is down in the dumps, what, with getting left at the alter and all.

They decide to dress up, look nice and make up jobs and meet Mike and Dave to convince them to take them to Hawaii! And hey, it works. As you knew.

Of course, they are “hot messes” and only help riley up Mike and Dave more. Hooray destination wedding!

Also featuring Chloe Bridges as the Maid of Honor, Lavell Crawford as the Best Man, Alice Wetterlund as the bisexual cousin, and Kumail Nanjiani as the very foreign massage artist.

Hell, I’d be willing to go to Hawaii as their dates as well.

After watching MaDNWD (that’s the beautiful acronym of this movie title), my first thought is that I really wanted to see Wedding Crashers again. However, I had no desire to ever see MaDNWD again.

I don’t think this is a bad movie, I just think it had a lot of decent potential and it was wasted on more immature comedy elements. Devine is the “Extreme” brother, so everything he does is at the highest levels to garner a reaction. It is just over the top, but for the most part no one else reaches his level. Efron tries at times, but his character is given a lot more of the more natural humor and Devin is playing just the exact opposite.

I liked Efron and Kendrick in this one (barely with Kendrick), but mostly just hated the Plaza and Devine characters. Devine is meant to be annoying, and hey, it works. Plaza is still going hardcore into these extremely crude characters, briefly starting with The To-Do List and hardcore into Dirty Grandpa. Neither were super funny and that is half of their dang cast.

The funniest scenes were the ones that weren’t spoiled by the trailer. They shouldn’t have shown the ATV scene, such a waste. The massage scene was my favorite, along with the “boring” scene. But for the most part, the plot went almost exactly the way you’d expect it to go.

No surprises here. Occasional laughs. Some full frontal female nudity and a whole lot of butts.

I do wonder though, where the hell was the Bocce competition? I was really excited to see Bocce in a popular big release film. But that shit got trailer mentions and no actual screen time. Booooo.

Watching January movies is important for a movie reviewer, but usually I like to wait until near the end to catch half of them. As of right now, once this review for Dirty Grandpa is finished, I only have one more major January movie to watch. Holy shit, it isn’t even halfway through the year!

I am on the “expected to be shitty” ball this year, which means for the most part, the rest of the year should be mostly quality, right? Right?

Another special fact about this review: It is the first review on this site chosen by my Patrons who are at the $5 level or above! There was a poll and everything for what movie would be today, and they wanted Dirty Grandpa. My Patrons are jerks.

If you want to be a jerk as well, feel free to check out the rewards!

I am contractually obligated now to always include a picture of Shirtless Efron if it happens in the movie.

Death! Death is the reason this movie takes place. The grandmother of Jason Kelly (Zac Efron) has passed away, so the family has to get together for the funeral. Jason used to be close to his grandfather, Dick (Robert De Niro) thanks to Jason’s job as a lawyer keeping him busy.

But Jason is getting married to Meredith (Julianne Hough) in a week! And for some reason, his grandpa wants him to drive him to his home in Florida, taking some time off from work and wedding planning.

And guess what? His grandpa is crass. And horny. He hasn’t had sex in 15 years and he just wants to get laid. The good news is that they run into a group heading to Daytona. Shadia (Zoey Deutch), a former class mate of Jason, Lenore (Aubrey Plaza), who needs to have sex with a professor before she graduates (because she said so), and Bradley (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman), their gay black friend.

Sure, Dick lies about being a professor, but if it works it works. Time to force Jason to party and reconsider his life choices and lie to college chicks!

Also featuring Danny Glover, Adam Pally, Jason Mantzoukas, and Dermot Mulroney.

I am not contractually obligated to show suggestive images, but research shows they bring the clicks.

Whenever I come across a new Robert De Niro movie, I tend to cringe. He hasn’t given a fuck for a long time. He is old, he just wants the money. He did all the good movies in his middle ages, and now he does Last Vegas and Grudge Match. Basically, he is a sign that the movie probably will suck.

And the signs, they are still right.

The movie plays out exactly as one would imagine it does, except with fewer naked bodies than one would expect. De Niro says outlandish things for an old man, people react strangely, and repeat.

There are some nice surprises. Mantzoukas was hilarious in every scene and possibly some of the best work he has ever done outside of The League. Pally as the cousin made me laugh. But the majority of the film is just normal “shocking” humor, over and over. Very little of the film feels unique. It had potential if they fully embraced the Dirty Grandpa aspects, but instead it is a soft R and not hardcore, like say Bad Santa.

A skippable comedy easily, but not the worst that January had to offer.

Comedy sequels have gotten a bad rep lately. Like Zoolander 2 and Dumb and Dumber To. Okay, those had many years between sequels, but like…The Hangover Part III and Horrible Bosses 2.

So I went into Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising with a skeptical face. I enjoyed Neighbors and rewatched it the morning of the screening, still holds up decently.

But the problem with comedy sequels is the direction you take it. Do you give them more of the same? If so, then it isn’t original any more. If you give them something completely unrelated, then why even make it a sequel and not an original movie?

Neighbors 2 might just be Neighbors with more women.

But you know, regular, chill, want to kill you women.

After Neighbors, Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) returned quiet to their neighborhood. But now, Kelly is pregnant again, so they want to move to a new house with more rooms and with less neighbors. They put an offer on a house and they were accepted! However, their current home isn’t sold yet. It is on escrow. So the buying couple has 30 days to check it out and do tests and can back out at any time.

And at that moment is of course when some new people move in. Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz), Beth (Kiersey Clemons), and Nora (Beanie Feldstein) want to start their own sorority, that can party and smoke weed and promote their own feminist values of sisterhood. They just have issues getting enough money to rent the place for their dreams to come true.

That is where Teddy (Zac Efron) comes in. He is feeling pretty pathetic, everyone in his life is becoming successful except for him. And Pete (Dave Franco) is now totally gay and about to get married to Darren (John Early), which means Teddy needs a place to stay. He decides to become a sort of sorority consultant to the girls in order to find value, and maybe screw over the people who gave him a criminal record and all.

Woo, prank wars!

Some smaller roles are played by Selena Gomez, Clara Mamet, and someone called Awkwafina. Also returning, albeit briefly include Hannibal Buress, Chistopher Mintz-Plasse, Jerrod Carmichael and the best friends Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo.

This is how I dress up when I want to look young.

Neighbors 2 actually does a good balance of keeping things original with appropriate call backs. The picture used right above ended up being one of the funniest scenes in the film and was entirely new and fresh material. My second and third favorite moments were both call backs to airbags. There are several great humorous scenes that really carry the film and overall make this film a good time while watching it.

But when comparing it to its predecessor, it doesn’t hold up as well. My main faults lie with the chemistry between Moretz, Clemons, and Feldstein, the leaders of the new sorority. It is practically non-existence. Yes, before the events of the film, they didn’t know each other, but most of their comedic scenes together never really feel too funny. Their logic and reasoning for wanting to create their own sorority is actually a good one. The film delivers a real message about sorority culture and the need for change. They just failed to make it funny.

Most of our humor is reserved for our old people roles and Efron, while the sorority side remains mostly serious in their own goals. It is a strange dichotomy in this movie.

And honestly, the ending tried to tie everything in a nice bow, but the solutions that were found don’t make a lot of sense when you examine it for just a few seconds.

Again, some great funny scenes in this movie, and strangely enough, some character growth, but they are unable to deliver their message while maintaining the funny throughout.

Gorgon Reviews – Watching Shitty (Terrible) Movies So You Don’t Have To. My long standing tagline and life philosophy. But for the most part, lately, my movies have just been everything in theaters. Some shitty, some not.

This is not a strange indie film. We Are Your Friends a film that was released throughout the US, but no one saw it. Almost no one. At the time of its release, it had the third worse opening for any film with over 2000 theaters showing it. It was the worst for live action movies.

Since it came out, Jem and the Holograms somehow decided to beat its box office records.

So We Are Your Friends only got to live in notoriety for about two months. Now it is second fiddle and now it won’t even be remembered for being never seen.

It may be remembered for having the same name as a famous Justice song though.
(Sweet music video alert)

Cole (Zac Efron) wants to be a great DJ. He is a small time guy, working the local clubs. He thinks he will be big one day. He just needs the perfect first song and the perfect opportunity. He definitely understands DJing though. He knows how to work a crowd, get them moving, and make the optimal BPMs .

He has three friends, Squirrel (Alex Shaffer), Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez), and Mason (Jonny Weston).

They need cash to make their dreams come true. But also, they like to party.

And party they do. They party a lot. And get ladies and stuff. Starring Jon Bernthal as a scummy dude, Wes Bentley as a pompous dude, and Emily Ratajkowski as a woman who doesn’t just want to be there for her looks.

Putting my hands on my head is the only way I know how to dance.

Who doesn’t love Zac Efron? He has successfully turned himself around from pretty boy Disney child into a guy who does what he wants. For the most part, he wants to do risque comedies. He did That Awkward Moment and Neighbors. And he is going to be in the Baywatch movie, which will hopefully be as good as the 21 Jump Street franchise.

But this isn’t risque or really a comedy. I mean, it is supposed to be, but it feels like a terrible drama the whole time. Having attractive women, even ones that show their boobies, does not make it really risque either.

We Are Your Friends has a boring plot, the kind you can figure out within the first fifteen minutes. Any surprises are actually completely random, and most of them serve little to no purpose. The same old romance things happen in this film that happen in all shitty romance movies.

And guess what? Spoilers. He does the song by the end. He makes people dance.

Hip hip fucking hooray. Some good music as the soundtrack though, but literally it felt about 20% of the film was saved for party montages.

Finally, a movie that can relate to almost anyone. Neighbors. Hey, I have had neighbors most of my life! Some people live on farms in the middle of no where with no real neighbors. Those people aren’t the target audience for this movie though. I doubt they are anyone’s target audience really.

Also it is the first big comedy of the summer. Last year we got This Is The End as our first big movie (because I am just making shit up now and ignoring other films, like The Hangover 3. Let me make up this imaginary point, jeez), and that one set a bar too high for most other comedies to follow.

Can Neighbors do the same?

Not with these squares trying to act cool. Nope nope nope.

Mac (Seth Rogen) and, Kelly (Rose Byrne) are adults! They have finally done it! They created a human from their love and they have a house!

But then they got…grr…neighbors! They thought it would be a lovely gay couple. No, it was a frat house. How’d they get a house in the middle of a residential neighborhood? Who knows. But they are stoked, because it is time to party. Their president, THE Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron) and a VP of Pete (Dave Franco).

Mac and Kelly try and be cool about it all. Sure they have a baby, but as long as they are cool, the frat will probably try to keep it down. The frat is willing to be friendly with them, as long as they don’t call the cops ever, just them first.

Well, they call the cops eventually after a party that won’t end and won’t get quiet. That makes the frat angry. They decide to rage war on their neighbors, as they have messed with the wrong frat. Then shenanigans happen. Shenanigans!

We also get Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Jerrod Carmichael as frat guys. And Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo as friends of Mac and Kelly. And Hannibal Buress as a cop! But his role is limited.

When there are multiple De Niros, you will never know who is talking to who.

I have long talked about how great Zac Efron is in past reviews, and it is still true here, so I won’t talk about it more here. Seth Rogen is very much like his normal self, so I won’t talk about that more here.

Instead, I will talk about Rose Byrne, who was absolutely hilarious in the movie along with the rest of the cast. I realize I rarely praise the female in a comedy, but she really held her own against some of these other professionals of comedy. She doesn’t do comedy much, outside of Bridesmaids I really can’t remember anything, so it really came as a big surprise to me.

The film definitely has its moments. The one De Niro scene had me in stitches, and reminded me a bit of the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

It was a good show from an all-star-ish cast with hardly any downtime in between laughs.