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Right off the bat, there is a big problem with Now You See Me 2. The big problem is that it is called Now You See Me 2.

How in the hell do you have a movie named Now You See Me, and then fail to call the sequel Now You Don’t? It is a really popular phrase, everyone knows it, and you give us this even more generic sequel name. It is like they aren’t trying to be cool.

I didn’t expect there to even be a sequel to the first film. Yes, I gave it a 2 out of 4, but it had one of the worst twist endings of all time. They picked a character that would produce the most confusion and failed to make a movie that made sense. They also blurred the line between real magic and explaining the tricks, because the writers had no idea what to do. They went for cool and splashy and couldn’t pick a side. The only reason I probably gave it an average rating is because it came out the same day as After Earth.

Now, sure, a lot of movies are coming out on this day as well. That is why I saw this one weeks in advance to make sure I had a clear mind before writing the sequel’s review.

Ass shots for everyone, not just the lady, hooray!

Set a year after the events in the first film, The Horsemen have gone missing. Dylan (Mark Ruffalo) is still looking for them, just badly to cover it all up. This angers his boss (Sanaa Lathan) and coworker (David Warshofsky) who think he is a bumbling fool almost. This is all a ploy though, in order to finally bring them back out at a big phone tech reveal.

This Octo company, led by Owen (Ben Lamb) is unleashing some super sexy phone tech, however it will also steal all information from the users and sell the data on the black market. So The Eye has told Dylan to get The Horsemen together to crash the event. You know, Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Wilder (Dave Franco), and Lula (Lizzy Caplan). Wait a minute! She wasn’t a horseman! She is a replacement for Henley, who in the movie wanted out in the year in isolation, so they replaced her. I think the studio was hoping you wouldn’t realize it.

However, bad things happen during their surprise show and the group find themselves now in Macau, China (basically their Las Vegas with a big Magic scene), in the clutches of some rich dude named Walter (Daniel Radcliffe). There is more behind the Octo tech, Walter wants his hands on it and wants The Horsemen to steal it! Oh the layers!

And then, you know, shenanigans.

Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine return, along with Jay Chou and Henry Lloyd-Hughes.

GET IT? He is Harry Potter! In a different magic movie! DO YOU GET IT!?

Now You See Me 2 tried to answer some questions its predecessor failed to do so. The key word being tried. Good. The first one explained how The Horsemen did the first trick and didn’t really explain anything else after that. This time they put a lot more effort into explaining how things work, at the bare minimum some tech terms and concepts, to show hey, this isn’t real magic, it is just tricks.

Except, you know, some of the bigger tricks like Atlas falling backwards into a puddle and disappearing completely except for his clothes. They don’t try to explain that, because the writers put it in because it is cool and have no idea how to actually make it work. This is an example of a movie pretending to be a super smart heist movie, but when they get to complicated matters, they shrug their shoulders, say magic and move on.

So everything is just special effects in real life, unless it is actually magic. You know, like speed hypnotism or whatever, which is used constantly in the film. They refuse to make up their mind.

This film has a big twist near the end too, all about who belongs to the mysterious Eye organization and what their purpose is. Well, the reveal isn’t actually a big surprise, it is a let down, but at least it makes more sense. In fact, it is the type of reveal that would have been better at the end of the first film, not the end of a sequel no one wanted.

Here is a positive. Yes, it was awkward that Caplan was suddenly in this film, but her character was the best and funniest with the most personality to boot. If they decide to punish our life more with a third film, it should be called Now You Three Me and star her with completely new cast besides her.

Just three years ago, The Conjuring was a big deal. It was my favorite horror film of the year, which is surprising because it was such a main stream film. For the most part, horror has been dominated with the unique indie horrors running around the last few years.

But that isn’t the only reason it was a big deal. It was also noted that it was rated R, not for gore, violence, nudity, language, or anything else. Just R for being too scary. Now, obviously, there are a lot of problems with the people who rate films. But that is still a rather unique reason to give something an R reason and hasn’t really been done much at all before or since then.

The Conjuring had a lot of hype behind it. So much hype that they didn’t just announce The Conjuring 2, but several spin-off movies, which is why we now have the shit fest that is Annabelle. It’s badness didn’t ruin the doll from the first film thankfully.

There is a lot of pressure on James Wan the director, because he can’t go and make a PG-13 sequel. Nor can he resort to gore just to force the R. He had to try and make something just scary enough without cheap methods to get his rating. And well, going into it, I only know that it received the R for “terror and horror violence.” Good job Wan. I hope I am shaking in my boots.

Good thing I have a nun fetish, or else this might have terrified me.

Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are a ghost exercisting (?) power couple, kicking ass and taking names. You know that, you saw the first film. They also helped all of that Amityville stuff, which you will see parts of early on in this film. During that, Lorraine gets a bad vision that shuts her down for awhile, but they still keep chugging along, albeit at a slower pace.

Across the pond, however, in the Enfield borough of London, England, a family is about to have a real bad time. The Hodgson family is a poor family, led by their mom (Frances O’Connor) who is raising four children on her own, because the father has walked out on them for another lady. Jeez. Her oldest are daughters, Margaret (Lauren Esposito) and Janet (Madison Wolfe), and then two sons, Johnny (Patrick McAuley) and Billy (Benjamin Haigh).

Things begin to go bump and clang in the night. Toys play with themselves. At first you assume poor stuttering billy will be the child in danger, but nope, it is Janet, who starts to sleep walk and yell at unseen demons, getting sick and quite violent. Oh shit, demons and a haunted house, again!

And the Warrens are the couple, reluctantly, who will help make things better. Man, it is really hard to kind of hype a haunted house / demon possession plot line. There are a lot of them after all.

The neighbos in London are played by Maria Doyle Kennedy and Simon Delaney. The local ghost expert is Simon McBurney, a different more skeptical ghost expert is Franka Potente (Hey, that’s Lola!), and Bob Adrian plays the main mean ghost guy!

And those pajamas were played by the same cloth that used to used to be a sail on a pirate ship!

James Wan is a really clever dude. He is consistently making better quality horror films than anyone else out there. I don’t even really like the Insidious films, but I recognize the passion and quality that went into them. I mean, he made the first Saw film! What a scary dude!

And he keeps the scares coming in this sequel. This is not like Annabelle. Fuck Annabelle. This is scary, this is well crafted, this has heart.

Horror films tend to start off of slow, a rare scare here and there, with moments in between scares to calm yourself down, usually before a hectic finale. Well, the scares are everywhere in this film. When I found myself in a time between scares to settle, it sometimes had scares of their own, keeping me on my toes. Hell, it had so many scares, I was even afraid to just hold onto my cup for a drink, thinking I’d shriek and spill it.

And when I say this is well crafted, I can’t believe the camera work for what is a mainstream horror film. The first time we see the house, the camera pans around with the family going about their day, zooming in and around rooms, around furniture, up the stairs, everyone feels like a big open house where tons of mischief can take place. The scenes are so well set up it is a delight on the eyes, even when there is something ghastly on the screen. The best scene was between Wilson and the demon, all one nice long shot, with a single focus and a lot of creepy atmosphere.

I was also excited that the polished look of the film didn’t take away from the fright. If something looks too produced, it can take someone out of the film. And in a lot of horrors, they make it look grainier, or extra dark, or whatever. But this movie wants you to see everything and it adds so much to the overall experience.

And sure, yeah, there are jump scares. But these are high quality jump scares. Jump scares you can see coming and have appropriate build up and aren’t completely random just for the cheap thrill. And audio based jump scares as well. The sounds? They will make you squirm.

Despite my rating, it isn’t perfect. I thought a few lines were cringe worthy, and Farmiga wasn’t on her A-Game. Which is a shame, given how excellent she is in Bates Motel.

I think the only reason I wasn’t scared going to sleep after watching this movie, is because I have had a shitty sleep week and couldn’t help but pass out despite glaring at the shadows in my room.

The best documentaries deal with the hardest of subjects. I think we can all agree that we don’t need to see too many more musician/celebrity documentaries, or even worse, documentaries based on specific movies or fandoms. I have seen enough to last me a life time, but they keep chugging out.

when a documentary comes out that is about some seriously bad and shady shit, then you know that documentary is important and actually might be worth a watch.

So, what is An Open Secret about? Well, a sex scandal in Hollywood. Which doesn’t sound like news. But this is an underage sex scandal. I am talking about pedophiles in Hollywood, forcing child actors to get involved with older men sexually, in order to get jobs, get references, get big in the game.

Yeah. That is some serious stuff, with pretty serious allegations. And yet, still, when I first heard about the issues years ago, my first thoughts weren’t surprise or shock. No, it was a more fucked up acceptance. Kind of like a “Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense to be happening.” Not implying that it is a good thing, just noting that I can see it happening and that I would probably believe any reports.

And despite rumors over the last few years, former child actors speaking out, actual cases against producers and directors, and of course people who went to jail for kid sex issues, the topic is still barely discussed and documentaries on the subject (like An Open Secret) are practically buried and ignored.

This isn’t a joke line, this is a serious line.

I honestly don’t even know what to say in a review like this. The stories of these actors, most of which are not big names and didn’t get to make it big, hearing what they went through scarred them in their teenage years for the rest of their lives. Being told that if they didn’t comply, they wouldn’t get work. Being told that they can’t go against all these powerful people. And to think this is just talking about teenage boys in Hollywood, when clearly it is happening on the other side of the gender pool as well.

The biggest name mentioned in this film is of course Bryan Singer, director of The Usual Suspects and like, half of the X-Men related films. Now, he isn’t specifically called out as someone who took advantage of kids, but he does interact with a lot of people who were in the group talked about in the documentary.

And shit, this is a hard subject. It is best to just watch the documentary and see for yourself. I think the narrative started to fall apart a little bit by the end. It just started to lose my interest at the point when they should be making their biggest points and driving the whole thing home. But the beginning and middle are quite well done.

Watching it won’t make you feel better about it. In fact, it will probably make you feel conflicted about Hollywood and the movie industry in general. But you have to take the good with the bad, even if dealing with the bad is hard.

How long was Warcraft in development hell? It had to overall be at least 10 years before it was announced that this movie would happen and its final release. I remember that it was supposed to come out in 2009. But then delays and director changes. Sam Raimi was originally going to direct it before being replaced by Duncan Jones.

For a bit of context as well, I definitely played World of Warcraft. I played the game a lot three different times in my life, so it is easy for me to say I will not go back to it, because it is never worth it. More importantly, I played a lot of Warcraft 2 and 3. Warcraft 2 was my first ever real time strategy game, and I played the heck out of Warcraft 3 Story Mode and early DotA.

So I like the Warcraft IP. I might not care for the MMO as much, with a similar hipster mind set. “Kids these days think it is just an MMO and don’t know the previous games!” At least with Warcraft 3, the games were really rich with story and there is still a lot of story that could be still said with the franchise. A movie with more story actually seems like a nice place to put some of it. As long as I get my Warcraft 4 eventually.

Aww look at the cute little green baby. What was I talking about again?

For those wondering, the official timeline of this movie puts it BEFORE Warcraft II. I don’t know anything about the first game, but presumably that means it is after the first one as well. So you won’t be seeing a lot of the WoW or Warcraft III plot lines, just allusions and hints towards the future.

In this land, a great warlock Gul’dan (Daniel Wu) has united the various Orc tribes on their dying planet. Using a dark, green, and evil Fel magic, gaining power from sacrificed souls, and creating a massive portal to another world. So they get all of their best warrior and chieftains to lead the charge into the new world. Once they secure enough slaves, they will build a new portal and bring the rest of their tribes over. The other Orc leaders include Durotan (Toby Kebbell) and his pregnant wife, Draka (Anna Galvin), Orgrim (Robert Kazinsky), Blackhand (Clancy Brown), and the half-orc slave of Gul’dan, Garona (Paula Patton). While running through the portal, Draka gets all funny and of course gives birth to her son right on the other side. Yay Orc babies!

Ahem. Speaking of the other side. We have a lot of different races. Humans. Dwarves. Some of those cool Night Elf things. But as of right now, the Orc raiding parties seem to be only a threat to human settlements, so the other free nations stay out of it for now. King Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper) of Stormwind City is tasked with finding out what unknown entity is killing his people. His best soldier, Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel) is sent to investigate which leads him to Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), a young mage who abandoned his order sensing a great evil. He discovers The Fel, so they also bring in The Guardian (Ben Foster), the most powerful mage in the kingdom to help figure out this new threat.

And yeah. Then a whole lot of fighting. It should be noted that the Orcs are a not all mindless blood fiends. There is a growing movement in their camps, led by Durotan, to bring down Gul’dan. They don’t trust that Fel magic that kills the land and inhabitants, forsomereason.

Also starring Ruth Negga as the Queen, Callum Keith Rennie as The Guardian’s assistant, and Burkely Duffield as the son of Lothar.

THE POWER OF THE LICH KING COMPELS YOU!

The one thing I didn’t want for this movie to be was average. I wanted it to be awesome or shit and definitely not in between. Part of that is for selfish reasons. Average movies are hard to feel passionate about to write. But good news, despite the rating, there is plenty of things to talk about. Because we have a lot of things that are good, and a lot that are bad, and that just balances the movie. In fact, it is the perfect film for one of our LIKES/DISLIKES lists. Yay bullet points!

Likes:

• The fights. This is an action packed movie, there are a lot of encounters between the humans and orcs, between the orcs and orcs, between magic users, between magic users and humans, and more. This is a movie called WARcraft and damn it, the war is here.
• The fights. Yes, a second point. There is a difference between these CGI heavy fights and something else recent, like TMNT2. In this movie, you can actually clearly see, for every fight, what the hell is going on. It doesn’t blur, it doesn’t constantly cut away. You can see who hits who and it makes them a more enjoyable experience.
• Schnetzer was one of the highlights of the movie for me. He provided a character I felt I could actually cheer for and of course comedic relief at times is extremely helpful.
• Patton, as our half-orc was also pretty decent. She wasn’t hounded by CGI so she could make real expressions and have a nice and tragic story line. Fimmel as Lothar was decent and almost crossed into very compelling territory but never fully reached his potential. Still better than others!
• Good throwbacks. Both to zones in WoW, the capitals, the towns, characters, and of course, a couple spells or two.
• That baby orc. I saw it in a trailer and was like, ew. But things must have changed because I loved it and wanted to play with it.

Dislikes:

• CGI consistency. For the most part (see: fights) the CGI worked really well. Both in terms of magic and hulking orc bodies smashing humans and orc bodies lounging. But at other points (budget or time reasons?) it was incredibly weak and looked like a B-Movie. One especially bad scene involved a character lying in a greenish pool and I remembered visibly ugh-ing.
• The ending. The ending battles feel all over the place, and I don’t just mean geographically. The final fight between humans and orcs is incredibly forced based on the scenes right beforehand.
• The ending. The fights at the end all felt just lower quality. Not just in CGI, but in purpose and proper set up. A character joins the Orc/Human fight after it is basically over, causing even more fighting to take place out of nowhere. It felt awkward and could have been handled better to not drag it out.
• The ending. For the most part, this movie felt like it was planning on telling just a story and giving us resolution. But only one major point gets resolved out of about three, leaving more story for sequels. And I know this is based on source material, but on the Orc side, it feels like absolutely nothing really got resolved by the end. I didn’t get satisfying deaths of major characters that are supposed to. It is possible to tell a story and make it feel complete, despite part of a larger arc, damn it. Warcraft fails to really make it seem like a worthwhile movie ending.
• Stars. I don’t know if it is a good complaint, but seeing Foster and Cooper in this movie felt odd. They were very recognizable and I couldn’t really see them as their characters.

Ah, those are always fun. What’s that? Review done? Okay good, I want to go play Warcraft 2 now.

For the most part, I try to avoid reading a book if I know it is going to turn into a movie. Or even worse, just try to read a book right before watching the movie. I can’t stand it, I will go into the movie with biases, and the movie won’t be able to surprise me.

I don’t know if I would have been able to cry during The Fault In Our Stars had I read the book! And those were some good tears.

But I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I think I read it in 2010, before I started writing reviews, with the actual book coming out in 2009. I read the entire book the whole way though, and then quickly got rid of it. I paid full price for it and gave it away for free. It was dreadful trash and I couldn’t stand it. I only finished it because I assumed it had to get better, there had to be reason for the success.

The book was about 80% original Pride and Prejudice and about 20% the author changing some scenes and throwing in zombie fights. Every time the author switched it was so jarring, going from well written to complete trash. All it made me do was appreciate Pride and Prejudice more and vow to not read any of the other mashups that would exist, no matter how popular.

Needless to say, I am going into this movie incredibly biased. And also I am in general surprised that it took 7 years for this film to get made.

Well, you know what they say. You cannot spell Slaughter without Laughter.

Oh that zany 19th century England. Full of lords, ladies, romance, guns, and zombies.

What is a patriarch (Charles Dance) and matriarch (Sally Phillips) gotta do when they have five daughters, all of viable marriage age, needing husbands to take care of them?

Their oldest daughter is Jane (Bella Heathcote), but everyone knows their best daughter is Elizabeth (Lily James), despite her strong wills. The other three daughters, Lydia (Ellie Bamber), Mary (Millie Brady), and Kitty (Suki Waterhouse), are around but not super important.

Jane falling for one Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth) is important though, as he falls for her as well. Now the parents can meddle and force a marriage. When they meet Bingley, they also meet Colonel Darcy (Sam Riley), whom is seen as a pompous and arrogant person, but also wealthy as fuck. And you know, he can kill a zombie like no other it is said.

Can headstrong Liz learn to love another, more than her love of zombie killing? Can headstrong Liz keep her head strong enough to avoid zombie bites? Find out…well, in this movie.

Also starring Jack Huston as Wickham, Lena Headey as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Emma Greenwell as Carolien Bingley, and Matt Smith as Parson Collins.

Kicks to the chest also can be quite deadly, apparently.

Fuck. Just fuck. I feel like this movie was actually worse than I imagined. I imagined it would have bad acting, sure. I imagined it would shit on something I find enjoyable, yeah. I imagined the CGI wouldn’t be top notch and a lot of corners would be cut when it comes to fight choreography, of course. But on top of everything, I also didn’t think it would be Boring. As. Fuck.

Say what I will about Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (and of course I did), but at least there was an inherent entertainment level there. At least I could sit in the theater and laugh at some of the more ridiculous scenes. But with watching this film on DVD, I found myself constantly wanting to pause to get a drink, go to the bathroom, spin in my chair. I wish my laptop worked so I could have laid down in my comfortable bed and fallen asleep to the movie, instead of actually watching all 90ish minutes.

I think it is notable to mention when you fall asleep in a film, which usually happens only in theaters for me. But I know I would have passed out for a lot of this movie if I was watching it while feeling any bit comfortable.

Everything about it is magnified so much, because of how interesting the story becomes. I get annoyed at the bad fight scenes. Annoyed at the acting. Sam Riley as Mr. Darcy? They picked a guy, who decided to give a raspy voice performance and absolutely no sex appeal in a role that is still very much technically in the romance genre? Riley is not my Darcy. The cast for most of the parts in this film is just the final nail in the coffin.

But let’s end this on a fun fact. Emma Greenwell plays one of the three younger sisters. I already forgot who. But she also was in the movie Love & Friendship, also out this year, and also based on a Jane Austen novella. How cute.

Two years, Michael Bay released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a nickelodeon presents film, after 4 or 5 years of delay. And now, just two years later, we have a sequel!

Damn it, in my last one, I mentioned how forgettable the movie was. That means I also wanted to forget about it. But how can I forget about a movie if they go and make a sequel?

This time it is called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows. Or, TMNT: OOTS for short. Hmmm. Oots. That kind of, if you stretch it a little bit, sounds like OOZE. And ni the previous set of Turtle films, the sequel was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Is that a coincidence?

Based on that screen grab, then HELL NO IT ISN’T!

Set a year after the first film, our turtles are now heroes! Just kidding. Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Raphael (Alan Ritchson), and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) are still hiding in the shadows with Splinter (Peter Donald Badalamenti II, Tony Shalhoub, yes two people), training and existing.

They let Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett) take all the glory, and people love him for it. But now…now The Shredder (Brian Tee) is about to break out of prison! In fact, his break out involves teleporting, portals, and a whole lot of foot soldiers. And of course, Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry), smart scientist who wants to do evil to be famous.

And now they have Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (Stephen Farrelly). And the turtles get Casey Jones (Stephen Amell). Basically a nice fair trade. OH AND KRANG (Brad Garrett) is here to tip the balance for the bad guys!

Eh, yeah, I guess Megan Fox returns as April O’Neal, Brittany Ishibashi is female Shredder assistant ninja, and Laura Linney is a police chief or something. It kind of fluctuates.

AW SHIT, KRANG HYPE FOR REAL.

While writing the plot outline, I couldn’t help but feel that this movie was just more of the same, with like, four more characters. And if it is more of the same, then it is still not too good, and making it crowded could add to the problems.

Like, for instance, Shredder not having any cool fight scenes whatsoever in this movie. And Splinter is in the film, but has maybe six lines and maybe a minute of screen time. Krang is only brought in for two scenes, his introduction early on (that goes too hectic and fast, like it was made for people with short attention spans), and then near the end. The ending scene was actually a bit more entertaining and longer, which is a plus.

But that brings us to all of the fight scenes. Basically every fight scene feels blurry and it requires you to fill in the blanks with what is going on. None of the fights are clear, every single one uses this lazy tactic. The first scenes of the movie involve the turtles running around buildings in NYC at night, and it set the bar for low quality action scenes. Hell, the final fight is actually in daylight, but it is still basically ruined with the CGI.

Yes, I both think Krang was cool in this film, while also disappointed in his big fight. The fight looked fun and creative, but again, they just blurred the whole thing together.

Bebop and Rocksteady were okay. They had more personality than the Secret of the Ooze versions and arguably took up all the screen time from Shredder/Splinter. Fox’s character wasn’t interesting, Casey Jones was only in the hockey mask once (early on, not even for the finale), Arnett was still annoying. Linney’s character was really badly done, but probably didn’t have a lot to work on with the scrip.

And honestly, this is the type of film where you might find yourself scratching your head, confused as to why the characters do certain actions. It seems like the dumb or extra complicated route is always chosen. Leonardo was acted far too strongly in the Asshole category, but the other turtles personalities felt right. Oh, and Perry as Baxter is one of the brighter spots as well. Go figure.

I can’t wait to be disappointed by another of these films in 2-3 years.

When the first poster was released for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, I felt like my life had changed.

It looked amazing. I wanted to see the film right then and there. The tagline was just four words and felt like the most brilliant thing ever.

But the poster came out in February with the movie not coming out until early June! What a torturous few months it has been. I’ve had to watch three superhero films before I could see a potentially life changing film. But I guess that the date ended up being a good one. It is the real start of the Summer films (because counting May is stupid), and hopefully the film would have enough party in it to last me through the months of excessive blockbusters and explosion heavy films.

This doesn’t mean that I will go in praising it no matter what of course. Just look at X-Men: Apocalypse, my most anticipated comic film of the year, and it left a disappointing taste in my mouth. Going in excited means it is very easy for it to crash, that is all I am saying.

How they were able to get an Adam Levine hologram for this movie I will never know.

Ever since Conner4Real (Andy Samberg) was born, he was dope. He could play the drums at 1, he could make the mad rhymes, and he had the best two friends ever: Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer) and Owen (Jorma Taccone).

They made the group The Style Boyz and their hip hop music was everywhere. It inspired tons of modern groups. Lawrence made the lyrics, Conner was the front man, and Owen made the fat beats. Then Conner gets to real, too big, gets his own verse on a song with another artist and does his own solo album that sells a shit ton. And this documentary is about the release of his second album, his world wide tour, and his relationship with his girlfriend, Ashley Wednesday (Imogen Poots).

It is also about the rise and fall of being a popstar and how it can be hard to fall when you were up so damn high.

Tim Meadows plays the manager, Sarah Silverman the publicist, and James Buckley/Edgar Blackman the yes men groupies. Chris Redd is Hunter the Hungry, an upcoming rap superstar, and Joan Cusack is Conner’s mom. Also a shit ton of cameos, of artists playing themselves mostly.

I hope my future groupies will make sure I never leave the house looking like that.

Going into Popstar, I actually didn’t even know it was going to be a Mockumentary. And I love Mockumentaries, one of the rarest genres out there, so it was definitely a nice surprise. And since I have gone out of my way to watch quite a few recent pop tour documentary films (Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber 2, One Direction, Justin Bieber 3) I was very familiar with the current summer concert line up types of film. Early on in the film, it is was quite clear they were sort of parodying Justine Bieber: Never Say Never film (and the title is similar too, obviously), going to extremes with his backstory and even including Usher!

Add in the fact that we got original The Lonely Island music, with a shit ton of cameos and outrageous humor, you are left with a pretty dang funny feature film. So many quotable lines, plenty of vulgar language and we get an actual human penis in this film. Not a prosthetic dick and not even for a quick flash. They earned their graphic nudity rating.

My favorite scenes actually are where they parody that strange TMZ show where they just badly gossip in their office. They parody it only a few times, but man, I practically laughed nonstop.

If I had complaints, I would say it started to drag a bit near the end. That is kind of disappointing, given the film is under 90 minutes, The film isn’t surprising with the direction it takes, we practically know how it will end, so getting to that point just takes its time.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is start to finish over the top comedy and a great release in this season of blockbusters, sequels, and cinematic universes.

Cmz

Thanks to South Park, when I read the title of this documentary, I can only think of the Weiner Song from their Game of Thrones episodes. However, while watching that television show, I barely recall seeing any weiner, so I really don’t get that joke.

And that is how you write an intro that has nothing to do with the documentary in question, Weiner.

If you recall, Anthony Weiner was a congressman who has an amusing last name and of course got in a sexting scandal that forced him to resign. What you don’t know about him is everything that happened before and after that.

He was actually a congressman for years, and there are quite a few videos of him on the floor yelling and telling it like it is, speaking for the lower class citizen. He was probably a hero. Until we saw his bulge.

But the documentary covers that time in his life in the first few minutes, with news clips, as it is the popular way of doing things these days. This documentary is about Weiner trying to reclaim his fame, to rise back to the top, and run for mayor of his home city, New York City.

Heh heh heh. Weiner.

If you like behind the scenes of modern politics, then this is the type of documentary for you. But also, if you wonder how a campaign can start, become successful, and then crash and burn due to a scandal. What? You mean the sexting scandal from years ago? No, I am talking about the new one that happened early in his campaign.

No don’t worry, he wasn’t stupid enough to continue that sort of thing years later while running (I think). This happened after he resigned, before he got his problem under control (according to him), and also involved a real picture of his penis. Full on man dick.

And what makes it even more uncomfortable is of course that he is married. His wife, Huma Abedin, well known fundraiser and campaign worker for the Clinton family. A family who went through their own sex scandal although in a bit of a different situation. Huma had forgiven Anthony, and they worked through it with counseling, but bringing up the past can be very hard. She is just a person and she has emotions as well.

I found Weiner to be a very personal and informative documentary. I learned a lot about the man, the things you don’t hear in the New York Post headlines. It wasn’t too long, it explained everything that went down, and it felt real.

We can learn a lot about Weiner, and you can learn more about it from watching. Just remember, the newspapers want catchy headlines, and if you only know about a person from the news, you are probably going to miss a lot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the signs, they are still right.

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

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

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

In case you haven’t been keeping count, The Do-Over is movie #2 of the Sandler-Netflix collaboration. Netflix has said they don’t care about having the best movies, they just want a very diverse set of films, films that reach many different demographics and personality styles.

So they don’t always care about the critics. Which is why they offered Adam Sandler a four movie deal, because some people really like his brand of comedy, including the overseas market. Go figure.

Movie #1 was The Ridiculous 6, which I found very disappointing. The Do-Over seems to be going in a very different direction, both in terms of style, genre, and size of the cast. So there is a chance that this one ends up much better.

Holy crap, the promo images for this film are crap!

Charlie (David Spade) doesn’t like his life. And no, its not because the actor hasn’t had a hit in a long time. He is at his ten year high school reunion, watching his constantly cheating wife (Natasha Leggero) get down with the old high school prom king (Sean Astin). He is a bank manager, but the bank is inside of a grocery store. There are two step kids who treat him like shit. But then he sees Max (Adam Sandler).

Max has changed and seems really chill and cool now. And when his life goes on a vacation with him, Charlie decides to hang out with Max on a boat and have a great bro weekend. Then the boat explodes, Charlie is drugged, and Max takes him away.

Why? No, not to kill him. Max thinks that Charlie hates his life, so he decided to fake their deaths taking the identity of two people who recently died. They had a lot of money, a sweet vacation home, and they can just get away from it all and get a second chance at life. Or, you know, a do-over.

But there are problems with their plan, especially since the two men were murdered and those who are after them are going to come after them too. But that is a problem for later. Right now it is time to party party party.

Also starring Paula Patton, Kathryn Hahn, Nick Swardson, Catherine Bell, Michael Chiklis, Luis Guzman, and Torsten Voges.

Seriously, what do I do with any of these pictures? So generic.

The Do-Over just may very well be one of the okayiest movies I have ever seen this year. Almost on every front the film just feels average. The acting is as expected, the jokes are average, the twists are too many and the plot a little bit stupid. But some of the action scenes are entertaining, some of the jokes made me smile, and some of the twists were actually decent.

but taking it as a whole, there are a lot of stale moments. The intro goes on for too long. Too many fake identities for Sandler, and just too many twists overall.

It isn’t super strong on comedy or action, making the jokes and shots seem like after thoughts.

But when compared to the last 15 or so films, it is at least better than 12 of them. That is saying a lot about Sandler’s recent film career, but what it really says is that I loved You Don’t Mess With The Zohan and didn’t think Just Go With It, Pixels, or That’s My Boy were that bad. These comparisons still probably don’t sell the movie for you, and honestly, they really shouldn’t.

Would not super recommend.