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I am now a man on a mission. I really do want to watch all of these shitty dance movies no one has heard of. The only reason is because Stomp The Yard was a better movie than I gave it credit for.

So I had been judging all of these movies, some of which I have heard and most of them I never knew existed, just because of the genre, dance. They can make a good dance movie. I believe in them. The dancing just has to be amazing, and a plot that isn’t stupid. That’s all we want, people.

Which is why I found a list of dance based movies over the last few years, and the first one on that list is Battlefield America. Wow. That movie sounds super intense. I cannot wait.

Wait. Uhh. Erm..What? Kids?

Sean Lewis (Marques Houston) is a lawyer, and pretty good at his job. In fact, he is going to make partner soon! Unfortunately, he gets into some trouble. He has to do community service. He also thinks he is better than just picking up trash, so he wants a better community service.

Well, the judge has officially changed his mind. He can teach kids how to dance. What? He doesn’t dance himself, either. Apparently they just need a leader. Because they are bad on their own.

So he hires a choreographer, and hangs out with them.

So what kind of dance is this? Ballroom? No. Swing? No. Tango? No.

Street battle hip hop. You might be asking yourself, why in the fuck do 10 year olds need to learn that? Yeah. Exactly. Well, in this alternative universe place, there is some competition called Battlefield America, where it is for kid groups to battle dance each other…

…And it is popular and people watch it? And find it exciting?

…

…

I just. I just don’t know really what to say anymore. Tristen M. Carter and Chandler Kinney play two of the main kids, Mekia Cox works at the community center, and Christopher Jones plays the coach of the best dancing crew over the last three years.

In case you were curious, the main star was of course this kid in Sister, Sister.

The whole time I watched this movie, something felt inherently wrong. It took me awhile to figure out what it is.

For a dance movie, it does show a lot of dancing, just of other crews. At least four times throughout the film, they have these 1 on 1 dance battles, each one featuring the crew that always wins the last three years. They are on the left side of my picture up above, and the underdog crew this film is about on the right. Each of these dance scenes were actually really long, with constant changes from the crowd, back to the dances, to the other dances. It flashed around a lot. It would have been cooler to see it all in one fluid motion, but whatever. The main point is the camera angle for the dance was always placed super low, and aiming up, because these are all kids. It had to be really low.

It felt awkward. It felt uncomfortable. It was a bunch of young kids doing dancing that they shouldn’t be doing yet, pre puberty.

Then I came to the realization. This is a movie for pedophiles. That is literally all I could think about. Seriously. Here is the opening credits scene, about three minutes long. Tell me you can watch it and don’t feel uncomfortable and potentially nauseated.

There is so much of that in this movie, outside of the shitty cliches and similarities to The Mighty Ducks. I am giving it the 0 because of how uncomfortable and awkward it made me feel. I wanted to burn the movie when I took it out of my player, but I didn’t want to have to pay for a new copy at the rental store.

Watching these dance movies is apparently going to take me down a really fucking strange and creepy path, one I don’t know if I am ready for anymore. Just. Just holy fuck, was this movie awkward.

Fright Night 2: New Blood.

Why? Why not, I guess. I mean, I liked the Fright Night remake. I also liked the original Fright Night. It is crazy how that can happen.

The original had a sequel to, called part 2. Did you know that? Of course not, I think no one knew that. I don’t think this is a remake of the sequel though, because the sequel at least had the same characters. This one is completely new out of left field.

But a similar sized and shaped field overall. Just the left side of one.

Honestly, I might mess up some of this plot. Charley Brewster (Will Payne) and his best friend, ‘Evil’ Ed Bates (Chris Waller) are in some strange college program in not-America. They start with a night class, and oh snap, their history teacher is Hottie McHotterson, Gerri Dandridge (Jaime Murray). Charley claims he saw her doing some lesbian stuff across the street before class, but no one believes him.

Well, the pervert continues to look out of his window, and eventually he sees some weird shit, so he goes over to investigate. Oh no. She is a vampire and some fucked up ritual shit is happening.

Even his somewhat new girlfriend, Amy Peterson (Sacha Parkinson) doesn’t believe him. I mean, why would they?

It isn’t until he can finally convince Evil that they decide to get Peter Vincent (Sean Power), famed vampire and unusual being hunter to investigate the teacher. He hosts the show Fright Night, so maybe he can get to the bottom of this. Unless he is a fraud. And unless the teacher doesn’t kill them first.

Please turn to page 7 for a detailed analysis of why this scene pissed me off.

I am having a hard time figuring out what is up with this movie. It has elements that are very similar to Fright Night, yet it is very different plot wise than fright night. Like the vampire is a chick, different. There is a famous vampire hunter guy who isn’t as cool as he seems, same. There is a best friend obsessed with the guy, who later becomes a vampire, same. But everything else is different. So I feel like it was supposed to be a reboot. But they labeled it as a sequel to a remake? My head hurts. Oh, let’s not forget that the main character, his friend, and the vampire hunter share the same name? What in the fuck is going on?

(The plot was worse than Fright Night and the movie was no way near as humerous or cheesy. Lame).

So basically, a generic vampire movie that is just cashing on the…okay success of the last movie.

But what really really bugged me maybe more than it should have was the long ending in a big fountain of blood. It was in a cathedral like area. Either way, cool big fountain of blood, that is feet deep that involves lots of fighting and thrashing about in it? The blood doesn’t look real, it looks like cranberry juice, or red colored water. The blood doesn’t stain any clothing or skin either. It just comes off in small red clear drops…like water. It took me out of the element completely, and I felt like there was nothing that could be done to make up for it. And honestly, I was right.

Just fuck it. Strangely enough, this is the second movie in a week I have reviewed that had nakedness in it, but not from the main female character. That isn’t the weird part. The main female character in both have been naked before in Dexter. THAT is the strange coincidence. The other one was Humans Versus Zombies. (Sorry for perving, it was just really weird).

Yeah. We got a movie called Humans Versus Zombies.

Yeah, it was inspired by the live action game played on college campuses around the (world?) US.

Yeah, it was low budget and went straight to DVD. Well then, shall we?

But they know their audience. Bring on the nerd jokes!

This movie takes place, surprisingly, around a nondescript university. Something else nondescript happens in the world, and some homeless people might end up biting some people. But that doesn’t matter. Because it is Humans vs Zombies week at this university.

Cool, they can use nerf guns too! Our movie opens up with some rule disputes, but they are pretty pathetic.

Well, actual zombies start to appear, much to our main characters surprise. Who to we have? Random hot party girl Amanda (Melissa Carnell) who normally wouldn’t hang out with these guys. Virgin nerd who predicted zombies first and plays MMOs Danny (Jonah Priour), and he likes Amanda. Internet gamer girl who has a webcam show about games, causing nerds to send her free shit, Tommi (Dora Madison Burge). A jock-ish guy who actually likes her and her show, James (Jesse Ferraro). Dude who really fucking loves killing zombies and this whole thing, Brad (Chip Joslin). And of course, war vet turned campus security guard who is really good at killing zombies, Frank (Frederic Doss).

Yeah, fuck you, you just get humans, no zombies.

Ho hum. Well, like most low budget comedies with some horror elements, this one failed to entertain for long. To be fair, it had its moments, namely from the “nerdy virgin” character. One area, near the end, he developed a huge strategy for getting his group out of the hardware store to a more safe location using knowledge he learned from MMORPGs. They had a tank, DPS, healer, range, and wild card. Alright, the Wild Card might be more of a It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia reference. But still.

But one interesting scene does not fix the bunch. Most of it is so low budget feeling, the zombies are never scary, just ridiculous.

Having the college game component was such a non important addition to the film, this could have been any generic bad zombie movie. It maybe mattered for only five or so minutes, and used it as an easy way to introduce extra characters. That is it.

The ending almost left it open ending, so I also maybe got a laugh of it’s last minute decision to bring closure.

Basically, this movie has more in common with a shitty B movie straight horror movie trying to make money with sex and gore. They have some sex parts in it, and some gore, but not much of either. Definitely not with Dora Madison Burge. To see that, you’d have to watch season eight of Dexter. But then you’d have to watch season eight of Dexter. Not worth it, yo.

Puns. Puns are an often overlooked humor tool that are wildly taken for granted. In fact, some people respond to puns with groans!

Those groaners I have to imagine would not enjoy Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 which has more puns than the number of acupuncturists who also happen to be backstabbers.

I wonder how many animated dicks could fit in his mouth. For research.

CWaCoM2 takes places immediately after CWaCoM, with the town of Swallow Falls in disarray and covered with food. Flint (Bill Hader) and his friends are excited for the rebuild, but they are forced to temporarily move to San Franjose, California, while Live Corp cleans up their island…for science! After all, Live Corp is run by Chester V (Matt Forte), Flint’s hero since he was a kid and the coolest scientist ever. It is usually a good idea to let trained professionals take care of a job.

Unfortunately, the clean up isn’t going as smoothly as they had hoped. The FLDSMDFR device was not destroyed after the first film, and it has created animal food hybrids to take over the island! They are also learning how to swim, and if they do, they will spread out and attack the rest of the world! Scary!

So it is up to Flint, with the rest of his crew to save the day. Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), girlfriend and meteorologist, Tim (James Caan), father, Brent McHale (Andy Samberg), former bully and current idiot, Manny (Benjamin Bratt), jack of all trades, Earl (Terry Crews), security guard, and Steve (Neil Patrick Harris) the monkey.

We also get introduced to Barb (Kristen Schaal), the ape. The fact that she is an ape, and not a monkey, is a very important difference.

Charles V reminded me a lot of Professor Hawk from Dexter’s Laboratory.

When I saw the trailer for CWaCoM2, I knew there would be an overwhelming amount of puns, but I still somehow underestimated how many they would actually throw at the viewer. At one point, the PPM (Puns Per Minute) value had to be greater than 10. Just constant puns, one after another, with hardly any time to comprehend them all.

Personally, I think the film was a bit too short to tell the story it wanted to tell. A lot of the movie felt rushed, especially once they first got to the island. In order to appease the kid viewers, they must have moved quickly to keep their interest. That has to be the biggest negative, not giving enough time to really flesh out the island and “foodimals.”

At the same time, I was equally impressed with the film’s ability to include “background jokes.” Once I saw the first few, my eyes were constantly watching the edge of the screen and I was surprised at how often they appeared. Heck, Joe Townee from the first film was snuck into this film twice. Unfortunately he had no lines this time, because his voice actor, Will Forte, was now voicing a new major character.

This film is filled with its fair share of low brow humor jokes, but an almost equal number of intelligent-ish jokes. I guess the point I am really trying to make is that this film has a lot of jokes, and they vary across the whole spectrum (outside of the adult themed joke territory). Despite the new writers and directors, I think it is a very worthy sequel to this franchise, and I would definitely watch a third one should it ever get made.

Don Jon is the first film written and directed by everyone’s favorite boyfaced actor. After having a few very strong years (Inception, 50/50, The Dark Knight Rises and Looper), Joseph Gordon-Levitt took a long break in order to work on this pet project of his.

Of course based on the character of Don Juan, JGL is hoping to add a very unique, and potentially controversial, spin to the tale.

JGL wrote this movie just to have movie sex with ScarJo a lot. Fact.

Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a charismatic twenty something Jersey Boy. Jon is nicknamed the Don by his friends (Jeremy Luke, Rob Brown) for his ability to bring a woman home every weekend. Not average woman either, but 8s, 9s, and even 10s. He only cares about a few things in life: his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls, and his porn.

What? His porn? Yep, turns out Jon has a little addiction going on.

Why does he like porn so much if he can always get “the real thing” in person? Well, that seems to be the million dollar question in this film. Jon just finds the real thing a bit disappointing compared to what he can find quickly on the internet. It is as if the women in these films aren’t like women in the real world.

That is, until he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), the woman of his dreams, a perfect 10. He is willing to change for her too. Take her on actual dates, stop the playboy lifestyle, start taking night classes, you name it. But can he give up porn? Is she the one? She definitely disapproves of the practice, because she grew up sheltered and doesn’t accept that “everyone does it!”

Jon’s family (Tony Danza, Glenne Headly, Brie Larson) are both very supportive and destructive in his life, but he still cares about them as well. He also meets Esther (Julianne Moore), a strange older woman in his night class who has sage advice and is way too nosy about what he watches on his phone.

Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

Watching “Don Jon,” I bet Joseph is tired of being associated with the movies and TV shows he did when he was younger. That is probably he chose to write and direct a movie with such an intense subject matter. In America, it is pretty easy for a woman child star to break away from those chains, and it happens pretty often (and each time it is met with outrage) but it is practically impossible for a guy. I think we found it, folks.

What I am most impressed with for this movie is its sense of realism, especially amongst his family. The dialogue and arguments he faced with his father (Tony Danza, excellent in this role) and mother were just so natural, I feel as if they’ve known each other for years. All of my favorite scenes came in their household.

I will admit, I did find the subject matter very awkward to watch with a bunch of strangers in a dark crowded theater. I understand why a few people left early on, with a lot of scenes taken directly from Pornhub. . Scarlett Johnsson, despite being in a role I hated, definitely acted in a way I have never seen her in before, which was both exciting and frightening at the same time.

“Don Jon” also had a pretty unique ending. Joseph took it in a way no one would expect from the trailers. Despite being unique, I couldn’t call it fantastic or terrible, just an overwhelming meh. It definitely could have been better.

Overall, I’d say “Don Jon” is worth watching for a few reasons: the topic itself can lead to interesting discussions amongst your friends and loved ones, the sound “advice” it eventually churns out, and the great acting amongst the leads. Besides, when is the last time you saw Tony Danza in anything relevant?

A lot of buzz over the documentary Blackfish. What have I heard? So many people who have seen this documentary have swore off ever going to Sea World again for the rest of their life.

Shit, a film attacking Sea World? This might be interesting. Or sad. Crap, it is probably going to be sad.

I don’t really know what to do for pictures here. Here is an Orca!

The TL;DR version, Blackfish looks at Sea World and two other sea themed areas, and their track records with the Killer Whale. They never really call them Orcas at all, always Killer Whale. Probably intentional.

Now, I figured this would clearly be about the mistreating of these Orcas in captivity, bad conditions, whatever. Turns out, no, it is about the Orcas hurting humans and Sea World not giving a shit. Oh okay, less powerful subject. After all, I am fairly confident I will go throughout my life without getting eaten by an Orca. I will just not try to train them or hang out with them in the wild. I ain’t trying to get fed to water mammals.

This is basically the story of Tilikum, a famous Sea World male Orca. He was captured young, went to a place called Sea Land with two bigger females who pushed him around when he was in shitty conditions at night. Cramped quarters. Eventually he lashed out at an employee, Sea Land was shut down, and he was sold to Sea World.

He then attacked more people, killing them, including a case in 2010 that is still being fought in the courts. The courts rules that Sea World can no longer let trainers play on or with Orcas, but must always be behind a barrier of some sort, which Sea World is trying to fight. They claim that it is all trailer error, not aggressive animals. This documentary claims otherwise.

They are not saying Orcas are normally aggressive, as no human has been a victim in the wild (probably because they live all fucking cold climates where no humans live), but they are only aggressive because of being trapped in tanks, and not getting rewards too often for good behavior.

Ah. So that is the documentary. Multiple trainers have lost their lives, and some have had close calls. The documentary also pointed out that over 50% of Orcas that Sea World currently own are the result of the spawn of Tilikum, and that is bad. I think that is most of the movie.

Yep, still drawing a blank. TWO ORCAS.

You know what sucks? Dying to animal. We should be on top of the food chain. We lose it a bit when we enter the water though.

Know what sucks more? Your company then blaming you for your own death, and not the animal. Shit, if a dog bites someone, unfortunately, they might get put down. But if a whale does it, then it is apparently okay.

But do we need a whole documentary telling us the Sea World executives are assholes? Not really. This film is less than 90 minutes, with lots of testimonials from former employees, or people who were there when victims lost their lives, and that was disturbing to hear. But the movie just made me dislike Orcas more so than Sea World, really. Maybe we can give them bigger environments to live in?

I am definitely not anti-zoo, because the zoos where animals are in small cages really don’t exist anymore. They give them natural habitats and they increase public awareness of these animals, and are great educational tools. So is Sea World in that regard. I don’t think people should be dying if they get assigned Orca duty though. So the court made them stop, end of story, we should be good, right? Seems almost like it is unnecessary now, because the court already ruled against Sea World. This documentary literally brings up a problem, and also has it solved by the end, so I really don’t understand the point.

The point that they should be freed? Maybe. But I don’t trust you documentary. The fact that over half of the Orcas are now the spawn of Tilikum means jack shit. Aggression is not something attached to genes and passed on to children, so the point is really mute.

Hey Sea World. Don’t let your employees die. Treat your stuff a little better. No I am not boycotting. If I move to Texas, you know damn well I am going to get my seal on.

I can say with most certainty, that two months ago, I definitely had no urge to watch Stomp The Yard in my life. Ever. I forgot it existed, and my life was fine with that. But then two things happened.

1) One of my students said it was their favorite movie. Out of 48, only 5 students picked a movie that I hadn’t seen before, and that was one of them. Grrr… Kind of have to watch it now.

2) I saw Battle of the Year, made a joke about this movie, and realized I should hurry up and watch it.

I am not expecting really anything, some sort of college dance movie. Let’s do it. I mean, shit, I liked Drumline.

Hey, at least we have people doing flips. Like a cheerleading movie!

DJ (Columbus Short) and his brother Duron (Chris Brown) used to be street battlers. They had a crew who would battle other crews in clubs for cash. They also used to be alive.

After the battle at the beginning, they go cocky and accept a double or nothing offer. They win, pissing off the local crew even more, who want revenge. In the fisticuffs, Duron is stabbed and killed (Yes, Chris Brown dies). Well, that kind of puts a damper on things, so DJ quits the crew, moves out of LA and into Atlanta to live with his Aunt and Uncle (Harry Lennix, Valarie Pettiford), who got him into Truth University.

He gets a roommate, Rich Brown (Ne-Yo), and a new group of friends, but he doesn’t care about anyone. He just misses his brother.

Anyways, long story short, Truth University has two fraternities who are on top and great at stepping, both making it to the nationals every year. Unfortunately, one of them has won seven years in a row, and the other always comes up short. Guess who DJ ends up choosing? Well, after he is convinced that stepping isn’t just some pussy dance stuff.

He picks the underdogs, lead by Sylvester (Brian White), mostly because the girl he wants, April (Meagan Good), is dating Grant (Darrin Dewitt Henson), second in command of the other frat, and a total douche.

Then dance movie stuff happens, predictable plot turns like his past coming back to haunt him. You know. Normal stuff. Jermaine Williams is also in this movie, with a face that looks like I have seen him everywhere, but basically just in Fat Albert.

This movie is about step team dancing and colleges. Holy shit, why did no one tell me about this before?

I love watching step teams perform. Going to college in NC, I was actually able to see fraternities do this kind of stuff live. Probably not the high quality presented in this film, but it is still cool to see live. Honestly, only mainly black fraternities do this, so if you don’t live at a place with them, you won’t really know much about them. There are zero step teams in Iowa, for example. Just a guess.

As it is a dance movie, I must judge its dancing. Early on, when they were battling? That first part of the movie was horrible, a mess. The camera was all shaky, you couldn’t tell what was going on, just ugly. When they started stepping? Hell yeah. It got good then. But it could have been a lot better. The camera shouldn’t cut away as much, because part of it is watching the unison and everyone working together.

The plot was predictable, and some major drama moments just came up short. The overall story wasn’t too original. Pretty typical of a similar sports movie, about a kid getting off the streets. So there are no bonus points for the story. Only bonus points for the really fun dancing to watch and every once in awhile, a joke that actually made me laugh.

Well, Dexter had its series finale a week ago today and it was pretty much shit. Seriously. One of the worst series finales ever.

In honor of that, I decided to watch Quarantine for the day!

What…? Well, look at the main star, that is why. Quarantine itself is a remake of [REC], a Spanish horror movie, that has made at least four films on its own. Quarantine was only given a sequel, and that one has nothing to do with the rest of the [REC] films. So it must be lamer.

Quarantine is also famous for being a horror film that decided to spoil the ending in basically every format possible. The trailer, the tv spots, the poster, the dvd film cover. Every single way. Later The Apparition decided to try this method too, but no one watched The Apparition.

Oh, and I have decided to spoil that ending here as well. Because fuck it.

Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) is a news reporter, trying to make it big in the world, but stuck so far with side stories. Lame. Like tonight, she is doing a piece on firefighters. I guess it is a fluff piece, because she is just sent to interview the workers, and hopefully follow them on a fire or two, that would be awesome footage. Along with her cameraman (Steve Harris), they eventually get a call out to an apartment complex where there were reports from the manager that a woman has barricaded herself in her room, and she was making a lot of noise. Alright, boring issue, but sure, let’s film it.

OH SHIT WOMAN HAS GONE CRAZY AND BIT ONE OF THE COPS. Bitch has foam in her mouth! They race downstairs, the two fire fighters (Jay Hernandez, Johnathon Schaech), and the other cops to rush him to a hospital, but the apartment complex is boarded up. The fuck? They can’t get out. That doesn’t make any sense.

Apparently the apartment complex is under quarantine now, and they have no idea why. No worries, they will be out shortly, just one crazy man. A local vet who lives in the hospital, (Greg Germann), does his best to stop the bleeding.

This is still all sorts of fucked. Especially when the lady is still going crazy enough that they have to put her down. Apparently, according to the vet, her symptoms appear to be rabies which have no cure once they take over. But the affects of rabies normally take months to occur, this must me some sort of super rabies. Well shit, how did they know to quarantine off the building so quick? Who the fuck started it? How unlucky is it to be Angela?

Super Rabies. Worse than Hitler.

Oh no, a shaky came found footage movie! The end of the world! People tend to ask during these types of movies: Why the fuck are you still recording? Well, there are a few reasons here. 1) Journalistic integrity. This shit is the scoop of a lifetime. 2)That camera has night vision on it, could be helpful. 3)That camera is also the only light source once they knock out the power. So, shit is important.

So how did it do outside of ruining the ending? Well, eh, it was okay. Dramatically different ending from the [Rec] version, I have been told. That one involves religion. This one involves cults and super viruses. I guess religion trumps, since that series has more movies. Oh well, its in Spanish, don’t care.

It was kind of neat watching all the characters at the beginning of the film start out as alive, and then you know, become dead later, so you get to see tore up versions of people who we already met. In a zombie movie, most of the zombies you don’t know. In this film, each person “dies” to the virus, and then has to be killed again with the rabies. I think that made it feel a bit better.

Near the end it got pretty confusing, but I will say I was impressed with Jennifer’s scared shitless acting. Her character did feel different from Deb, and she didn’t just bust out swears every sixth word. It is an okay thriller. Things jumping out of the dark, basically every time you’d expect it. Hooray zombie rabies!

I definitely picked up Room 237 on a whim. The cover looked interesting. I was guessing it was an indie romp or some sort of hippie horror film. All of those hexagons yo. Who knows what was going on there?

Maybe indie hippie horror? Who knows.

Well, I was wrong. Room 237 is a documentary. A documentary about a movie. What movie? The Shining, of course. There are a lot of theories about this movie, it turns out, and I am about to watch a documentary going over a lot of them…

…

Yay!…

Ah, now I understand the hexagons.

Alright, so the whole movie is basically dialogue, spliced over mostly scenes from The Shining. Either randomish scenes, or scenes directly being talked about, with helpful arrows and slow motion when necessary. There are other scenes from Kubrick films too, and then a few random ass ones, but mostly The Shining. That makes sense.

The people talking? We don’t see any of them. Just hear their voices. Who are they? Mostly all random fans of The Shining, with their own forms of analysis and what they got and saw out of the film. Some of them might be actual “film experts,” hard to say, since we are just flashed their name and given their words.

So you are probably wondering what theories they had, yeah? Well, I won’t spend any time explaining them, but here are some thoughts!

The Shining is about the Slaughter of the American Indians. It is about the Holocaust. It is about sexual demons and desires, and their attractions to humans. It is about ghosts that love watching us. Someone made a map of the hotel based on the movie, and found many fake/impossible hallways/windows. That of course means something. There are parts that would generally be considered continuity error, but not in this film, because Kubrick. It could be about a minotaur and his lair. It is about the past…which past? All the past. Or its about how the moon landing was fake.

What?! Okay, that theory I have heard before, and a lot of those clues are pretty exciting.

One guy watched the movie twice at the same time. Once in forward, other in complete reverse, right on top of each other. He found apparently a lot of interesting scenes that mean a lot more, but come on. A man can’t design a movie like that.

Forward and backwards image. Pretty haunting, sure. But intentional? Ehh…

By now I bet you looked at the rating. You might be wondering why.

Well, just like I gave The Gatekeepers a low review, this one has horrible horrible horrible production quality. We don’t learn anything about the people talking, so we never get really any qualifications unless they decide to tell us. They switch between some talkers, or talkers come back later, but they expect us to remember what they said earlier in the film and who they are, without even getting to see them? JUST their voice? Shit, that is worse than The Gatekeepers.

The other main issue? It is boring as fuck. I tried to stay interested early on, but then eventually you get people with bigger axes to grind, who want to talk about everything, but none of it is in a really constructive way. Like, cool, a chair is missing between scenes. It is on purpose? Fine. Then they don’t tell me what they think it means? I can only hear the same shit so much. This movie is 100 minutes and it is insanely boring.

The same clips over and over and over again. Only hearing voices. It sure does make me feel like a dull boy…

One thing I can say about Rush going into it, is that it sure had a lot of trailers. At least three, maybe more, in theaters. They were also very long. This gave me two thoughts.

1) There are a lot of events in this film that just seem like a more serious Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Dude gets burned, big rivalry, one is more foreign than the other one, lots of jealousy, comeback, whatever.

2) The trailers gave…a lot away. Sure, this is a real story, but I can tell you that most people do not know this story. It is different than Lincoln, in which we all know what happens. I am afraid I know everything that happens just from the trailers, which bugs me. Could be a cool story, but I want some mystery still you know.

Besides the mystery wondering why someone with such lush hair could think about dirtying it up.

I was wrong. The trailers didn’t give a lot away, at all. Sure, some major points, but fuck, a lot happened in this film.

The movie takes place in the 1970s, roughly 70-76. In 1970, James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) were both Formula 3 racers with big dreams to race in the Formula 1. Both outcasts by their family, they took different approaches to racing. James lived life every day as if it was his last, laughed in the face of danger, and burned out a lot on races. Niki was intelligent, not a risk taker, but good at driving. He was also a bit of an asshole, because he was honest, and cared most about winning.

Years later, both men were in F1 and constantly at the top of the pack, a fierce rivalry between the two, although both racers definitely respected each other.

1976 was the year when the most dramatic events occurred. Fiery crashes, a close finish for world championship, rain storms, disqualifications, you name it.

We also get some insight into their personal lives. Both had wives, James with Suzy (Olivia Wilde), Niki with Marlene (Alexandra Maria Lara). Pierfrancesco Favino played the role of a teammate of Niki’s, and he rocked the mustache well.

Our other star? No lush hair for him, so they can cover it up more.

Holy fuck. I really do mean it, a lot happened in this film and in this rivalry, and I didn’t feel like anything was really spoiled. Sure, that think that happened to Niki? That was kind of spoiled, but that was a big selling point to the movie, and they hinted about it right at the beginning.

I don’t know a lot about F1 racing, but I didn’t have to in order to enjoy this film. Major props to Ron Howard, who’s last film was The Dilemma and well, lame. I felt the fear that those riders must have felt during those difficult races. The way it was all set up really put you in the drivers seat at times. The dialogue was also really great, for both main characters, and I could hear them talk all day.

I think Daniel Brühl was the better actor of the two, putting his whole self into the role, although Chris did fantastic as well. Doing research, I was even more shocked to find out that Brühl was the main character in Good Bye Lenin!, one of the few German movies I own over ten years ago. The film was very graphic when it came to the crashes, accidents, and deaths, so when Niki got injured, it was incredibly cringetastic, yet I could not look away.

But here is the most amazing thing about this film. How close it matches the reality. These events were widely filmed in the 1970s, so I was able to actually watch a lot of the final race, of the race with the crash. I watched these soon after the film, and literally, the film filmed them EXACTLY as they happened in real life. The accident was like, frame for frame recreated the exact same way. How fucking nuts is that? Every race, I have to assume, was equally as correct and not made up. It is mind blowing that Ron Howard went into that much detail, and I am in awe of that ability.

The overall film experience is why it got the review. Sure, some parts I wish they explained better, like the different tire types, and other terminology. I had to ask a friend for some clarification, but holy fuck. Rush was an experience.