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Short Term 12 came out to theaters in August of 2013…if you were lucky, I guess. I kind of forgot that it existed, because it came no where close to my area. In fact, when it eventually came out on DVD, I didn’t rush to see it. Didn’t pass through my mind at all.

But a friend of mine requested I watch it, and as always, I try to honor these sacred review requests. They are probably more important to me godfather based responsibilities. So I watched it, and I immediately hated my friend because this film was good. And that meant I would end up writing a more serious review about how good and under appreciated the movie was, instead of a nice review ripping it apart. Sigh.

Two people per bike? Shit, they must be poor.

Short Term 12 takes place at a foster home of sorts for at risk teens. Just a bunch of basically guidance counselors watching over them throughout the days. It isn’t meant to be a long term place for them, usually at most 12 months (boom title). One of the main counselors is Grace (Brie Larson), who came from her own troubled past and can easily relate with some of the kids. She is dating another long term counselor, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). The movie begins with a new counselor joining the team, Nate (Rami Malek) so they can go over all the things they do here. Anyone else? Yeah, there is also Jessica (Stephanie Beatriz), known for being the hard ass on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Anyways. Troubled kids. And Grace has her own problems, like pregnancy.

This week is a big one! Marcus (Lakeith Lee Stanfield) is about to turn 18 and thus go out into the real world! We also have Luis (Kevin Hernandez), his enemy. And Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a new girl who came from an abusive home, but won’t admit it.

So. Can Grace really help these kids? Or is she too messed up to really help them at all? Or even worse, is she able to help the kids, but not able to being only a counselor?

Dontmakeatimeofthemonthjoke. Dontmakeatimeofthemonthjoke. Dontmakeatimeofthemonthjoke.

Ooooh damn. Like I said in my intro, I was mad that this film was so good. Because I became instantly disappointed. Did the Academy care about this movie? No, of course not. Just like they ignored Rush, and The Place Beyond The Pines, and Pain & Gain. Hmm, some of those might not be in the same caliber.

But this was pretty fantastic in the realism realm. Characters had problems. No one was perfect. The problems weren’t easy to solve and maybe they weren’t solved by the end. Brie Larson was an amazing lead and made this film her bitch. It was exciting to see John Gallagher Jr. in something other than The Newsroom.

Give this film a watch if you want to see something that was totally off the radar as far as I can tell, and pretty dang good.

Let’s talk about History. You know I like history, and studied Ancient History. We’ve been through that many times. I remember seeing the first 300 in theaters and being amazed by what I saw. I was so surprised and excited and at the edge of my seat. Later viewings, the excitement died a bit down, and I didn’t really like the movie as much. That is sad.

So why not a sequel, what, 8 years later? Based on the sequel graphic novel, Xerxes, that isn’t even out yet. 300: Rise of an Empire is also based on history I guess. You see, when the Spartans were forcing Xerxes’ forces to a bottle neck point, the Athenians and other Greece fighters were doing the same sort of strategy but with boats. Overall, both sides stalled enough time to eventually defeat Xerxes’ army!

Spoilers? No, fuck you, that’s history. So let’s get our boat on, and hopefully this movie doesn’t suck. After all, it doesn’t have what I will now call the “Gerard Butler Star Power” aspect that the first one had.

This man is not Gerard Butler.

Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) is a great Athenian, bu he wants to be a great Greek. He wants to unite the country, all of the city states (including Sparta) under one banner. He has wanted this for years, and it doesn’t help (or does it?) that Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is at their doorstep.

But Greece doesn’t want to do it. They have democracy now, so he can’t force them. He instead will go out with the small force and try and stall until a martyr can be formed, hopefully uniting the country and helping them win the war. He also has to deal with Artemisia (Eva Green), a Greek traitor who has risen through the ranks in Persia, leading his entire navy and wanting to see Athens burn.

But this isn’t just any sequel to 300. No, we also get material that happens before the invasion. We get the Battle of Marathon, ten years prior! We get to see how lowly Prince Xerxes became Xerxes the GodKing. And of course, we also get to see that after effects to the 300 getting slaughtered.

Lena Headey reprises her role as Queen Gorgo, and Hans Matheson, Callan Mulvey, and Jack O’Connell are the other soldiers who get speaking lines in the Athens boat force.

This shit is real too. A Greek woman commanded the Persian fleet. How progressive!

I am conflicted writing this review, just because I know I initially liked 300, and then started to kind of hate it. So, if I initially like this version too, will I hate it in a year?

I…don’t…think…so…?

I liked this one. Shit, thinking back on how much I liked 300, I think this one is actually a superior film. The problem with 300 really is that it got boring to me in later viewings. The beginning takes forever, and the fights feel repetitive once they start. It didn’t have lasting appeal. This movie balances all of that a lot more. We have a fight to begin, then some back story where cool shit happens. Then we have more fights, and then some fights, then some story, then more and more fights. Hell, we also have probably the most ridiculous sex scene I have ever seen in a film.

But I liked it.

That might have sound creepier than I intended. I liked all of the description above, not just the last sentence of the paragraph.

Mr. Not Gerard Butler? He was pretty charismatic. I really wanted to go up and help him unite Greece and defeat the Persians. Sullivan Stapleton, listen to me right now. Do NOT start starring in RomComs after this movie. None of those roles for Butler are good.

The ending could have ended on a more complete note. I am pretty sure they aren’t setting it up for another eventual film, because the last fight is the Battle Of Salamis, which basically ended the invasion into Greece. So, if they had them posing for victory, or Xerxes running, it would have told the whole ending. This part was left a bit too open ended for my sake.

Did I mention all the cool shit that they did? Man, boat battles sure are fun. No wonder why Rome flooded the Colosseum every once in awhile to hold them for audiences.

Oooh, Non-Stop, a Liam Neeson action movie where he uses his wit and tactical efficiency to solve a crisis!

I don’t promise a lot about this review of Non-Stop I just promise to make zero Taken jokes. Even if the vague outline I just made sounds like it could easily be used for that movie. It is becoming old-hat to do Taken jokes for just because the movie stars Neeson, so I will let Zach Braff take care of that for me.

Neeson is texting here, to show us he still is up with the times.

Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is a Federal Air Marshal. He is a quiet man who has had some problems in his life recently, including alcoholism! But that is okay, it is not like he ever has to do anything on his job.

Just kidding! On a flight to London, someone wants to hijack the plane. They have hacked into the local network and are sending text messages to Bill, threatening that someone will die every twenty minutes on the plane unless they get $150 million sent to a bank account. Even more troubling news is that bank account is in Bill’s name, so the TSA and other governmental agencies have assumed that Bill has gone rogue and is hijacking the plane until he gets paid.

Oh no!

Bill will have to use the people he can trust on the plane. Nancy (Michelle Dockerty), a flight attendant who he has worked with before. Jack Hammond (Anson Mount), an off duty Air Marshal also on the flight. And of course, Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), the woman he just met who was sitting next to him in first class.

So, who is the terrorist?! Well here is a list of actors also on the plane to take a pick from, assuming it actually isn’t an inside job and isn’t one of the people already listed in the review: Corey Stoll, Nate Parker, Scoot McNairy, Lupita Nyong’o, Omar Metwally (who has a turban!), Corey Hawkins, and Frank Deal.

Their hands are in the air, yes, but I assure you right now they all care.

I know I might have made the plot of Non-Stop seem cliche/not exciting, but it turned out to be the opposite of that. First off, it wasn’t a mindless action movie. The only big action sequence happens near the end, which you could tell from the trailers. Everything else is based on suspense and tiny clues along the way.

Outside of the first 8 or so minutes, I found myself watching Non-Stop on the edge of my seat. The parts of the movie before boarding the plane were a bit slow, but that can be expected in a movie like this.

Was it believable? No, not really. There are a lot of coincidences and lucky breaks that make the entire evil mastermind plan work. Kind of annoying, but I can get over it.

Somehow, despite the coincidences and questionable plot, I was just really entertained by this movie. It wasn’t obvious who the bad guy was, plenty of red herrings thrown our way throughout the film. In fact, I think knowing “who did it” wouldn’t even ruin future viewings for me, which is a rarity for these types of movies.

Neeson might have actually been the perfect pick for this role as well. He has that aged scruffiness, perfect for a guy who has “seen some shit” in his days.

Check out Non-Stop, which ended up being (surprisingly) one of the better movies for the month of February.

When I look at Son Of God, I see a movie with a bit of history behind it. Technically, this is one of many remakes that have existed. But more importantly, this movie is based on a miniseries based on a book. The miniseries was on The History Channel in 2013, titled The Bible. It broke the book of the same name into ten episodes, giving five each to the first and second halves.

Much of this movie is actually taken from the second half of the series to tell the same story in a shorter way. A lot of cuts were made, but they also promised bringing in a lot of deleted scenes.

I am a bit worried this movie just ends up feeling like a made for TV movie. I am also worried that if you start with 4-5 hours of material, add in deleted scenes, and cut it to just above 2 hours, they might accidentally create a lot of gaps in the story making it hard to follow.

Super white. With a name like Jesus I would have expected a more Hispanic look.

The beginning of this story are a bit of a mess as it quickly runs through a lot of large events to bring you to “now.” From what I could tell, the only important event of note is that this dude Jesus (Diogo Morgado) was born. The actual movie takes place about thirty years later with Jesus wandering around Israel. It is important to also note that he has some sort of magical/divine powers.

A lot of these powers are similar to Aquaman, in that there seems to be some affinity to fish, like when he meets Peter (Darwin Shaw). He can also heal wounds and diseases with a touch. Eventually he gathers more followers, like John (Sebastian Knapp), Mary Magdalene (Amber Rose Revah), his only woman follower, Judas (Joe Wredden), and Thomas (Matthew Gravelle). They really think he is a cool dude.

This apparently pisses off some local clergy members in Jerusalem, claiming he is being blasphemous towards their god. They get the local Roman senator Pilate (Greg Hicks) to try and put an end to him, before they lose more worshipers to this Jesus fellow.

All of this sets up the final third, which I won’t go into detail, because that would be a lot of spoilers. Oh yeah, Roma Downey plays Jesus’ mom, Mary.

Satan was removed from the film for looking too much like Obama, apparently.

Son Of God clocks in at 138 minutes, and honestly, it only has about 45 minutes of material, max. One of my main thoughts while watching this movie (outside of boredom) was wondering what the point of all of it was and where it was going. After seeing the movie, that question is still hard to answer.

The acting was all over the place, but they didn’t have a lot to work with because the characters didn’t have a lot to do. Not until the final third, that is. The final third is where a lot of the action and build up took place, but the ending seemed like a complete cop out with what happens to Jesus.

Also, his mother isn’t a part of the story at all until the final third, outside of a small glimpse when he was born. It felt awkward to see them apparently have such a strong connection and bond together as it came out of no where. If I had to guess, it looks like Jesus left home at an early age. He also never talked about his mother in any capacity, just his father. The movie makers must have cut out some important information that would have helped explain their connection.

Despite its long run time, the ending feels pretty unsatisfactory, as if they didn’t finish the story they were trying to tell. They may have been setting it up for a sequel, but I really hate it when a movie doesn’t finish its story. Especially when the story itself already contains so much filler.

I never try to compare a movie to its source material, but I have a feeling the movie would make a lot more sense to someone who has seen the mini series or read the book. Then there wouldn’t as much missing detail to really understand the point of it all.

Overall, Son Of God tries to tell a tale about a man, but forgets to put in any amount of entertainment.

BOOBIES!

Originally, I didn’t want to watch Pink Ribbon, Inc., because how much would I actually learn?

I knew that the Susan G. Komen organization was lame with their donations and generally considered very crummy.

But eh, why not watch it. Maybe I can learn even more to signify my stance on the issue. Maybe, just maybe, my opinions on the subject were already wrong?

Mostly I am just upset over sports and their support of this.

Well, this documentary does give me a lot more detail! You get to see the history of the pink ribbon, the history of many companies using it for “awareness”, the truth behind certain companies and more. They talk about the tyranny of cheerfulness that is presented with breast cancer, and argue over the terms “survivor” and “losing a battle” with cancer.

Is this biased towards one side? Hard to say. It just seems to me, on the most part, that they are presenting facts and just giving a voice to the side less heard. Because everything they argue against is the majority voice and doesn’t need a side to vent itself. Also, I believe there were people from Susan G. Komen and other organizations who were interviewed and put into the documentary to get their voices across too. The validity of their comments no one seems to have complained about, like they did in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, so I assume everything was on the uppity up.

So yeah. Documentary review. Much short. I enjoyed this one.

I can’t remember when Baggage Claim came out in theaters, probably October or November. I can remember that because I live in one of the whitest states ever, it didn’t come anywhere close to my theater. Pfft. Bunch of lame white people up here, can’t handle a movie of color.

But hey, a movie about finding the one you love and planes. That is. Well. Originalish. I guess.

Yeah, I will allow it. Bring on the movie.

It was actually super hard to find her in flight attendant gear. Weird right?

Montana (Paula Patton) is a flight attendant and her mother Catherine (Jenifer Lewis) really loves weddings. She loves weddings so much, she got married herself around five times! Catherine has two daughters, but none of them are married yet and that is sad.

Montana has a man though, Graham (Boris Kodjoe), and thought he was about to propose. Turns out, Graham be cheating, and Montana is the mistress in question. Shit. Sadness. Then Montana finds out her sister is getting married, and she makes the grand claim that she too is getting married, and will let them meet her fiance in 30 days.

What? Bitch be crazy. Well, her friends (Jil Scott, Adam Brody), fellow flight attendants develop a plan. They will use all of the resources TSA/airline workers and everyone in between have available to constantly screen for one of her exes that fell apart in good terms to make a flight. They will then do whatever they can to get her flight attending on said flight, to maybe win back an old love and find happiness!

Err. Yeah. Her neighbor and BFF from high school William (Derek Luke) thinks she is crazy, but whatever.

And boy does she have exes and suitors to choose from, including Trey Songz, Taye Diggs, and Djimon Hounsou, who are now rappers, congressmen, and rich motherfuckers, respectfully. But we know they won’t work out for her for a variety of reasons, that’s why their actor names get listed in a single sentence, right?

I am pretty sure I gave this film a fair shot. I mean, it is a RomCom and I enjoy those a lot. It tackles a unique-ish subject, and it has a bunch of actors I enjoy.

But even for me, the lover of love, it all falls a bit short.

Halfway through the film, I could see myself giving it a 2 out of 4, for at least being a bit interesting, but over time I realized I didn’t really get a lot out of it. From the beginning, you know who her true love will be. That isn’t normally an issue in RomComs, it is just an issue in this one where the point is her trying to find her true love amongst a bunch of men she knows.

It had its amusing moments, where Affion Crockett as a TSA agent was clearly the best. But he wasn’t utilized that much, maybe having only two real scenes.

The humor was low and a bunch of guys are assholes. Basically the theme of the movie.

Mannn.

Fuck Romeo and Juliet.

There, I said it.

The story is terrible. People think it is a romance, and a story about eternal love, when it is a dang tragedy. So then people overly romantisize it. Then we get the fiftieth movie version of it. And…and…and for SOME REASON. ALL OF THE MOVIE VERSIONS ARE THE SAME.

Well. Most of them. Some take the basic tale and put a unique spin on it. Thank you, Romeo + Juliet, West Side Story, and Warm Bodies.

Everything else just feels like the same dang thing every time, and this remake is abso-fucking-lutely no exception. Shit, even Gnomeo and Juliet tried to do something different.

100% of this is all the same and boring at this point.

When I first heard they were doing this new new new version (which no one gave enough shits about to even let it go to most theaters before getting its DVD/Blu-Ray release), a blurb described it as “The Romeo and Juliet for the Twilight generation!”

What?! Oh god no.

That means it for sure would be heavily romanticized, with like, darker filters to make them seem so dang tormented. But I had hope with that description. I had hope that it would mean that this movie is slightly different. Maybe it won’t take the actual Shakespear script, and just have people talk normal? Maybe it will put it in a more modern setting and relate to the kids of today.

Haha. Hahaha. That’s another big fat nope. This is just another dang Romeo and Juliet, same dialogue, same plot, just slightly different production value. Nothing new or redeeming.

Hailee Steinfeld plays Juliet and Douglas Booth plays Romeo. Paul Giamatti the friar!

We got a Tybalt (Ed Westwick), a Mercutio (Christian Cooke), and a Nurse (Lesley Manville).

We got the Capulets (Damian Lewis, Natascha McElhone) and the Montagues (Tomas Arana, Laura Morante). We even have a Benvolio (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and I definitely don’t remember his importance.

Shit, even Paul Giamatti looking creepy is still the same.

Dang it, Hailee Steinfeld. You were so so good in True Grit. You were. Then you did this movie. And 3 Days To Kill. And a pointless role in Ender’s Game. You are probably one bad movie away from losing any of your acting cred.

To everyone else involved with the making of this movie, fuck you guys. Seriously. You are who people are talking about when they say Hollywood has run out of ideas and try to defend you guys. This shit is unacceptable. All of it.

And yet it is still a 1 out of 4. Why? Because despite my outrage towards its existence, I still realize it isn’t bottom of the barrel stuff, it is just entirely pointless stuff. The acting wasn’t super bad, it was mostly just indifferent. I can’t complain about the plot, because its Shakespeare. I can say however that it is worthy of being avoided just for contributing nothing new to society.

This might read as a big rant, but I won’t even edit this one. I am done with this damn movie.

Man, I hate this movie, so it is going to be a short review.

Why did I watch Sisters & Brothers? Well, one obvious reason. Cory Monteith was on the cover, the former male lead of Glee who died ODing on Heroin. I never did anything to acknowledge his death, having only seen him in one other movie (Monte Carlo), and then I reviewed Sharknado, which was a bit of a joke at his expense too.

But you know, Paul Walker got a review like right away, and eventually I will have to fit another Philip Seymour Hoffman movie in there too. So figured it was time to see something with Cory in it.

This mockumentary focuses on four groups of people, who all have a sibling, and their relationships with each other. We see them giving interviews with the camera, and living their lives. That is about it.

I literally can’t find any real picture from this movie, but I blame that on the TV show, Brothers & Sisters.

I definitely was a bit confused at the beginning, not knowing it was in that format. It starts with Cory and others being interviewed about their siblings, and I couldn’t tell if they were talking truthfully at first or playing a character. Cory himself plays a famous person who has tons of fans. I know, he was reaching for this one.

The movie also includes Gabrielle Miller, Amanda Crew, Kacey Rohl, Dustin Milligan, Benjamin Ratner, Camille Sullivan, and some other people.

I am having a hard time believing the cover, because it says it is a comedy, but I don’t remember any jokes. At all. Maybe a “Ah, that’s curious” type of reaction once. I mostly remember siblings arguing and people mad at each other. No, it gets the Drama rating and that is all it gets.

Without being too mean, this movie is a waste of space. Not a lot happens, there isn’t really great acting, the format for the movie is dumb, and the time did not flow by at all while it was on.

I think the thing that infuriates me the most about 3 Days To Kill is the trailer.

The trailer didn’t come out until late December, only a few months before the actual movie, but when it did it quickly oversaturated the movie going experience. I probably saw this trailer for at least 80% of the movies I watched in January and February before it came out.

The only reason why I am upset is because A) the trailer itself isn’t that good, which I will discuss further later, and B) they only had one trailer. Some films have as many as 4 trailers to help build up hype and showcase different elements. If you are going to flood me with trailers from one movie, they shouldn’t be the same thing every dang time.

You will hear a similar trailer based rant when his next movie Draft Day comes out.

Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) is a lifer for the CIA. He is an agent on the ground, never advancing up the ladder, but he is really efficient at killing people. During an attempt to capture The Wolf (Richard Sammel) and his main hit man The Albino (Tomas Lemarquis…sigh), a lot of factors go wrong, people die, and Ethan finds out he has cancer.

Crud. He gets dismissed by the CIA, and he attempts to live out his remaining time with his ex-wife (Connie Nielsen) and daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld).

But when he only has a few months left to live (5? 3? 1/10th?), Vivi Delay (Amber Heard) walks into his life, needing him to re-enlist, as the only person alive who has probably seen The Wolf’s face. She will give him a big bonus to his family, huge life insurance policy, and an experimental cure to maybe save his life. You know, if he works for her to bring down The Wolf once and for all.

But…but…family!

But…but…cure!

Holy fuck, Lady Gaga is in this movie?

Alright, let’s go back to the trailer. It is bad for one HUGE reason. The trailer is super deceptive in its showcasing of the film. Not only does it mash up multiple scenes and dialogue constantly to tell a false narrative in the trailer (making it seem a bit hokey in my mind), but it also doesn’t match the pace or style of the movie at all. If you like the trailer for 3 Days To Kill, you might still hate the movie because they are so damn different.

Argh, bad and deceptive trailers are the worst! Trailers are usually made by advertising companies, not the people who made the movie, and sometimes they do a really shitty job. The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty had an amazing trailer, partially because it was made by Ben Stiller himself.

The actual movie is also a mess. I blame most of it on timing and pacing issues. We are told he has about 5 months to live after his first faint, so he goes home a day or two later to see the wife and kids. All of the sudden, without an explanation (like his cancer being much worse? or anything?) he only has a few days left. There was no montage, there was no large passing of time, nothing.

I can’t tell if the script is horribly written, if they accidentally cut out transition scenes, or they just didn’t care.

It wasn’t just that issue. Pacing was bad all over the place, as they tried to put in the family plot that not only slowed it all down, but never felt real. There was an extremely awkward “club” scene about halfway through, and it wasn’t really brought up afterwards. The ending itself would bring up a lot of problems that they also choose to ignore.

After more research, I found out that Luc Beeson wrote a lot of this movie, and now it all makes perfect sense. All of the issues, being so euro-centric, crime plus family, all of it.

Avoid 3 Days To Kill or else you might start questioning time as you know it.

Finally, Philomena. The last of the “Best Picture” nominated films from 2013. And I got to review it a whole few days before the Academy Awards. Woo~

So yeah, screw an intro, let’s just finally do it.

Hehehehe. I said “do it.”

Philomena tells the true story of Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), an old English woman who is looking for her son. This isn’t just any old missing son story either.

When Philomena was a younger girl, without parents in Catholic School, she met a boy. That boy made her happy. And that boy made her pregnant.

Well, she had a baby outside of marriage, which wasn’t good living as an orphan in a Catholic school. The nuns agreed to help her out, assuming she worked 7 days a week to pay off the debt for four years, and had little contact with her son. Then, one day, her son was taken away without warning, adopted without her permission from another couple.

Now, fifty years later, she is finally branching out to let other people know. You see, she sinned before and felt terrible about it, not wanting to make light of her faults. Her daughter introduces her to Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), who normally doesn’t do human interest stories, but decides to give this one a listen due to boring and confusing circumstances in his life.

Sophie Kennedy Clark plays young Philomena.

OH LOOK. IT’S ONE OF THOSE EVIL NUNS! GET HER! GET HER!

Well, shit, turns out the acting was great in this movie too. Mainly in the three people I tagged. I expected that from Coogan and Dench. But Sophie Kennedy Clark? Someone I barely know? Who didn’t have a lot of screen time as young Philomena? She knocked it out of the park, and the feels were quite high. Again, everyone gave me feels, but she just gave them unexpectedly.

The story itself was a powerful one, with built in twists and turns as they get closer and closer to hopefully finding her son. I won’t lie, the fact that it is true kind of makes it seem a bit more powerful, even though it shouldn’t affect the movie at all.

I can tell why Dench was nominated for best actress, a great performance on her part, I guess really picking up the nuances of the actual Philomena.

I really don’t even know what to say more? Nice touching movie. Definitely not going to win Best Picture. One of the shorter films nominated for Best Picture, so that was nice. Didn’t feel the need to give a 2.5 hour epic.