Author: Admin

I feel strange reviewing Goosebumps in the month of December. THAT’S NOT THE RIGHT THEME.

Well, I had to cancel my eventual trip to see Goosebumps in theaters back end of October. Things were crazy. And now things are crazy, but a bit less. So while some people are thinking of Star Wars or Christmas, I can think about scaring little kids.

After all, what are the holidays, if not for scaring little kids?

Back to the film, I read probably 75% of the main Goosebumps books when I was a youthful lad, and I watched every episode of the TV Show. Hell, I’ve been watching the episodes on Netflix slowly for the past two years. It is great to see how shitty the effects are now, but how much they scare the kids. And occasionally you get to see Ryan Gosling out of nowhere, so that was fun.

Needless to say, I was nostalgia-ing pretty hard, so I couldn’t wait to see what weirdness they went with for the new film.

A whole lot of white people. Makes sense.

Zach (Dylan Minnette) and his mom (Amy Ryan) are moving to the best place to be a kid. Discovery Zone! Wait no. He is actually now in Madison, Delaware.

New school, new high school life. And a crazy aunt (Jillian Bell) who is way too energetic also now nearby. What’s not to love?

Oh hey, his neighbor is a teenage girl. That’s a plus. Because he is a boy and boys like girls. Hannah (Odeya Rush) is homeschooled and her dad (Jack Black) is very protective and won’t let Zach interact with her. Fuck.

Let’s cut to the chase. The dad is totally R. L. Stine. Yes the “real one” who wrote all the Goosebumps books. And he has original manuscripts of all of his books in the house locked up. What’s that? If they open it up, the bad creature comes out! Holy fuck, shenanigans! Magic and stuff! And eventually Slappy, the doll is released (also voiced by Jack Black), and he decides he should open all the books around town, burn them so they cannot be recaptured and fuck all the shit up. Because Stine wasn’t letting them wreck things. Fuck that small town up, hard.

Also with Ryan Lee as the weird male friend and Ken Marino as creepy gym teacher.

All these monsters and the scariest one is still the clown.

Okay, without taking off the nostalgia glasses, I can say I was a bit disappointed. Especially when “all” of the books are unleashed upon the town into one big army, my main thought was “Yes! Let’s see all the other bad guys! Even the lame ones!” But no, they added only a handful of villains, with mostly zombie hordes to make it look bigger. So I was disappointed I didn’t get to see more Goosebumps staples. I am mostly shocked I didn’t see a haunted camera and there was only a vague reference to a mask. Bring out the props, damn it!

Nostalgia glasses back off. On its own, the film felt relatively safe. It had a few in jokes for adults more aware of the series that would fly over the heads of new kids. Hell, there was an R. L. Stine cameo that I found incredibly hilarious and well placed. But for the most part, nothing too crazy or unexpected happened. The main character was generic.

There were still a few good scenes though. The abominable snowman in the hockey arena was very tense. The first lawn gnomes attack was great. And I enjoyed the shocker and the werewolf. Slappy makes since as the big bad guy, only in that he has a voice, but he didn’t do enough creepy things on his own.

I will say this. When the first trailer released, I made a guess on a twist that would happen near the end of the film, and I ended up being correct. It is something that avid Goosebump readers might also have figured out before the movie, due to book plot lines and character names. It was just one of those tidbits that just popped in my head, seemingly out of nowhere. So once the twist occurred, it didn’t land too strongly.

As I was saying. Perfect Christmas film.

Forsooth! Verily! Haberdashery!

These are the words I imagine to be in Shakespeare plays. A lot of crazy language that is hard for a simpleton like me to understand. Thankfully all of their plots are explained in modern English online, so you can read up ahead and just nod along during the movie/play and pretend that it all makes sense.

At least for Macbeth, it happens to be probably his third most famous story after Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, so that is good. Macbeth is known for its play and film curses, which are silly. I actually saw an old TV movie of Macbeth before. Came out in 1979 and a much younger Ian McKellen played the starring role.

What that means is that this is the SECOND time that Michael Fassbender has played a role that McKellen played first. First it was Magneto, and now Macbeth. Hmmm. I Wonder what else Fassbender will try to steal?

This film sponsored by: Monster. Unleash the beast!

Trouble dost follow our poor Macbeth (Michael Fassbender), one of the Thanes of the great King Duncan (David Thewlis). The King had a few traitors, trying to take over, causing a few wars. Not so good, thankfully people like Macbeth, all weary and haggard, still battled some battles and saved the day.

After the last battle, Macbeth is visited by a few witches (Kayla Fallon, Lynn Kennedy, Seylan Baxter), who speak cryptically. They call him a title that is not his own, and then call him King! And for his warrior companion, Banquo (Paddy Considine), they say he will have a better life and that his sons will be Kings.

Sweet deal for both of them, unless Macbeth cares about future children. Next thing Macbeth knows, the King is staying in his grovel of a village and has given him a new Thane ranking! Like the witches said! Macbeth tells his wife, who of course only goes by Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) about the premonition, and she is like “Fuck that, let’s kill him and get this show on the road!” And then you know. Things start to happen.

It wouldn’t be a Shake spear drama without some murder and some guilt and ghosts. You know, like Hamlet!

Also featuring Hilton McRae as Macdonwald, Sean Harris as Macduff, and Jack Reynor as Malcolm, son of Duncan.

“With all these Mac-daddies running around, why do I also have to take the Mac crown? ” – Lady Macbeth

Macbeth is bound to be one of the prettiest and more stylized movies of the year. The costumes were great and everything felt age appropriate. I never considered Macbeth living in basically wooden shacks before he got to go to the castle, but it makes since given the era. Everything was put up to 11 when it comes to the cinematography. The fights weren’t just people yelling and swinging swords at each other (although we did get that). We got slow motion, colored backgrounds, monologues from internal thought. A lot of the monologues were overlain with scenes of the characters wandering around and doing shit. Vocal montages, if you will.

I know my great use of descriptors like “doing shit” will really draw you in, but every shot being a portrait clearly was their goal.

Unfortunately the film suffers in another aspect. Understand-ability. Most obvious would be the dialects from a few of our actors. Very northern Scottish stuff, could be a struggle at times. Second comes from the fact that it is already Shakespeare dialogue, which is known to us silly Americans for its confusion. Thirdly, I have to imagine that at least half of the play is omitted from this film.

Most annoyingly, it doesn’t begin with the “Double, double toil and trouble” witch thing. What even is the point? But outside of that, there is a lot of crazy shit going on and they don’t even try to help explain things. Neither the missing dialogue/conversations nor the actual dialogue. The prophecy from the witches was whispered and easy to miss completely.

I think if you don’t know what Macbeth is about from previous source material or from looking up the plot summary, you will be lost throughout this film. A film needs to make sense so that the viewer can understand the story. I hate having to know the book to understand the film, as they should stand on their own. Don’t care how famous the tale might be.

Well acted? Fuck yes. Cotillard and Fassbender are outstanding. Even more props to Harris, who had a smaller role but knocked it out of the park. It makes me angry that he was also the shitty Geologist from Prometheus.

But a very confusing rendition of the story, despite the beauty behind.

Back in the 1960’s there were just three networks. NBC. CBS. And way way below them, ABC. Sure it was third place, but it was shit with shit television.

They didn’t like being shit so they were doing their best to get their name on the map. And in 1968, the Republican and Democratic Conventions were all big news. TV and politics! How zany! NBC and CBS had lots of coverage of the Conventions planned for their programs, and ABC was kind of just standing off to the side trying to get into the same room.

So they were like, hey, let’s get two charismatic people. Not the people running for President, that’d be too hard. Let’s get two charismatic politicians, one democratic, one republican, and have them debate the issues on television.

This is an idea that has never been heard of before! Debates! And not the presidents! Just two allegedly smart people trying to show why one parties ideals were better.

And they were like fuck it, let’s do 10 of these, before and after the conventions. Let’s get Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley. The Best of Enemies.

This ended up being big. Really big. Vidal is more famous, the Liberal, as he also wrote books and screenplays for film. He also had his own show after the debates to do debates with new people to get issues out.

These debates were so big, they can be pointed out for why political commentary exists today. This is why news stations have groups of people arguing about issues. Because us low non politicians love the shit out of these pundits.

Political commentary became big after it. The problem of course is it is less intellectual, features a lot more lying, and no one is having a real good honest debate.

But Vidal and Buckley started it. And one of them clearly one the debates, but I won’t spoil that. They are cool enough to have Kelsey Grammer and John Lithgow as their voices though, when the need to read their written word arose. That is pretty bad ass.

Best of Enemies is on Netflix and up for and Indie Spirit award for Best Doc, and maybe an Oscar too. Either way, a very informative and good way to spend 90 minutes.

Westerns! According to Spielberg, Super Hero movies might soon go the way of the Western. Everywhere, and then rarely. K, thanks Spielberg.

All of this is irrelevant to Bone Tomahawk, which is a new western (definitely not a super hero movie). It was also independently released, you can tell, because it wasn’t even rated. Ooh, a Non Rated Western? That has to be intentional. There has to be some fucked up shit in there. You know, NC-17 rated stuff.

What will it be? Violence? Sex? The word “Cunt?” Who knows! Only the one with the best facial hair I imagine.

Fuck. I hope that is real and I hope all future movies let him keep it.

Set in the vague past, we need to talk about a small town out in the West with your standard group of people. We have Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell), whom has lived a good life of protectin’ people and growing facial hair. He has a “Back Up Deputy”, Chicory (Richard Jenkins, who I didn’t recognize at all until writing this review), and older fella who likes to talk. Like old people.

They got a rich guy, John Brooder (Matthew Fox) with no family, a fear of Indians, and a lover of the ladies in the town. Arthur O’Dwyer (Patrick Wilson) is also relatively wealthy, but he has a broken leg, and is being tended by mostly from his wife, Samantha (Lili Simmons), who is basically a nurse.

But when a drifter (David Arquette) comes to their town, their life begins to get a bit rougher. They lock him in the local jail, not sure if they should trust him. Next thing they know, the drifter, Samantha, and Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) are missing. Apparently they were taken by an angry Indian tribe, nicknamed the Troglodytes, because they live in caves. No other tribes will interact with them because of their cruelty and cannibalism.

Well, not in Hunt’s town. He is able to gather a crew of men (the four mentioned!) to get them back, despite injuries and oldness. That is the only thing they can do, lest a wife and a friend get eaten up. That is not a pleasant way to go.

Also with one scene from Sid Haig.

There are rag tag groups, and then there is this group. Rejectag.

Bone Tomahawk is like a slow fuse. A long, slow fuse. Bone Tomahawk is 132 minutes long and the type of film that is in desperate need of a better editor. I can imagine at least 20 minutes of material being cut out to make the story just a smoother experience for everyone involved. I am not talking 20 minutes of beautiful scenic shots, I just mean actual character conversations.

The first scene is great, tense, gets you the mood. Then it takes a long time before people get kidnapped and their journey begins. An incredibly long time. Enough time for me to forget about the intro completely.

The journey itself was fine. The four actors provided nice conversations and good back stories, but still I figured more things would happen outside of the one or two issues they encountered pre-Troglodytes.

The action was very brutal however. A lot a talk about how one death scene was the craziest of the year, and I think most everyone who watches it will feel uncomfortable throughout it. Straight up medieval torture. The other shootouts are not long and drawn out, just real people blasting in holes in people where no one can really be a hero.

Bone Tomahawk could have been an excellent western. It just needs to trim a lot of fat first to get ready for bikini season.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

I know I know, why would someone review Chipwrecked when it is in the middle awards caliber movie time? Why something from 2011 at the end of 2015?

Well, I like to review anything I watch that came out within the last 5~ years, that way my recreational viewing isn’t completely “wasted.” And I had to watch a bunch of these movies to prepare for Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, coming out soon! I can’t go into that movie without knowing what happened in the first three movies. I’d be missing out on hours of plot!

As a quick recap, I liked the first movie enough because of the Christmas and Witch Doctor songs. Classic, not just new pop music all chipmunky. It had a bad acting love interest though. The second film was bad, it felt like an episode of a TV show and very little happened. And Zachary Levi was downright terribad. Now we have Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, which I thought was…oh wait. Yeah. Review.

Hmm. Yeah, review. Let’s get on that. This is what the people want.

The gang all here? Dave (Jason Lee) is actually in this movie and not awkwardly replaced by someone who looks like a younger Dave. That’s good. And they are going on a vacation cruise to then go to some vague foreign country for an International Music festival! Huzzah!

We have Theodore (Jesse McCartney), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), Eleanor (Amy Poehler), Jeanette (Anna Faris), Brittany (Christina Applegate), and of course Alvin Alvin Alvin (Justin Long).

But guess what, they get annoying and bad things happen. Next thing you know, they are all stuck on a kite and headed out to sea! Oh no! Not Dave, he can’t be on a kite. But he does jump in after them to save him, getting himself into a pickle as well.

Next thing you know, they are on a deserted island. Not super deserted, because the chipmunks meet Zoe (Jenny Slate), who apparently is a female version of Cast Away and has been on the island for 8-9 years. She is very clean and has a sweet hut.

Eventually a volcano will happen and some other bad things. Simon gets bit by a poisonous spider, which changes his personality to the outgoing Simone (Alan Tudyk), who yes, apparently needs a new actor to speak for him.

Also David Cross is in this one, again, because they need more boring plot lines I guess.

Not to be confused with their sexually confusing plot lines.

The third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie ends up being everything I expected. Which was very little and and bad plot.

But hey, at least some of the songs were good. They packed a bunch in the first half, because they were too busy to sing when “scary” things were occurring. The songs are the only real redemable part.

The villain was lazy and dumb, especially when they already had a volcano. Bringing back Cross was a complete waste, although he ended up having the best lines. I am stoked he isn’t in the next film.

Technically this film seems like it is more about Simon and Jeanette, which is a good change from the Alvin/Brittany show. This makes me hope that the spotlight shifts towards Theodore/Eleanor in the next film, which would make its existence at least a little bit worthwhile.

Hopefully they make it more entertaining than just some catchy song choices and an actual good plot.

I may be the only one excited about this film.

I heard about Chi-Raq a few months ago, and like most people, I assumed it would be some sort of Iraq spiritual movie. Chi. Get it?

No, it is Chicago. Okay, a movie comparing the violence and unrest in Chicago to Iraq. After all, Spike Lee is directing it, and that sounds like something right up his alley.

But nothing I have said should make me excited about the film. I hate Chicago (Hockey reasons), and I’ve only seen like three of his films: He Got Game, Inside Man, and of course, the shitty Oldboy remake. However, it is also a modern retelling of the Greek play Lysistrata. As an Ancient History major on my spare time, and lover of Greek plays, the idea became immediately intriguing and something I knew I had to see.

SLJ wearing snazzy suits was reason number 2.

Chicago, the land of death. More people have been murdered in that one city than the American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars have started. That should be a big deal, but it is ignored. That is why residents of the South Side have started to call it Chi-Raq, because it is a war zone out there and every body is dying.

In this fictionalized version of the city, the war is between two main gangs, the Spartans (purple) and the Trojans (orange). The leader of the Spartans is a rapper, whose stage name also happens to be Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon, don’t get lost on me yet), who people love. The leader is of the Trojans is a guy nicknamed Cyclops (Wesley Snipes), who only has one eye of course and a sexy studded eye patch.

But they aren’t the stars. No. Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris), the most attractive woman in Chi-Raq who also happens to be dating Chi-Raq. They will make beautiful babies some day. But Lysistrata starts to get tired of all the gang violence. She has to watch a mother grieve (Jennifer Hudson) over her dead 6 year old daughter who was accidentally hit during a drive by. She has to live with the fact that her boyfriend might have done it. And thanks to the same sage advice from a neighbor, Miss Helen (Angela Bassett), she realizes she has her own weapon that she can use to sway public opinion.

Yeah. We are talking about her body. No peace? No pussy. Lysistrata gathers her friends (Anya Engel-Adams, and more) and gets with Indigo (Michelle Mitchenor), the main lady friend of Cyclops. She wants them to put their differences aside and fight for change. They don’t allow any sex until the gang violence is over. They will get all the women in Chi-Raq involved. They will even get the prostitutes. They are doing it to protect the babies and their future. And hell, fuck it. They want World Peace, while they are it. And to prove their point, they also will take over a national guard armory in their city to show they fucking mean business. By not fucking.

Sex.

Also starring a lot more dudes. Harry Lennis is the police chief, D.B. Sweeney the mayor, David Patrick Kelly a general, John Cusack the main local priest, Steve Harris the leader of the Knights of Euphrates, Dave Chappelle a strip club owner, and Samuel L. Jackson our narrator and in the “Chorus” role.

Booty booty booty booty rockin’ nowhere.

Spike Lee might have out Spike Lee’d himself, as Chi-Raq is potentially the Spike Lee-iest thing he has ever created. It is so out there and original while being a modern retelling of a Greek play. It is amazing that I can say something like that and it totally make sense in the context in the film.

A majority of the dialogue in this film flows like poetry, complete with rhyming words and just being so fucking smooth. It was full of music and full of style. I want to have a copy of the script immediately, just to read some of the word again. I will buy this movie in the future and always watch it with subtitles, just to get the full impact and appreciate the cleverness of it all.

I hope beyond everything that Teyonah Parris gets nominated for a Best Actress award for this film. She owned the shit out of it, her presence on camera made you always focus on her and she nailed it. Some people might write off this film as just some “Sex movie” but it is a sex appeal film and not just one giant soft core porno. Parris is not afraid of anything from this film, tackling the hard subject matter in all the different ways.

Chi-Raq has all the same messages from Dear White People, but in a way that strangely makes it more relatable (not on a college campus). It is also incredibly modern, including references to every Black male shot that made political news, but also the Charleston shootings (which was in June this year) and Sandra Bland (July this year). Typing it makes me realize how long ago that was technically, I could have swore they were only two months ago. But eh, still modern as shit.

Original. Fun. Serious. Spike Lee.

Did you know that being a movie reviewer could be quite hard? It is. Sure, you think it is just putting on a movie and watching it. But to be the very best (like no one ever was) you have to watch them all. The good. The bad. The grotesque.

I am happy to say that in a little over 4 years, I am now reviewing my 1500th movie. That is right. A Milestone Review. 23 months ago, almost exactly was when I reviewed my biggest milestone, my 1000th review. That was of course The Human Centipede.

I tell the story of why it took so long, and honestly, the delay for The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) is similar. I don’t want to watch this. I know I had to someday. Might as well save it for a special occasion. And hey, in 500 more reviews I think you know what we will get for that review.

I tried to make sure the pictures weren’t completely inappropriate. Only one of them kind of is.

Or for some of you, all of these are inappropriate.

In this sequel, The Human Centipede is just a movie. That means the sequel is set “in the real world” instead of the world of fiction. And in the real world, things are much more nasty.

Our star (?) is a man named Martin (Laurence R. Harvey). Martin, as you can imagine, has a lot of problems. He was sexually abused as a kid by his dad, and now his mom (Vivien Bridson) hates him for getting him locked up. He is over weight, sees a shitty psychiatrist (Bill Hutchens), has his own pet centipede, and of course, is obsessed with The Human Centipede.

I think it is in black and white for the censors to allow the movie to exist.

His only responsibility is a security guard job where he sits in a booth and stares at video of people in a parking deck. Yes, the parking deck security guard is the lowest form of security guard, but it is necessary. He also ends up watching the movie over and over. He might get off on it. And you know my might is not even a guess. Some sick shit happens in that booth.

But not as sick as his book, that he is writing. He is watching the movie constantly to learn from it. He wants to make his own human centipede. But not with only 3 shitty people. No. He wants 12.

He is anti-social though. He doesn’t even know 12 people. He needs strangers.

The other issue with Martin is that he is not a trained surgeon. He doesn’t know how to operate on people, to attach them to one another or anything. Well, not in a real science or sanitary way.

He has to use basic tools. Even if he did know how to do it the right way, it would take so much time to make the 11 connections that most likely parts of the centipede would be dead before he could even finish. And that would be sad and awkward. More sad and awkward than the human centipede in general.

I don’t think playing the “what is more awkward” game makes a lot of sense in this movie.

Good news! He is also obsessed with the real life actors who played in the movie! Like Ashlynn Yennie, our starlet who survived the first film. Well, this sneaky guy Martin somehow pretends to also be a casting studio. He offers all three members of the centipede to audition for the new “Tarantino movie”. Unfortunately, Yennie’s agent is the only one to take up the offer and she shows up all happy. But now the “Real life” Yennie gets to be part of a centipede as well.

Some nice layers to this movie. You can tell they had the best writers working on it all.

This is all Martin. CGI free and ready to party.

Who are our lucky victims? Well they are played by Emma Lock, Maddi Black, Kandice Caine, Dominic Borrelli, Lucas Hansen, Lee Nicholas Harris, Dan Burman, Daniel Jude Gennis, and Georgia Goodrick,

Some of these people are dicks. Some are just party chicks. Some were prostitutes and cab drivers. Some are noble family people. But all of them are people who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and Martin took the first people he could get his hands on. Even if they had a kid in the back seat.

Martin knows party tricks as well!

I feel like I am stalling. I totally am. Dude hits everyone over the head with a crowbar. All the time. Apparently that knocks them out. This is the most unrealistic part of the movie. There should be a lot more dead people.

Anyways. Martin flips his shit. His mom wants him dead for the reasons listed above. She angers their skinhead neighbors and tells them it was his idea, just so they can rough him up and kick his ass. Eventually he retaliates against her and obvious shit happens. This causes him to finally go through with his plan to put the 12 humans together.

Warning, the next photo is my one “graphic” photo. But the calmest one I could find. I needed one.

AHHH CENTIPEDES SO GROSS.

Anyways, he puts them together. Some people die before he can attach them, so he doesn’t get to put all 12 together. That is a shame.

He gets to have his centipede though and it gets him super excited. VERY EXCITED. If you graphically understand my meaning. It is very bad for the last person in line, that is for sure. And I will say it was one of the two most disturbing things about this movie.

Unfortunately, it was followed up immediately after by an even more disturbing scene. One that made no sense and literally had me going “WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK” out loud, despite watching it alone.

Needless to say, after these two terrible scenes, people in the centipede start to fight back. One guy in particular breaks his head free from its confines, breaking the centipede in half. This, along with other events and voice mails, makes Martin very upset. He snaps even more than he did before and well, a lot of people then start to die. Mercy killing really at that point.

Yay gross shit. Literally.

You don’t want to know you don’t want to know you don’t want to know.

Normally I try to keep these milestone reviews extra funny and extra spoiler-y. No details needs to be ignored.

I kind of failed on both points with this big one. It is hard to make great jokes when you are so appalled. It is hard to spoil the worst things when you want to scrape them from your brain, not type out descriptions making it more real.

The first film may have tried to make a creepy horror along with a few gross scenes. This one went full on yuckville. It only wanted to make disturbing scenes. Scenes that would ban it from a few countries. Scenes that would make you want to turn it off.

When I watched The Green Inferno, I paused it frequently due to some very graphic scenes because I couldn’t take it. However, this time I never paused the movie. I just needed it to get over with and didn’t want a pause to make the overall experience that much longer.

This film is so nasty though and that is all I can talk about. It really shouldn’t have been made. Yes, it accomplished its goal. But at what cost, film makers? Your director was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn’t stop to think if he should.

Don’t watch this movie. And I have to watch the third one. I don’t know if it is worse, I just know the centipede is longer and it is a prison or something.

Apparently UNC Chapel Hill is the center of everything when it comes to colleges. They had all the sports scandals, and thus, were highly featured in several sports documentaries.

And now they find themselves featured highly in The Hunting Ground, a documentary about rape in college campuses. This documentary was made due to the positive response that The Invisible War received, about rape in the armed forces.

In case you didn’t know, yes, I did go to UNC Chapel Hill, so regardless of topic, it is always jarring seeing people walk around places I have walked, telling their stories. Now, sexual assault in colleges is a real issue and definitely not something anyone should take lightly. It is a real issue everywhere. But why is it potentially more prevelant in college?

Well, in college, you have thousands of young adults, making mistakes high on hormones. Access to drugs, and alcohol, when they aren’t legally to drink it for the most part and therefore go to excess because freedom and shit. Fraternities that haze their pledges by making them harass women, and sororities having rules forcing them to party and drink at fraternity parties. A lot of bad things. And you know, dudes who believe that no doesn’t mean no.

It centers a bit on UNC because two women, who had their plights ignored by administration, decided to check in the legality of their lack of effort. They decided to pursue their cases through the Board of Education as a Title IX complaint, noting that they are not making their campuses safe. If the college is found breaking Title IX, they would lose all government funding.

That is kind of a big deal for most universities, especially the public ones.

This documentary is chilling. Hearing these personal stories, seeing the alledged reactions from administrations and police, it is shocking. Basically, colleges don’t like reporting sexual assault numbers, because no one wants to be the school where people get raped. So instead, rape happens everywhere and is swept under the rug. This is especially true for when it happens to star football and basketball players. They won’t get in trouble until after an upcoming season or tournament. They might get suspended for 1 day or during the summer. They might get expelled after graduation, which means nothing.

But unfortunately, this documentary also has controversy. There were some emails that made interviews look sketch, and one of their crew members edited Wikipedia pages to make the stories match the documentary. Oh, because apparently not all of the stories they told in the documentary are factual and they are leaving out specific information that might make some of these cases not so clear cut anymore. Yes the articles I linked are biased, but they were reported elsewhere as well.

That makes me worried. Hell, while watching I was just waiting to see if they’d make a big deal out of that mattress girl, who was doing that bizarre senior thesis / point thing about carrying around the mattress that she was raped on everywhere because the school did nothing about it. They only showed her for like, 5 seconds near the end, not a big central piece, which is good since it looks like from anyone else looking at it that there was only consensual sex involved.

I don’t mean to get political, but I do hate it when a documentary, in an attempt to drive a single point home, ignores everything that might weaken their point. There is biases, and there is lying.

Rape in colleges is a problem. It happens a lot and administrations are not doing enough to combat it or punish those who have done the deeds.

But being sketchy in your documentary about it doesn’t fucking help.

I mentioned just yesterday that I watched Mississippi Grind solely for the fact that it was nominated for an award. There are several other films nominated for Spirit Awards that I could have watched right away, and I picked Youth.

No, it wasn’t nominated for a Spirit Award. But it might be nominated for an Oscar. In some form or another. I don’t want to be too obvious with my movie choices, and Youth seemed like a nice out of no where film that no one would ever expect me to watch.

“I’m very very sneaky sirs.”

Youth, of course, stars two old people. Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) is supposed to be a baller as a fuck music composer. He is famous and people love his songs and work. But you know, he is old. So he is on at a resort in the Alps with his good buddy, a filmmaker, Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel). Mick is doing research for his next movie, which he believes will be his greatest work yet. He just has to figure out the ending.

Their vacation starts to get weird when an emissary of the Queen (Alex Macqueen), yes, the British one, visits Fred hoping he will conduct a symphony in honor of a big birthday celebration. Well, Fred, despite being his proper British self, says no. Huh. Rarely do people say no to the queen.

It should be noted that these two friends are also related now through marriage. Fred’s daughter (Rachel Weisz) married Mick’s son (Ed Stoppard). Except now Mick is leaving her for a pop star (Paloma Faith, apparently a real pop star?) for very shallow reasons.

There are other big names at this fancy as fuck resort. There is Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) an actor who is well known for playing a robot, the most recent Miss Universe (Madalina Diana Ghenea), and even a fat…football player…dude. Or something. That one was weird.

Either way. Shit happens at the resort. Bad and good things. Also Jane Fonda.

And all the pictures for this film make them look really pervy.

Youth is directed by Paolo Sorrentino, a man who I know close to nothing about. He is Italian and mostly has Italian films, but his most recent one before Youth was The Great Beauty, which was also acclaimed and loved. But in all honesty, I don’t remember anything about it. At least the last two films (The only ones in English) seem to be about rich people living fancy lives, but you know, having issues.

The best part of Youth is the cinematography. The movie was shot on site of an actual “You Will Never Be Rich Enough To Go Here” resort, and it is probably better looking than you can imagine. Imaginative shots, montages, colors, almost every shot is wonderful. Youth is rated R for its Graphic Nudity, and by that, naked people everywhere. As it is the only way to stay at a resort.

Beautiful film, decent acting, and hard for me to relate to. I am probably wrong, but I guess the title refers to older people trying to reclaim their youth and show they aren’t old. They are making movies. They are enjoying life and the beautiful women around them. But at some point they have to realize that they are old, life is no longer as grand as it used to be, and they sometimes have to make difficult choices.

It is easy to get lost in this film and at points, I felt it was just too intellectual for me. Some of the imagery was out there and I kept losing track of what the film was even about. Naked people. Oh yes, it is about naked people.

Originally, I was trying to avoid Mississippi Grind. I figured I could just wait a few months and get to it when I get lazy. But sure enough, this movie has earned some award nominations from the Spirit Awards, the awards for independent films. And for last years awards I did a pretty pathetic job of watching those movies. I started too late, when I was busying myself with the Oscar nominated movies, so I rarely was able to watch films from just Spirit. They needed to overlap!

Now, this film might be one that overlaps too. It might be nominated for Oscars, technically. I just don’t see it because it is such a small movie and no one seemed to care about it when it was released.

But here is a reason to care about it. Ryan Reynolds has been working really hard to release movies this year, and this is number four for him. Four films this year! All of them starring Reynolds. Not bull shit cameos, but lead man roles. I only enjoyed The Voices, because Self/Less and Woman In Gold were shit. But at least he is working hard before Deadpool comes out and disappoints us all.

You shouldn’t be willing to bet it all on comedic and financial success. That’s a shit bet.

Mississippi Grind is about Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) and Curtis (Reynolds), two very old timey dude names. But only Gerry is old. He is a loner, divorced with a step kid, and he surprisingly likes to gamble. He lives in middle of nowhere Iowa, but he still plays small time poker games. Must have lost too many big steak hands in his past or something. Gerry and Curtis meet in one of these games, as Curtis was just driving through. He is charismatic, likes to tell stories, and likes to meet people. He doesn’t care about winning, but he is still addicted to gambling and the people. Gerry is addicted to gambling and money.

After night of friendship and drinking these two become the most unlikely of friends. And guess what, Gerry finally has someone who shares his love of gambling! Curtis invites Gerry to travel with him, towards a big poker tournament in New Orleans. Sure, they need a shit ton of money to enter it, but they will just stop at tournaments along the way, winning money and having a blast. They can do more than poker. They can bet on horses, on dogs, play craps, whatever the fuck they want.

Fuck responsibilities. Fuck jobs. Fuck old loved ones. Fuck cares. Let’s gamble and live life.

Also featuring a lot of people in smaller roles, so I will only mention Alfre Woodard, Analeigh Tipton, and Sienna Miller.

Some dudes too I guess. But who cares about those fucks.

I feel like I know Curtis and Gerry, I really do. These strangers met and talked and hung out, and I feel like I was maybe the third, silent stranger on their trip, laughing, yelling, and doing dumb shit. You could probably say that for most movies, as you are always watching them, but for some reason it feels a bit personal with these two shitheads.

I call them shitheads of course, because I am an asshole, and addictions are a real thing. But they just cannot stop gambling and they bet on everything. They bet on their last $100. They bet with other people’s money. They steal and lie and keep on going. They are despicable people, but despicably your friends.

I think Mendelsohn and Reynolds did some top notch acting. They were very believable, and Reynolds wasn’t stuck just playing some pretty boy.

The biggest downfall would have to be the story. It is one we have all heard before, in a way, and there are definitely better gambling films out there. But the simpleness ends up being one of its strengths, when you realize gambling is only part of the film, with the people being the main part.

Potential spoiler? I was worried this movie would turn out being like Fight Club but with gambling. It wasn’t. Everyone was real. That’s good. A Fight Club twist would have been terrible.