Author: Admin

My All American is one of those films that came out in 2015 that I just flat out avoided. Football films have been extremely disappointing lately. Heck, for quite a few years I guess. After the extreme disappointment that was When The Game Stands Tall I knew I couldn’t see another one in theaters for some time.

On top of that, Aaron Eckhart has also been equally disappointing, almost entirely, since The Dark Knight. Dude needs to step up his game, I am tired of being let down.

According to IMDB, this movie is actually called Courage. I just have not heard that said about it in any other context, except for it being a big part of a title of one of the many books on this subject. Fucking IMDB, stop being weird.

There is no way this image is not a hand job. Can they show this in a family movie?

This is a true story of course, and of course, some of this is a bit unbelievable.

Despite the billing, it is about Freddie Steinmark (Finn Wittrock), a boy with a lot of heart. But you knew that, why else would he get his own movie? He is a smaller guy, like Rudy, sure, but he gives it his all, he is super fast, and smart on the defense. He is a safety, and fantastic. But because of his size, no one gives him a chance. Except for one guy, Coach Royal (Aaron Eckhart), at the University of Texas. The Longhorns.

He sees his drive. And he also has a friend, Bobby Mitchell (Rett Terrell) who might come by as well. A nice two for one.

Well, sure enough, Freddie becomes their main defensive player. He is on the highlight reels. He is top form. He wants a national championship. And he might be able to force his body to go places no single human body should go. But will he become an All American? That is really what is important. He won’t. Nope. Sorry. But they let you know that one right away.

His parents are played by Michael Reilly Burke and Robin Tunney, girlfriend by Sarah Bolger, and other quarterbacks are played by Juston Street and Donny Boaz.

Holy shit, is everyone on this college football team a guy in their thirties?

Heart. Drive. Inspiration. I already made the Rudy connection, but apparently Steinmark was a bit better than Rudy. Rudy got to play one game, because he was willing to practice so hard and make it his one goal. Steinmark had family support since he was kid to be the very best and it actually showed, despite his size. Steinmark helped championship games get won and rivalries get stomped down.

My All American is better than it has any right to be. It is more or less a by the numbers inspirational sports film. It is PG, it shows mostly just some personal struggle, and it is about an optimist. It has a lot of really easy material to pluck from to get people nostalgic and tearjerking. In fact, by the end it feels like it is trying to hard just to get some cries out. Did I cry? Yes, but only like half of a cry. It didn’t fully get to me, despite giving its best.

The film is also surprisingly well shot. You can generally tell what is going on during the plays, everything looks really nice and you can tell that someone wanted to put their best foot forward for the film. In terms of acting, most of the side characters are understandably average, being reduced to mostly one or two bit players. But Wittrock as our lead was a joy to watch and is the type of lead you want in a sports bio pic like this one.

My All American won’t be for everyone. In fact, I probably won’t watch it ever again unlike what I do almost bimonthly for Remember the Titans. But it was a better effort than recent fair and hopefully means we can get some better football movies in the pipeline soon.

Almost every single introduction joke I could think of for The Boss was incredibly lame. There are way too many Boss-based pop culture references that every single one became cringey at just the thought of them. I don’t think there is a single good joke or reference I can make without the readers closing their browser in anger.

If Kelsey Grammer and Tony Danza were locked in a room all night, even they couldn’t come up with something clever to make a chuckle.

Although they would have made something at least more appealing than this turd.

Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy) was an orphan kid and no one wanted her. She got returned a lot. Must be too much spunk. But now, as an adult, she is wickedly rich and famous. I can’t actually tell you what she does, but she is famous and sells stuff. She also sells her image, women love her, she is a rock star and she knows how to put on a show.

But then she gets arrested. For insider trading crap, even though everybody does it. But she is rich so she doesn’t have to go to jail for years, just has to post a bond and honestly, I think everyone forgets about it. Claire (Kristen Bell) doesn’t forget though. She was her assistant for years and never got the raises she deserved as a single mom. With the arrest she had to find a new job and quick. And now Michelle is showing up to sleep on her couch.

Long story short, the daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson), is in an off shoot girl scouts group. Michelle sees how much they make selling cookies, but dislikes that the girls don’t make anything out of it. So she makes her own alternative off shoot girl scout group, but this time the girls can get commission on their pastry sales and Michelle can also make a lot of money. Hooray money!

Also conflict about other business people, Michelle being not super nice, and girls beating up other girls in the streets. Starring Peter Dinklage, Tyler Labine, Kathy Bates, Cecily Strong, Kristen Schaal, and Eva Peterson as a tall teenage girl.

Because all out brawls make the best scenes in comedies.

I really need to harp on this. In my eyes, a comedy reaches the lowest levels of its potential if it resorts to an all out brawl between parts of the cast. It was the conclusion of Grown Ups 2, and the most advertised portion of The Boss. As you can see, it is hilarious because there are young teenage girls in the fray, along with overly concerned mom, all dressed super funny. Ha ha ha!

Anyways, outside of that scene there is little else I remember about the film. Wait, I remember Melissa McCarthy making fun of Kristen Bell’s boobs for a long time. And I remember never laughing.

A comedy without laughter is like torture without pain. Wait, no, it actually IS torture and very painful. Sorry, messed that up. The Boss offers nothing new to the movie experience, not even the comedy movie experience. It is a complete waste of space. Thank goodness Ghostbusters also came out this year and was at least mediocre, or else McCarthy would have had her worst year since starting this recent trend.

Don’t watch The Boss. After reading this review, don’t remember anything except for the last line. Just a disappointment all around.

I have never seen a DC animated movie before I watched Batman: The Killing Joke. Sure, I have heard a lot of good things about them, but I never really made time for them. They are supposed to be decently animated, well voiced, and of course, tell great plot filled stories, better than the current live action films.

I figured it was the best time to finally get on the train. The hype for The Killing Joke was insane. The graphic novel itself is incredibly well known and respected as one of the best Batman stories ever. This is the first R-rated DC animated film ever made. And of course they decided to release it in theaters for Fathom Events. It sold out. So they made a second showing for the one day only event. Then they added two more the next day. And some theaters had multiple screens each night at the same time.

I. Had. To. See. This.

And I have never been so disappointed to get so dang hyped for something I had little experience for.

King? That’s not the card that is super relevant, damn it!

The Killing Joke is a story about Batman (Kevin Conroy) realizing that one day, either he might end up killing The Joker (Mark Hamill) or vice versa. And Batman doesn’t want to do that. He wants to try to talk with The Joker. But The Joker has escaped again.

And The Joker wants to get revenge, harsh revenge. Mainly on Commissioner Gordon (Ray Wise) and his daughter, Barbara/Batgirl (Tara Strong). He wants to break Gordon and break Batman in the process, just like he was broken a long time ago. Yes, we get Joker backstory.

Oh, and also, there is a 30 minute intro or something completely unrelated, about Batgirl and Batman having a relationship and a sociopath gangster named Paris (Maury Sterling) who abuses Batgirl. John DiMaggio is also here for gangster voice work and Brian George as Alfred.

Life. Life is the real joke. HA HA HA HA!

Let’s ignore the story for a bit. Let’s just talk about the animation, a crucial part of any animated movie. It is hard to describe in any other way other than shit. It feels so cheaply done. When characters walk it feels sometimes rushed, sometimes blocky. It is a buzzkill to watch. If they were going for a comic book feel, I cannot tell. In addition to that, for whatever creative reason, the vehicles in the movie are very different visually and a lot more 3D feeling than the rest of the 2D film. It again just feels lazy, like they had to use a different program just to get the film out in time.

The prologue of this film is a big what the fuck. First, it is almost half the movie. I haven’t seen a prologue that long since Digimon: The Movie. They apparently added in this story, not attached to the comic, in order to build up Batgirl a bit more. In The Killing Joke she is seen as a prop just to get hurt and abused and it has its fair share of controversy. So they give her a bigger role with this aspect. It is meant to draw parallels between her feelings towards Batman and this new villain, with Batman’s own feelings towards her and the Joker.

And it fails. The random gangster objectifies her at every turn and basically always has the upper hand. Batman is seen as a huge dick in the prologue, void of any emotion, and a very out of place love scene. It also comes with a stereotypical gay character out of the 90’s! The prologue is meant to give the Batgirl more material to work with, but in all honesty just turns her into a sex object for a longer period of time. Yeesh.

As for The Killing Joke portion, it is still only okay. The voice acting is decent, the animation is poor, the backstory is interesting. But again, this portion of the film feels rushed. Joker’s plan to drive Gordon insane has only two or so components and clearly not enough to break him. The film has the R rating for subject matter, but so much of it is still implied. Show me animated dong, damn it. It felt censored.

This is not something you should have seen in theaters, but by the time this review is up, it is already out. They made their money, it is a financial success, and now people might buy it for their homes. But it is not worth owning or really watching. In all accounts, your money would be better spent just on the graphic novel itself most likely. Rent this one if you must.

The Bourne series of films are not my overall cup of tea. The original trilogy got worse with each additional movie for me, with less realism, and overall just less interest. They got really close to Luc Besson Euro-Trash level of films.

But The Bourne Legacy I did enjoy, most since Identity, because it at least gave me something different. I was mostly alone with these thoughts and people were angry at Jeremy Renner and wanted their Matt Damon on. In fact, they never even considered having Renner involved. Pretty crazy.

So now we have Jason Bourne. A return to Jason Bourne the character. Apparently we know his name. Apparently this is what we want and need. And yes, I hate the title of this, the fifth film. Makes it feel like a reboot.

I honestly can’t hype up shirtless Matt Damon like I can other actors.

In this time line, Jason (Damon) is minding his own business, kicking ass in gambling fighting rings and keeping to himself. But you know who isn’t keeping to herself? Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), a member of their same program who also has gone rogue. But she is a hacker or something, so she goes to Reykjavík to access the CIA database and steal a lot of files. The CIA of course finds out and tries to tack her. But not before Nicky can contact Jason to let him know that he NEEDS to know more.

Like that Jason’s dad (Gregg Henry) is involved in all of this, or was, back in the day. That he may have been considered for the program before he volunteered to sign up. That he could have been watched for a long time. Oh no! Time to get some classic Bourne revenge. Once he can get out of Athens and the political riots existing for reasons. Probably the economy. Dunno.

His revenge is going to be against CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), who has been there for awhile even though this is the first time you have heard about him. He has a new head of technology or something, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), who is going to use her sweet computer skills to find Bourne and Parsons. There is also a CIA agent who we only know as Asset (Vincent Cassel) who would love to get some Bourne revenge and Riz Ahmed playing the creator of some sort of website/social networking thing that people really love for not spying on its users.

Also starring Ato Essandoh, Scott Shepherd, and Bill Camp.

There has to be a way for this still to not make everyone look like uncomfortable mannequins.

Bourne Bourne Bourne. I might be doing some revisionist history here, but I feel like what I remember about The Bourne Identity is that it helped kill James Bond and also introduced us to shaky-cam for action movies. It added some realism to the fights making them more chaotic. I don’t remember them being that bad, but it has also been many years since I saw that film.

Jason Bourne goes to some EXTREMES with the shaky cam aspect. It goes to more extremes than Billy Joel. And it isn’t just shaky cams. We get quick cuts all over the place, and the camera zooming in quickly into peoples faces. Zooming in, cut, cut, shake, zoom. The hacking scenes early on felt EXTREMELY HECTIC and it just never stopped. We had shaky cam for people just walking into hotels and restaurants, completely chill situations, but there is no time to relax.

About a third of the way through the movie, I had a headache, and yes, it stuck with me for the rest of the film. At least with Hardcore Henry I barely got a headache and it offered something original. In this movie, it is Bourne finds out new secret information about the government program some how and gets revenge. Like every Bourne film before that (I think, I forget).

The ending has an extremely long and disaster filled car chase, but it is so over the top, any level of previous realism the franchise had is just thrown out of the window. It wasn’t enjoyable, it just dragged. Not to mention understanding just what is happening during it is a battle in itself. You know why. The constant cuts and shakes. It wasn’t Getaway bad, but it was damn near close.

For Jason Bourne, the stakes just aren’t there. The Asset is an interesting character at least, someone who Bourne did screw over. So I could not find myself cheering his eventual demise because of other plot reasons. This film wants to launch more Bourne films, it leaves it way too open with more secrets to find out. And they will be made but I will not be happy to see them if they keep up this repetitive plot line and refuse to change it up for once. Or maybe, just maybe, make the damn thing watchable.

As a reminder, we have no age limit when it comes to Documentaries at Gorgon Reviews. They can be old as fuck and I might want to review them for my website. And some times, instead of a documentary, I will review a foreign film on a Thursday, just to keep things interesting.

In the case of The Ambassador, well, it isn’t super old, but it is 2011. Half a decade ago! But hey, it also happens to be a foreign documentary. That’s a double whammy here. I watched it with subtitles. Sometimes they spoke English, sometimes not English, but I read the whole dang thing. The reason I am watching The Ambassador is because I bought it blindly at a sale. It was a $3 Blu-Ray, so my deal alarms went off and I just snatched it up. If I didn’t watch it right away to review, that $3 value would have evaporated into thin air as the movie entered my DVD Case, most likely never to be seen again.

Shit, that just got dark. Hopefully The Ambassador is a cheery documentary about nice things and happy thoughts!

The Ambassador is about a real live journalist, Mads Brügger, from Denmark. I don’t know if he was famous before this documentary, I don’t know if he became famous after this documentary. But he wanted to talk about corruption in Africa and blood diamonds. He wanted to do some of that investigative journalism, putting his own butt on the line to tell the story. And tell the story he did! With hidden and visible cameras.

First thing I need to make clear is that Brügger is a man who was born in Denmark and lived there hist whole life. Sure he has traveled, but he is Danish through and through. Repetition of this fact is important, because to expose corrupt government officials, Brügger is going to become a political ambassador. Not from Denmark, but from Liberia, an African country, with his goal to become the Ambassador to the Central African Republic. A really ballsy goal. And a strange one.

This feels like a movie with that plot line. I already can’t believe this super white guy can do any of this.

But he blends in so naturally with the natives.

So how does any of this work out? Well, first, if you are stupidly wealthy and European, there are people who want to talk to you. You can pay an absurd amount of money to become an ambassador or consul of a poor struggling nation. The funds you pay go to the nation (And the people who broker the deal) and they have openings that need to be filled. Now of course, if you become a representative of a country, you can not just go and do illegal things. That will make them mad at you and bad things will happen.

But this is corruption we are talking about! Of course people will do bad things. But his idea is to go to the Central African Republic (CAR), pretend to want to set up a match making factory, but instead secretly get into the diamond business. Once he gets involved with diamond people, he can get uncut, unlicensed diamonds, sneak them out of the country to wherever he wants, and take them home. It isn’t easy, CAR is a dangerous country with government issues. But it isn’t super hard either. A lot of people are willing to help him out, because it means they can make money on the side as well.

And honestly, money is the greatest way to get things to go your way.

Needless to say, some of the things Brügger are able to do end up being quite shocking. By the end I was surprised. I was more surprised that this thing was even released, because certainly it will make government agents at various places around the world quite pissed off. And some rich people as well.

I am watching this film five years after the fact though. I don’t know if this documentary led to any change about anything. It is still crazy that just anyone (with money) could do something like that and gain some diplomatic immunity.

My biggest problem with this documentary though is that it is incredibly hard to really follow, especially early on. They talk to a whole lot of people, some of which are important, some of which are not. Names are hard to remember, which part of the process is happening gets confusing and it is just a struggle to keep up. I figured out most of it by the end…kind of. But man, I was lost constantly. I was scared to even write this review, wondering what I would say when I had to descrbe the movie.

The answer was keep it vague, stall in the beginning, and talk about how insane of an idea this was in the first place. Brügger could have been killed. He could be dead right now for all I know. But Journalism is sexy and sometimes you gotta take some risks.

Nerve is another of those films that I have thankfully been able to avoid any real information about.

On a first glance of the plot, it seemed to be some sort of combination of the Indie Horror Cheap Thrills and the Underwhelming Block Buster Gamer.

But it features the youthful cast of the future! Like Emma Roberts, straight out of Scream Queens! And Dave Franco, straight out of, I dunno, Neighbors and some James Franco pet project probably.

Sex Sells!

Nerve is a real life, 24 hour game that is invite only, super popular, but also secretive. It takes place in a big city and people can sign up in the city to be a Player or a Watcher. Also people outside of the city can be a watcher as well. It costs a fee to be a watcher, but then you can watch the players compete dares over a 24 hour period, earning cash prizes, doing stunts, getting sexy and who knows what else. The Player has to record the dares with their phones for them to count, and if they bail or fail a dare in the time limit, they are out of the competition.

After 24 hours, the two highest players in terms of viewers get to go to the finals and the winner will become super famous and decently wealthy. It is also completely anonymous for the watchers and no real one person is in control. And now the game has hit New York City.

Vee (Emma Roberts) is not an outgoing individual. She takes pictures and hides in the background. But when her best friend, Sydney (Emily Meade) embarrasses her in front of a crush (Brian Marc), she decides to finally live a little and screw it, time to be a player.

So she does one dare. And she brings along Tommy (Miles Heizer), her guy friend who clearly crushes hardcore on her. She just has to prove herself. But then she meets Ian (Dave Franco), someone who ends up being another player. And the dares get them closer together, so sure, why not, he is cute, why not hang out with him and earn some more money. Strangers aren’t really scary in real life.

Juliette Lewis plays Vee’s mom, Machine Gun Kelly another player, and Kimiko Glenn and Marc John Jefferies as two more friends of Sydney.

Don’t worry, they get to kiss before they take their clothes off.

Nerve was directed by the people who did Catfish and a couple terrible Paranormal Activity Films. So they have both experience with creepy things and technology, so in this film they wanted to bring it a bit together.

Early in the film, it felt a lot like Unfriended as our entire point of view if Vee’s computer screen, which lasts only a few minutes. And a lot of recent films that incorporate texting and technology into the movie to show the always connected parts of life have tended to feel tacky, but it really works in this movie. It feels unique with its cinematography and for the most part throughout the film it was a nice ride to be on.

The biggest problem with the movie just was the ending to me. It felt like a cop out, the plan was a bit silly and everything seemed to work out to well. The entire film ramps up quickly near the end, getting far too ahead of itself. Before the end, I thought this would make a decent franchise with a lot of potential, but the ending ruins even that for me. Also, for whatever reason, halfway through we find out that if they ever fail or bail on a dare, they lose all the money they earned. Which uhh, makes the fact that they earn money for tasks seem kind of pointless and makes absolutely no sense.

On another note, which will totally date this review in the future, it reminded me of Pokemon Go. At the time of writing, the game is only three weeks old. It became a phenomenon and now everywhere you can see people out and about, glued to their phone and playing it. And in the movie, there are tons of watchers, racing around NYC, with their phones out to film the players on their dares and see them in person. Before Pokemon Go it would have seemed silly and made the whole movie feel unbelievable. But now, hell, it is really easy to see this type of thing blow up and get popular. Nerve picked a really fucking good time come out, go figur.

Nerve is interesting, has a disappointing finale, and yet, I still kind of want some more.

I totally forgot the film Experimenter existed. In 2015, I saw it was coming out, planned on watching it, and then, well, we are halfway through 2016 now. Shit.

The only reason I remembered it existed was browsing Anton Yelchin‘s IMDB page, looking for recent films he was in that sounded interesting enough to review. The title Experimenter seemed good so I figure’d I’d “randomly” give it a shot.

It wasn’t until I actually started watching the film did I remember that I totally knew about this film before and I once again have found myself being a forgetful dumbass.

But hey, Yelchin is in this movie! And some other folks, can’t wait!

And I also have a huge hankerin’ for some science, even if it is of the social variety.

Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) is a social psychologist in the 1960’s-80’s, known for quite a few extreme experiments that really got the world talking. And no, he didn’t do The Stanford Prison Experiment, he did all the other ones.

This is mostly about his super famous experiments, dealing with obedience, trying to figure out why so many people could commit terrible acts during the Holocaust. This had a great concern to Milgram, who himself was Jewish. So the main point of his experiment was simple.

He would have two people come in, one would randomly be assigned the teacher, the other the learner. The learner would be hooked up to an machine that would shock them every time they got an answer wrong and they would sit alone in a room. The teacher would ask them questions based on a memory assignment and if the learner asked the question wrong they would get an electrical shock. Every wrong question, another shock, but a higher voltage level. And the teacher got a sample low shock at the beginning to get a feel for it.

Over time, the learner would start to scream louder and louder. And eventually ask for it to stop and then refuse to talk and refuse to answer (which makes them more wrong). The teacher doesn’t know that the learner is actually someone in on the experiment and not getting shocked at all. And of course, Milgram’s results were shocking. The world wasn’t ready for his tests and they raised quite a hubbub.

The first half of the film is mainly about that experiment and its variations, with the second half being the rest of his life, his other smaller (and still brilliant) experiments, life with his wife (Winona Ryder) and eventual death. Sad face.

Also featuring Jim Gaffigan and John Palladino as assistants, and John Leguizamo, Anton Yelchin, and Taryn Manning as a few people who were paid participants. Aka, very small roles.

This unflattering freeze frame of Gaffigan gives him a mouth that can fit several hot pockets.

Experimenter ended up being a really strange movie and not your normal biopic. It is definitely a drama, but it still feels comedic in a way without telling a lot of jokes. Like, the whole film is saying his life is just one big joke, but again, not in a mean way. It is narrated by Sarsgaard, constantly breaking the fourth wall to discuss his life (and death), no shame at all. Hell, it even has an elephant in the background to not so subtly talk about the elephant in the room.

Speaking of backgrounds, a lot of them are just so incredibly fake it is beyond obvious. Like they made this film in the actual time period that it is set. You can notice it in the car rides, when they go to a one time scene, and it is just fake. It was intentional, perhaps because they are almost insinuating that the aspects of his life not in the university are just a series of tests and fake set ups for experiments.

Shit, from the last two paragraphs, you might think this movie is meta as fuck. And honestly, I think that was their point. Meta as fuck but in a strangely subtle, obvious way.

I clearly have no idea what I am actually talking about. This movie is really entertaining and just so damn odd. I want to learn a lot more about Milgram, so I should read that book that made people scared of him. Or a biography that goes over all of his most famous experiments.

Taika Waititi is a rising star in the director world, and not just because of his four i’s. No one saw Eagle vs Shark, but I did, and I loved it. Waititi is a New Zealander and he loves his New Zealand based cinema. NO, NOT LORD OF THE RINGS. But you know, he directed some Flight of the Conchords episodes. But more importantly he directed one of the better comedies last year, What We Do In The Shadows.

What We Do In The Shadows was so good and people were so impressed with Waititi, they gave Waititi a marvel movie and he is going to be directing Thor: Ragnarok. Big step up indeed.

But before we get to any of this, we have another New Zealand based film of course. Hunt For The Wilderpeople, a title with a lot of story behind it and a mostly local cast with a lot of local heart.

And a star who is clearly gangster as fuck.

Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is getting into his teenage years but has had a rough life. No more parents, he has been in the foster system. He has gotten himself into some bad stuff. Like kicking stuff, burning stuff, graffiti and more. Basically gangster as fuck, which I already said.

So he is sent to his last chance home. A nice farm on the edge of civilization. The woman there, whom he has to call Aunt Bella (Rima Te Wiata). She knows he needs just something to do and learn and work on to get back on the right path. She is married to Uncle Hec (Sam Neill), who is much more a loaner and really only cares about his dog.

Things actually go pretty okay. Life is decent, Ricky is finding a purpose and isn’t a complete shit head. Then bad things happen. Things that threaten his removal from the house. So he decides to fake his own death and run away. Screw it, he will live in the wilderness by himself. He can shoot a gun now, he has a dog. He’s got this.

Well, it is up to Uncle Hec to go and find him. However, once he does he gets hurt. They end up being in the wilderness so long that people now think he was kidnapped and a bad type of man. Ricky himself is afraid of going back because he thinks he will have to go to Juvie! So somehow they both find themselves running from the law, living in the woods, making a real good time of it all. All while the head CPS lady (Rachel House) is on their tale.

Also featuring Oscar Kightley as a cop, Troy Kingi and Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne as a few natives, and Rhys Darby as Psycho Sam.

You can find a whole lot in the woods. But mostly, you’ll find yourself.

Being my third Waititi, I have come to expect a certain sort of humor and this film is of course full of it. It is weird, it is unique, but it is also raw and real.

I don’t know a damn thing about living in New Zealand. But I do know the basic differences between “city folk” and “country folk” and that is really the most important thing to understand this movie. Will you get each and every joke? Hell no (unless you are really knowledgeable about New Zealand, I guess). But the themes are practically universal.

And this film truly is an adventure. The beginning is a bit slower when we are getting used to the characters, but once they hit the woods, are traveling, talking, running from the po-po, meeting unique individuals and situations. That is where it is fun. That is where the film starts to run with it.

I wouldn’t say the soundtrack is the same level of Sing Street or Swiss Army Man, but it is still really well picked and placed, highlighting the film to greater levels.

Dennison has a potentially great career in comedic films if he keeps it up, he felt like a natural. Neill? I didn’t even recognize Neill. I saw his name in the intro credits and assumed I just missed him. I didn’t really realize until looking at IMDB way later. He was super into his role as well and quite a damn surprise. House was also really nice surprise, with her motto of “No Child Left Behind” when it comes to CPS. A good motto and made her a weird antagonist.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is amazing. It is realistic, strange, and I think we all have a little bit of Ricky in all of us.

The world is changing. No longer does a films success rely on success in the US. A film could bomb in the US but be loved throughout the world and studios now realize the full potential of that. China is now one of the most important box office countries, as they have a shit ton of people, and love very easy to make films. No offense, China.

So when a film breaks Chinese box office records, it damn well should be paid attention to. Especially if that film isn’t even from America, but China itself!

The Mermaid broke a few box office records in China. It had the biggest opening day, best second day, third, etc up to its best seventh day. Hell, as expected, it has the best opening week and is the highest grossing film ever in China. What this really tells me is that China really loves Stephen Chow (the director), or at least, really loves Mermaids. One of the two has to be true, if not both!

This was all early in the year, but now it is out in America. Not our theaters, but Red Box. Close enough.

Who wouldn’t love something so exotic and beautiful?

Liu Xuan (Chao Deng) is a super rich, young, famous, sex addicted fool. He loves his money and he loves his women. And he has just spent a shit ton of movie dollars to purchase Green Gulf, which currently is a wildlife reserve. It is a stupid investment, because he can’t really make money out of it. They can’t turn it into housing. But he buys it because he cares about the animals and wants to make it prosperous.

Just kidding. In fact, his company as introduced these strange sonar items to the sea. They can be set to specific frequencies to annoy the crap out of the type of animal living there. Namely dolphins! It can drive them out of the area and make them never want to return, or you know, kill them. And once the dolphins are gone, he can build some resorts, and make a shit ton more money.

But guess what. Mermaids also live in the area! And this is hurting their tribe physically and forced them to live in a half sunken ship off the coast. They have derived a plan. They have slightly modified the tail of Shan (Yun Lin) and taught her how to walk and get around. She is the prettiest of the mermaids. They are sending her out to the real world, to meet Xuan, seduce him, to bring him back to the tribe, so they can murder him and get their revenge.

Good, clean, mermaid family fun.

Also featuring Show Luo as an Octopus Mermaid (which doesn’t have an official name) and Yuqi Zhang as Xuan’s business partner.

Tentacles, weapons, and a million ways to die.

Foreign films have had a very specific theme for me lately. Weird. Weird weird weird. And not just because I am an American and think non-American thinks are silly. But they are just very strange comedic films, heavy in a theme and going balls to the walls with their story.

It did take a good while into the story before I really understood what the hell was going on. It was at least entertaining up to that point, being goofy with over acting characters. And it remained goofy, full of exagerration, and silly situations. A strange sort of slapstick romance.

Is it actually the best movie of the year? Far from it. But it did have a few twists and turns and laugh out loud moments.

The Mermaid won’t be for everyone. But if you watch the trailer, think it is amusing, then hey, it is a pretty easy way to waste a couple of hours.

It is actually really hard to find documentaries on subjects that truly interest you. There are just so many waves of documentaries on subjects you already have heard before, celebrities and nature that it is hard to find something not talked about so often. Something new.

I watched The Mask You Live In because just days before I found out about the documentary, I was briefly discussing with my wife the culture of masculinity. How many studies had been conducted on what forced masculinity by parents and peers does to a boy and how to fix those sorts of issues. I went to a seminar in college (of course) on the topic, found it interesting, but didn’t remember a lot about it. I remember they were giving away free non-alcoholic beer (because it was about masculinity) and that is it. Mostly because I never had alcoholic beer so I thought it’d be funny, and sure enough, it tasted terrible.

The Mask You Live in description basically talked about our narrow definition of masculinity, how it hurts men, boys growing up, and thus, society, and what we can do to change it. That is topical, especially with all of the recent mass shootings in America, which of course were all basically committed by men. Clearly there are issues here and any outlet that is willing to discuss it should be heard, so I wanted to learn from the documentary myself and pass on any important messages I could gather.

And you know, review it fairly. Just because it is important subject matter doesn’t mean it is well done.

We’re just saying this is an important conversation. Man to man. Mono y mono. Dude bro to dude bro.

The actual line of thought it somewhat hard to follow in this documentary. It does flow from related subject to related subject, but it doesn’t always do a good job during the transition. You are talking about video games and then suddenly porn the next second and it felt jarring each time.

In addition to that complaint, there isn’t really like one narrator or guiding voice throughout the documentary. We hear literally dozens of people talking, from kids to prisoners to teachers to people who have received doctorates in various subjects. But outside of the Doctors it is unclear of who any of these people are or why they have a part in the documentary. For the most part it is just to tell their own personal stories, about growing up or abuse or hiding their insecurities, but still it hops around through so many people without focusing on a specific message that it is easy to get lost.

All of that being said, the messages in this documentary are very important. You might not be able to really get all of it, but the parts that are easy to understand and are emphasized can hopefully stick with you. A documentary for the most part SHOULD feel important in some way, to some people. And thankfully, The Mask You Live In is something that can affect every male viewer and most of the female viewers as well.

I looked up the director, a woman!, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is mostly a small part actress. This is her second directed documentary, the first being Miss Representation in 2011. It deals with the opposite-ish problem, about women not being represented well in media or positions of power and how it can damage a young girls mind. It sounds fantastic and it is quickly moving up my must see in the near future list.

I don’t agree with everything said in The Mask You Live In. And like all documentaries with research, I wish it would include the source of the statistics it shows and there are a lot of statistics showed. But it is clearly presented in a mostly non-biased light. Full of personal anecdotes and science to back it up.