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The Beginners is supposed to be a pseudo autobiographical flick from the director. But I don’t believe it all that much. Mostly because he looks nothing like Ewan McGregor.

But if Ewan looked identical to the director, this would be a picture of the stars of the movie.

A good thing to know about this movie, for enjoyment purposes, is that it is not told in order. Not at all. Flashbacks, all that stuff. I missed that in the beginning, leading to some unnecessary confusion.

Ewan stars and narrates in the movie, that begins by stating his father (Christopher Plummer) just died. So right away the story breaks up. Four years before his fathers death, his mother died, and he also found out his father was gay.

He didn’t want to be “theoretically gay” either, but experience it, so he opened himself up to a completely new lifestyle and had a younger lover (Goran Visnjic). He dies of some stage four cancer. Half of the movie is telling of Ewan’s past, and the four last years of his dad’s life, and the other half is him coping with the aftermath and falling in love with Melanie Laurent.

Also in this movie? A cute dog! Ewan has to take him in after the death, and he really helps him cope. Or at least gives him someone to talk to. AND ITS A JACK RUSSEL TERRIER.

Actual scene from the movie. Awww.

There are other transitional moments between scenes, where Ewan talks over photos and gives nice breaks between heavier (and also lamer) moments.

It was a decent story. But sometimes the disconnectedness really got to me. The actress, Laurent, I never really liked in the movie. Ewan would have carried the whole movie, but with half of the movie him being kind of morose, it didn’t help the viewer. Plummer and Visnijc (what a last name. Crazyness) were both really good, even though Visnijc didn’t get that much screen time compared to the rest.

Two groups of bank robbers. One sticky situation.

This is the small tagline I saw for the movie Flypaper, and I thought hey! That could be swell. Especially with a pun like that.

Especially if apparently everyone has guns.

The movie begins with Patrick Dempsey walking all up in the bank, looking for change for a $100. He is a weird guy, that Dempsey. Asking for it in very specific amounts of dimes, nickles, and quarters. Ashley Judd, the bank attendant that he is attracted to, is discouraged, but gives him change anyways. He seems suspicious! But right as he is about to leave, he notices weird shit, and OH NO, BANK ROBBERY ABOUT TO HAPPEN!

One very professional group of bank robbers (featuring John Ventimiglia). One made up of two hillbillies (featuring Tim Blake Nelson). Also, among the hostages are security consultant Curtis Armstrong (or Booger, if you prefer) and Jeffrey Tambor.

But when things start to go wrong? Its up to Dempsey and his lack of pills to try and get himself out of this crazy situation.

Now that’s what I call a “sticky situation!”

I laughed a whole bunch in this movie. People were eccentric enough to be funny, but not too crazy to be annoying or completely unbelievable. Dempsey got a little bit crazy in the movie too, with his unknown social conditions making it hard for him to not think about everything going on. One great scene had him on the ground yelling, thanks to other peoples weird actions. The ending might have been a little bit rushed, but I was fine with it. Bunch of people die too, BUT WHO? AND WHY?

It reminded me of, in a weird way, the movie Clue. This one only has one ending, however.

Fading of the Cries? Interesting title. I know nothing about it.

Alright, interesting cover. I guess. Maybe some action movie involving like, vampires or stuff. probably CGI dependent, and dumb plot, but hopefully it is interesting too?

Nope. Not at all.

This movie is a super low budget cheesy “scary movie” reminiscent of those SyFy original movies. Except even those have better acting than this one.

Here is a rough plot outline. Hallee Hirsh puts on a necklace. Town goes to shit. Gets saved by super emo dude with sword Jordan Matthews. The drones might be zombies? They want to kill humans at least, and have no eyes, but also run fast and look super blurry. Her mom (Elaine Hendrix from Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion) and sister have to just hide in the house confused.

There is also some flashbacks of some Michael dude (Thomas Ian Nicholas) finding a spell book and releasing evil power. He is the uncle of said main chick. And yeah, that is about it. Don’t want to spoil the lore…that I don’t necessarily understand well.

So, as expected, the acting is horrible. No one is believable. The whole movie has horrible special effects. Some of the “Creatures” just look disturbing. Which I guess is a plus for this type of movie. The ending may have had some twists in it, but they didn’t even have reactions to the twists. No one gave a damn about this movie, everything may have been done in one take.

Is she coming on to me?

They did show a transformation from human to weird zombie eye thing. Was pretty cheesy. This is one of those movies where I am mad that everyone didn’t die at the end. Also, in the parts where homeboy had to kill lots of zombies (as they ran into his twirling death sword, more or less) and in other zombie scenes, it seems as if they just loved making that “Gut Wrenching Scream and Fall Into Distance” noise. Just, pushing that button over and over again. It’s a noise also made famous for being in Aaahh!!! Real Monsters!

I am glad they are trying some new things. All good and fine. But coherentness would be a plus. On the plus side? This would be a perfect movie to get drunk to and make fun of with friends.

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson. Also, Alan Rickman is Snape, Michael Gambon is Dumbledore, well, not really. He is dead.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Woo! Last movie of the series! That means if you ignore the weird Pottermore thing, Harry Potter is done, out of our existence. Until 12-15 years from now when they reboot the series again for a new generation.

This movie takes off where Part 1 left off, as it should. Sadness about a dead Dobby. Immediately, thanks to a goblin, they decide to go to the ultra secure bank. Which one? The only one that exists, as far as the universe is concerned. It ends up going wrong, and thanks to the powers of Hermione’s cleavage (don’t click that link) they do they not splatter.

Find a Horocrux. Lose sword. A whole bunch of gold objects get duplicated? Seems like a great way to make bank (in a bank!). They tame a dragon, and escape, and then they undress again.

Guys. They are all legal now I guess. They want you to know this.

Some random scenes later and HEY THEY ARE BACK AT HOGWARTS. Another horocrux is there, but where? Oh man, Death Eaters. They have an hour to make defenses and find the object. Unfortunately during this time, it seems like all Harry is doing is taking his time to stare out of his window and talk to Luna, or slowly talk to ghosts. No real hurry in his eyes. But who has Hurry? Every other student in Hogwarts. It seems like (until the stand off is called), there are students just running. Running everywhere. They never get to where they are going, I assume. Because all you see in the background is people running places, and yeah.

“Ball? Wheres the ball? I’M LOOKING FOR A BALL WHERE IS IT!!!?” – Me imagining all the students as dogs.

So Harry finds it in the obvious place to look. He also saves the Nazi kid. Then there is a scene with fire reminiscent of the famous Mummy 2 scenes. But you know, fire, not dust.

Blah blah blah. SNAPE DIES. And apparently he was trying to help all along. To the snake. Let me tell you about the Snake. The snake is in this movie for one reason. To make 3D worth it. It seems like every scene involving the snake is it “coming at you”, more or less, which looks probably cool in 3D, but without it, just annoying as shit.

To be fair, this has been true in all the movies. A cheap ploy.

Blah blah. Standoff. Harry realizes the snake is the last horocrux. JUST KIDDING. Harry is too. Accidentally. So Harry has to die for Voldemorte to die. So he does that. After some ghost talk. But he does have a resurrection stone on him? So I guess it doesn’t matter. He still has a nice trippy scene with Dumbledore in a very white train station. But hey, he comes back into action after Neville gives a sweet speech and busts out the sword. He does it stupidly though, and does it many feet away from the snake. If he took a few more steps, we could have had a dead snake, and less dumb CGI 3D Lunging action.

During all this, Harry and balddude have their duel. Turns out a wand doens’t belong to balddude, it leaves his grip, and immediately he turns to dust. Like. What? Harry didn’t even hit him with anything, just removed his wand, and bam, dead time. Weird, since he only had that specific wand these last few movies. Must be because all the horocruxes died? I guess?

Anyways, they die, so good conquers evil. Harry presumably lives a normal life, where he has multiple children, and his second child is all nervous about going through a makeshift wall, even though he obviously did it when he went to the train station with his older brother (just how like his younger sister is doing it then) hey long sentence how are you doing.

Also in the epilogue you will see that time was not good to the nazi boy.

Overall, this movie had good special effects. Mostly. The escape from the hidden room on brooms looked like it had pretty shitty effects. Obviously just people hanging out in front of a green screen, feeling (even if it wasn’t). It also had a lot of questionable scenes for a “holy shit we are all going to die”, like Harry not running to his destinations in the castle. Or too many kids running (when they are all supposed to be either in one hiding spot or helping. Not just running). Or dumb CGI snakes. I feel like Part 1 and Part 2 had a lot of filler, which was annoying as they were both over 2 hours.

I think Part 1 and Part 2 could have easily been just one movie, but turning a last book into two movies seems to be a popular money grab.

Oh well. Maybe they will cut out the crap, and just give me one movie in the next reboot.

HEY LOOK. A movie that takes place in Durham, NC! And by takes place, I mean the setting. I don’t think it was actually filmed here at all. And storyline wise, the descriptions of Durham don’t make any sense.

In Main Street, Durham is noted as a community hurt by both the economy and jobs leaving, and you know, tobacco shit. But, they make it seem like there is ZERO economy there. The town is struggling, city government is listless with no idea how to do anything. It is also made to seem smaller than it is, and Durham is pretty damn big. Also has those dumb colleges, and is in Research Triangle and what not. Oh well.

Didn’t even mention their famous minor league baseball team!

Not many characters in the movie either, but some bigger names. Colin Firth plays a stranger from Vernon, Texas, Orlando Bloom a local cop taking law school night classes, who is trying to woo Amber Tamblyn, who was briefly in the show House. Also, there is Ellen Burstyn, now poor owner of a few warehouses that used to be use for Tobacco, and her niece Patricia Clarkson.

Firth comes to town to rent the warehouses, and even though he tries to tell Ellen what for, she doesn’t want to know. But her niece gets her suspicious, especially when she sees guards at the door. It turns out he works for an environmental corporation who deal with hazardous waste disposal. Oh shit, awkward. They are looking for a new place to also build a plant to help deal with it, which could create thousands of jobs in the area, and help Durham out of the slump.

But. You know. Hazardous waste. Is Durham ready to move on from one harmful substance to another?!

I loved the acting in the movie. Accents did not bug me, because I am not picky about that. What bugged me was the ending. With the movie being about 85 minutes or so long, it doesn’t take long. But there is a lot of set up for little to no pay out. At the length and definitely unfinished story, it just felt like a long TV pilot for a show, that could have gone further. It had two serious relationships it could continue to explore, and some family dynamics. It could have continued with the plans to bring in jobs, and environmental concerns, and the old lady trying to move on..

A LOT. But it doesn’t. Just has the “climax” scene and ends soon after. Just kind of meh.

Maybe it was a failed TV pilot released as a movie? Who knows. Google doesn’t.

All hail google! I feel like if I show their picture, they will rank me higher.

For some reason when I first saw this movie, I thought Yellow Wallpaper. Not sure why, since clearly those titles are far apart from each other. But this movie did seem familiar. Oh, Kristen Stewart is in it? Maybe that’s why. Given her incredibly talented acting resume, I should have immediately recognized it as one of her movies!

What? Hating on Kristen Stewart for the quick laugh? I wouldn’t do something like that.

The Yellow Handkerchief is more or less a story about weridos. William Hurt plays a man who has just been released from prison, and for “some reason” wants to travel to a different part of Louisiana. Kristin Stewart is a girl who feels like no one cares for her, and wants to get out of the town. Eddie Redmayne is actually a weird guy, with some weird social disorders I have to assume. Very forward, talks funny, and guess what? He has a car!

For various reasons they go on a small road trip through Louisiana, so that William can get to see his lost lover, Maria Bello, before he was in prison.

This movie has some good themes. Like acceptance! And uhh. Growing up. And uhh. Second chances. Yeah!

I was about to say three difference sentences about how each actor/actress did good in their role, but this one sentence should do that well enough.

I was also confused a few times during the movie. I couldn’t tell when it was set (the last five years), but it also made it seem like it was decades ago with the small and empty towns. Just didn’t know there was small town life like that anymore. Also, three different occasions it seemed like a woman got all upset over sex, and were about to claim rape. Despite you know, trying to have sex with the dude already. Very weird. Okay, two and a half times.

“Half a rape attempt? I can dig that.”

Pretty interesting movie, but also kinda slow. Good endings and lessons learned though. Wasn’t watered down with a lot of excessive violence or anything. Very simple.

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson. Also, Alan Rickman is Snape, Michael Gambon is Dumbledore, well, not really. He is dead.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Yay! The final year at Hogwarts! That means the final movie!

What? They split his final year into two movies? Alright well, thats dumb. But okay.

What? He isn’t going to school at all? This is just a random year of his life then. A random important year. But wheres my schoolyard shenanigans?

Like in the first movie.

Hmm. So at the beginning, they try and trick the Death Eaters and Bald Dude. Apparently when Harry turns 17 he is no longer protected by his moms corpse, and bald dude can get him! So they make a whole bunch of copies of HP, and fly off in different directions to the ginger’s house.

Hotttttttttt

Too bad it doesn’t help. His BIRD and Bug Eye dude die. Way to go Harry. Causing problems.

Blah blah blah. Wedding. Dumbledore’s will. Harry just gets a lame snitch ball. No sword. Then death eater’s screw everything up, so Harry and his friends go into hiding running.

Eventually they get the locket after sneaking into the government place with disguises. They get locket. Then they try to destroy it the rest of the movie.

Searching. Snake attack. SWORD IN A LAKE WHAT!

Then they soon get caught by the Nazi family, and end up escaping. Because, of Dobby, the House Elf, and his ability to just transport at will.

Yay Dobby!

Also some people switch up wands, but Dobby also gets owned. And the movie dies with his death.

Gahh. The bigger death than Dumbledore was Dobby? Surprise surprise.

So, as a stand alone movie. This one would be kinda pointless. They need to find like, 4 more Horocruxes or something? And they found 1? Got a cool sword though at least. Thankfully, because of the “part 1” this is not a stand alone film. And shouldn’t be judged as a different one. I wish they came out at the same time, because If you had only got to see this movie, you should feel pretty let down.

Sure, acting is fine. Emotions are felt. Music and visuals are great. But also, just have to wonder what the point is?

Because of all this, the movie just gets an average rating. It doesn’t mean anything.

One of my friends joked to me a long time ago that Eat Pray Love could just be renamed “First World Problems: The Movie” (probably a stolen joke) but I didn’t get it now. Holy shit, I never knew the journey to self empowerment would be such an expensive endeavor.

Sure she is roughing it. But she is roughing it in Italy with a safety net.

The movie stars Julia Roberts as she travels around the world to experience life and find herself. She was living very well off in NYC with her husband, Billy Crudup, but got bored by the marriage. While trying to get a divorce (which he didn’t want), she fell for James Franco, who she then also had problems with. Her obvious solution was to pay for a trip to Italy, India, and Indonesia.

In Italy she was supposed to focus on her eating, and find happiness. In India, she would focus on her spirituality, and in Indonesia she would hang out with this weird medicine man and figure out her love life. Despite being packaged into nice little boxes, the overall theme of the movie was love. Everyplace she went, she had to deal with other social stigmas on her for not having a husband/being divorced. Some would call her courageous, but others stupid.

The transition was weird for me to watch too. Once she got to India, I felt like she was only being berated by Richard Jenkins for a long time. She got mad that he was speaking in “bumper stickers”, but she really didn’t have a better message. I barely even noticed her getting to Indonesia, minus the medicine man dude. Where, from what I could tell, all she was doing was hanging out with the rich Javier Bardem.

Not to be confused with the evil killing Javier Bardem.

Anyways. Most of the movie she seems to be complaining about love, and trying to get over her past two loves. Despite the eating and praying portions. Not only does that happen, but she complains a lot. Apparently her life is so bad that she had to leave the USA. By the end of course she “finds herself”, whatever that means, and in doing so…a new man. I thought they were trying to set us up for an independent woman thing, but somehow it still ends with a man. That man not being Billy Crudup, who she left brokenhearted in NYC.

I cant’ speak as a woman, but from what I can tell, it still promotes the fact that they need a man in their life to be truly happy, and that journeys require lots of money. If you are stuck at home, oh well, maybe you can journey to a nearby town. Doesn’t seem like the best messages. For shame, Julia Roberts. For shame.

Up In The Air is one of those movies that comes out in December that we like to call “Oscar Bait”. Big movies, with big actors, playing super dramatic /inspirational roles, right before the deadline for the Academy Awards, so they are fresh on the mind. No one remembers January movies in December.

What important to life theme does Up In The Air have? Downsizing and loneliness.

And Batman.

George Clooney is a guy who keeps to himself. His boss Jason Bateman is a downsizing firm, who goes to companies and lays off the workers and provides them with some post job security. His job mostly involves him flying all around the US. Once he is at the job, he gets his own office, and face to face gets to tell all these strangers that they are no longer going to be working there. The movie is full of these smaller scenes, watching the reactions on different people. You even get to see Zach Galifianakis as Random Worker.

He also is a pseudo motivational speaker. Unfortunately his message is about living a life with zero baggage and friends, and for some reason he thinks that is a good thing. I will note, the times when he is telling his philosophy, it just sounds stupid. I can’t believe people listen to him in the movie.

Dude also likes flying. He is trying to get ten million miles in the air, to get a special card and meet the head airline pilot (Sam Elliot) and get just sexy benefits.

That is all other stuff. It turns out even his company is changing. Anna Kendrick comes in changing shit. Instead of flying places face to face, they will remotely fire people, over the computer. Clooney doesn’t like doing that (because he doesn’t want to settle) and would rather be on the road. Also he finds it desensitizing so Kendrick must go out with him to try it face to face. Also he finds a fellow crazy traveler, Vera Farmiga, who he hooks up with a bunch for crazy hotel sexcapades.

But first? Alcohol!

I think I talked too much about the plot. Blah blah blah. Anna does a great job as young go-getter who doesn’t know much about the world. She can be a great actress, shown in Rocket Science, but is forced to be “Non important cute girl” in Twilight movies instead. If I had to be fired, I’d prefer it to be done by someone like George Clooney. Dude is probably charismatic even while mowing the lawn.

Danny McBride is also a surprise cameo in here, as a serious role, and his ugliest role yet.

But overall a good movie. Felt real. Felt sad. Felt funny. Felt it all. And also, life’s a bitch.

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson. Also, Alan Rickman is Snape, Michael Gambon is Dumbledore.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

EVERYONE RUN. VOLDEMORT IS IN POWER. SECRETLY. HE CONTROLS THE GOVERNMENT AND PRINT MEDIA. NOTHING CAN BE DONE TO SAVE US NOW.

This is what they WANT you to believe is happening.

Also Snape is a dick, promising to help kill Dumbledore if that blonde mean dude fails. What a dick.

The beginning of the movie also features a trip to see some fat dude, who we have to presume will be the new defense against the dark arts teacher, but no, Jim Broadbent is brought in for potions? You mean Snape finally gets to teach the class he wants? That is crazy. I guess you wouldn’t want to give Zidler from Moulin Rouge! too much power.

“We’re going to turn Hogwarts into a theaaaaaaaaterrrrrrrrrrrr!”

Also Helena Bonham Carter is running around as some bad ass person, killing everybody that she wants to.

So what happens in this movie is Harry ends up cheating in Potions, using a book that has all the correct ways to make potions in them. Why are the books they using so inept? I don’t know. But this one is better. Signed by the Half-Blood Prince. Also has some nifty cheat code magic spells too. Too bad they really fuck a guy up.

They learn that bald dude is so powerful because he has put his soul into six different objects, much like a Lich would have with a Phylactery. To destroy Vdude, must destroy them all first. And that is what this movie is about. I think Dumbledore already killed one, and at the end they go and kill another.

BUT FIRST. Harry gets a luck potion. Or a potion that makes everything work for him for a duration time. That is awesome. It is pretty much the magic form of the best X-Men character ever, Longshot, who has the mutant ability to have things just go his way, always.

“So wait. You are in a different galaxy. And a cyborg. Yet you have a mutant ability too? To just be lucky? Doesn’t that seem like cheating at life?”

Alright. So they go to find a Horocrux, Dumbledore and Harry. Dumbledore has to drink a whole pot of water, almost killing him (Like alcohol?) and then they fight some zombies. They get the thing and go home, but the thing was fake. Fuck. Then SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE.

Roughly like this.

OH NO. AND SNAPE WAS THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. Now Harry is all angsty, his best old gay friend is dead. The dude who hates him killed him. And that same dude helped him cheat in school. Where are your morals, Potter? Where?

So then he says that he wont go back to school. I guess realizing that he should be expelled for pseudo cheating. Instead he is going to kill a bald dude.

Or the other way around. Who is to say?

So this movie was pretty great. It had a darker tone than the other movies. Its effects were top notch too, really capturing the Blu-Ray technology. This movie, like the last two, ends in death, so I have to assume the next two will as well. Eventually, ending all the movies the same way kind of feels like a cop out. But with two movies left, and each death being more important (Diggory –> Sirius –> Dumbledore –> ? –> Voldemort/Potter), I have no idea who would die in the next one.

I almost care about the character too, now that Harry found love in a Ginger, and that he doesn’t look like a tool anymore. Still kind of an angsty teen, but not a tool.