Gorgon Reviews

Rodney Ascher is a weird guy. I don’t talk about directors of documentaries a lot, but this is important. I have technically reviewed three of his works on my site. He did the Q segment of The ABCs of Death 2, which I honestly barely remember. He also did the documentary Room 237 which felt a lot like torture. That is a very polarizing movie and whatever a lot of people got out of it, I got none of it.

And now he is directing The Nightmare documentary, which is a bit of a hybrid documentary. It involves real people, telling presumably real stories and anecdotes, but also recreations of what they are talking about. At this point you might be asking, “Well, what are they talking about?!” and if you were, you aren’t very good at context clues.

They are talking about nightmares of course! But not any of your sissy girl falling out of bed nightmares. No, a much serious and scarier phenomenon known as sleep paralysis which affects dozens of people world wide. Dozens!

It is also one of the scariest things I have ever heard about that could potentially be a giant elaborate ruse to scare me.

Holy fuck, it is working too!

I don’t remember when I first heard about sleep paralysis, but it was probably 4 or more years ago on the internet. A lot of people told similar stories, about how they would sometimes dream of themselves lying in bed but they couldn’t move their body at all. They would try to, but nothing would work. Some of them would imagine some dark entity/cat/demon sitting on their chest, preventing from moving. That sounds terrifying enough, but it isn’t even the scariest parts.

Others could see intruders in their room. Literal dark shadow shapes, static shapes, alien shapes, whatever their messed up psychosis wants. It could involve the creepiest conversations. It could involve other people they know and love. But they just have to lay there and take it.

I don’t think my crazy ramblings trying to explain it all are the best way to learn about this stuff though. Personal anecdotes from those who experience it with vivid detail? That is the way to go. Or better yet, anecdotes with recreations just to terrify you even more.

The editing on this hybrid documentary was great. The music department and the recreations were very on point and would have had me on the edge of my seat the entire time if I was in a chair. If you must know, I was definitely laying down as I watched this documentary.

Of course, this documentary might not be the best idea either. There are reports of people gaining some sleep paralysis after hearing about it from someone else. So I might have screwed a portion of the readers of this review, and for that I don’t apologize. These are the type of risks you must take when you go to a site owned and operated by Gorgons, after all.

Although the circumstances are quite rare, every once in awhile I review a made for TV movie. The last few I did include Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story and Liz & Dick. The former I did as an accident, as I actually thought it was a documentary going into it. The latter I did only because it stared Lindsay Lohan as Liz Taylor, which just sounded hilariously bad so I had to give it a gander.

I generally avoid them if possible, because one of the best insults I can give a poor quality movie is comparing it to a made for TV movie. Their budget is lower, they usually have a shorter production window, and the tend to feature overacting and bad editing. After all, if it is on TV, you can’t show or say a lot of things to keep the rating down. If you wanted to be even more insulting you would refer to something as worse than a Lifetime TV movie, often considered to be bottom of the barrel, along with Hallmark films.

So why am I knowingly reviewing A Deadly Adoption, a few days after airing for the first time on Lifetime?

Well, that is because they are adding all the bells and whistles for this movie! They are celebrating 20 years of Lifetime movies, of overly sappy movies about women getting hurt, by making a parody film of their own films. It takes a lot of gumption to see you are a laughing stock and decide to run with it.

Speaking of gumption: facial hair.

Life is wonderful for the Benson clan. Robert (Will Ferrell) is a successful author and kicking butt, Sarah (Kristen Wiig) is pregnant and going to start selling organic vegetables to other cool kids, and their daughter Sully (Alyvia Alyn Lind) is well, a child. Everything is like a 1950’s white American suburb home, until Sarah falls off the dock and starts to drown in the water. Sure, her heroic husband saves her, but they lose something else in the process. The pregnancy is terminated. Oh noes!

Now, five years later, things are different. Robert still writes, but he is afraid of boats and leaving home. Sarah has her successful shop, but is sad that her husband won’t get over it. And Sully is older, but still a little girl and who cares. But they decide they should adopt a child, that might help everything! After a lot of searching, they find Bridget (Jessica Lowndes), who is pregnant and looking for a kind family to take in her child. However, she is living in a shelter and doesn’t have a lot of money. So they decide to bring her in until the baby comes out letting her stay in the guest room.

Everyone is happy! Unless. Of course. Bridget is not the nice girl she appears to be.

Also with some dudes, Jake Weary and Bryan Safi. They are not pregnant nor are they adopting.

Now where they pregnant and adopting, which is a rare but probably real category of people.

If there is anything the last 15 years of terrible movies have taught us, it is that the parody film is a hard movie to get right. It is very easy to make a movie full of references to popular culture while none of it is remotely funny. You know those films, so I won’t talk about them. But then there are very good unique parodies that are also celebrating the genre they are mimicking, so you can tell there is real heart behind the content.

A Deadly Adoption ends up being a mix of both. No, it is not full of pop culture references, thankfully. But it also doesn’t go to the extremes necessary to drive its point home. It is definitely aware of itself, and things are over acted with scenes overly dramatic. But it still lacks a huge amount of humor, despite its attempts. Outside of the intro and the last ten minutes, most of the film dragged on. Because it is a parody, it can be hard to differentiate between what is bad and what is supposed to be bad, to be funny. For the most part, the jokes just didn’t land.

Again, I will note the beginning and ending were fantastic though. They just didn’t know how to make the middle live up to its ends. The film would have been funnier if it was more outwardly aware of itself, instead of giving for all intents and purposes, an actual lifetime movie.

The release of Seventh Son was overshadowed because it came out the same day as Jupiter Ascending, which is interesting. The later is a sci-fi/fantasy epic that was faced with delays and the release was moved back. The former? A fantasy epic that was faced with even more delays and production issues.

Production on this movie began in early 2012. The visual effects of the film was being done with Rhythm and Hues Studio, famous for getting best Visual Effects in the Oscars for Life Of Pi, while also filing for bankruptcy. Not a good time for that studio, tons of layoffs despite their impressive work.

So in 2013, Seventh Son was still in production and the company got a loan to help finish the movie. It was pushed back to October 2013 release. Then it was pushed back to January 2014 thanks to Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. breaking apart.

However, once Universal got the distribution rights end of 2013, they said nah, let’s wait til February 6, 2015. They didn’t give any fucks about the movie and figured they’d have no competition. Which again, is amusing that Jupiter Ascending came in and fucked up any chance of them actually making money.

Well, costume wise it looks like a nerds wet dream!

Seventh Son is a story about a witch and a witch hunter. Clearly star crossed lovers. The witch, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), is being all evil, and Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), the Spook, wants to stop her. During a routine snatch and grab, they almost succeed too! But no, she escapes, and she kills his apprentice (Kit Harington).

So instead we get Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), who is the seventh son of a seventh son. That means something. It means a lot of fucking and babies. When the Spook showed up, he knew already he was leaving thanks to dreams, so he kissed his mom, Mam (Olivia Williams) good bye and went on his merry way.

Things get a bit more hairy when Tom also sees a girl about to be mobbed for being a witch. He had visions of her and him, so he saves her too. Her name is Alice (Alicia Vikander). That is nice.

What is not nice when she goes back home to her witch mom (Antje Traue) who is involved with Mother Malkin. Ah interesting.

Then some witch magic stuff happens and people get hurt, lies get said, and of course, even more magic stuff. Also with a John DeSantis and a Djimon Hounsou!

On the other hand, this image looks so uncool, Outkast wouldn’t even touch it.

First of all, I apologize for that last caption joke, it is terrible.

Second of all, I feel really really bad for Rhythm and Hues studio. They did amazing work with Life Of Pi, then they got shit on, then they had to make this piece of crap. I want to assume that the reason this movie is not visually pleasing to look at is because the studio had to lay off all of their workers and work on a very small budget. I hope so. Because the CGI and effects were anything but quality.

You know what it reminded me of? Dungeons and Dragons, the movie. That is a really mean comparison, technically. That movie was terribad. But they are both pricey fantasy films that wanted to reach for something greater, but instead fell down into Mediocre Valley, looking ugly to boot.

But good looks aren’t the only important thing to a film. Acting and plot! So dang important! This one has two people who have won Best Actor and Best Actress at the Oscars! Hot damn! They can’t save this story though. They don’t even attempt to save it.

Jeff Bridges is basically transforming into Nick Nolte. The last few movies with Bridges have been hard to understand. This movie was the worst, with the movie almost demanding you watch it in subtitles to understand a damn thing he says. Moore plays a caricature and a non-interesting villain, and so she too is completely forgettable.

The plot itself would be easier to follow if there was anything remotely exciting about this movie. A yawn fest, beginning to end. It is a shame Sci-Fi is getting such a revitalization in the film industry and fantasy films seem left to die in its wake. We had a good thing going on with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the disappointing Hobbit films and absolutely nothing else going on seems to mean it has to wait for the eventual Harry Potter reboot to be good again.

Every few months, a new indie movie starring a few people from popular TV shows comes out and we are supposed to watch it, eventually, on our own time. Because these movies rarely hit theater and are more of a VOD type situation.

The good and bad news with these sorts of movies is that they are non consistently bad, average, or good, but all over the map so you never know what to expect. Last year we got Drinking Buddies staring that girl from House and that dude from New Girl, and it sucked. But we also got The One I Love starring that girl from Mad Men and that guy from The League, and that one rocked.

So how will Adult Beginners go? The one starring the other guy from The League and the guy from Community and the girl from 30 Rock? Well, anything goes in TV star VOD movie land!

“Ugh, more people from The League? I would not watch that movie.”

Jake (Nick Kroll) is going to make a shit ton of money. And with his money and your money and everyone else’s money put together, he is going to make a shit ton more and make everyone rich. And maybe even make them a little bit sexy. But then something goes wrong, right away with his company, and sure enough, he loses everyone’s money. He is now broke and useless and his friends hate him. Even Hudson (Joel McHale) hates him a bit.

So now Jake is homeless and alone, so he decides to go move in with his sister, Justine (Rose Byrne). He hasn’t seen her in a couple years because he has been “busy” so sure, it is a bit awkward. You know, cause he son is like, 2 or 3 now. And she is pregnant again! And he barely even knows her husband, Danny (Bobby Cannavale). He just knows it is a hectic time in their lives. Unfortunately, the only way they let him live with him long term is if he basically becomes their full time nanny, so they both can work and save up money for new baby and maybe a new house!

Jake of course is an irresponsible adult, and doesn’t know anything about kids. But he accepts, mostly because he has nothing else he can do at that point.

And that is about it. Jake needs to learn how to be an adult, for real. He is a beginner at being an adult. He also can’t swim. Jane Krakowski is a swimming teacher for adults and babies and dances with babies in water. It isn’t super weird, don’t worry. And Jason Mantzoukas is in here, because he is crazy and Nick Kroll’s friend.

“I didn’t invite Jason, did you invite Jason?”
“No I didn’t invite Jason, did you invite Jason, Nick?”
“Yeah I totally did, suck it.”

Rose Byrne is becoming a relatively big name now, which is great for her. She is appearing in all the genres right now: Horror, Drama, Comedy, Action and generally being great in each one of those roles. Most surprising is comedy because it seemingly came out of nowhere with Neighbors. The problem with Adult Beginners is it is one of those classic comedies that doesn’t end up being actually funny.

Hopefully the positive buzz that has surrounded Spy is enough to make everyone ignore this movie. Ignoring it shouldn’t be an issue, because no one will really watch it when it is VOD. I just want to make sure her career is not affected by the dullness of this film.

As for everyone else? Cannavale is a likable dude, even if he always plays mostly douche-y characters, but he hasn’t had any nice break outs yet. Likewise, Kroll always plays douches, but occasionally has comedic sparks that do not go on display during this movie.

A comedy that doesn’t end up being funny, with serious moments that also aren’t too dramatic or emotional. Yep, this is a classic indie film in that regard, which most of the time would garner a 2 out of 4 or something, but they usually have one or two unique moments in them to warrant a bump. I am willing to say Adult Beginners offers nothing new and leaves me with a bored taste on my mouth.

In case you are curious, boring taste is like cardboard.

Welcome to a very special review here at Gorgon Reviews! So I apologize for how weird this one goes, just consider it non-canon.

This review is not the normal review for the day. Because it is Sunday, reviews don’t normally come out today. So of course it is a bonus review!

This is a special review because this one I am posting at some point after the time my wife has delivered out baby. Let me be vague here, because I might do it right away, the next day, hours after the fact, when we get home, who knows!

That’s why I am going to talk about Babies!

I first saw that this documentary existed when I worked in the ancient store of Blockbuster. It was one of our new releases and I used to watch every new release despite its perceived quality (that’s when I had 14~ reviews in a week). The only genres I avoided were extreme horror and documentaries, because I didn’t review either at the time. But now I do both and now I can talk about Babies.

This documentary goes into the lives of four freshly born babies from around the world. If only there was a nice graphic to showcase the babies themselves…

Shit that white baby is sad.

These four babies are in very uniquely different parts of the world at various levels of “comfort”. Ponijao is born in Africa with his mom, slightly older sibling and like, a neighbor or two. No medical comforts, just a hut and the hot hot sun. On the other side, Hattie is born in San Francisco, came from a rich enough couple in a hospital. Mari is also a traditional born baby, for the most part, hospital and all, while Bayar is a step above Ponijao in terms of civilization, but not with all the modern comforts.

These babies are going to grow up and have drastically different lives. We only get snippets from the first year of their life (I think), but we can see them learning to roll over, learning to crawl, and learning to talk a little bit. We will hear them laugh while playing and cry for no reason at all. And this whole documentary provides no story, no narration, no structure. Just babies with their families. Hell, it doesn’t even provide subtitles.

In theory, this is an amazing idea. What better way to showcase how we are all human and equal than by comparing how we raise our babies, creatures not yet molded by society, knowing no hate. It is a good idea and potentially very thought provoking.

My main issue is the only thoughts that were provoked for me were how boring it all felt. The idea for Babies sounds good on paper, but while watching, I frequently checked over and over again at how much longer I had until it was all over. I don’t want to say I have a small attention span, but I can only watch babies (that aren’t my own) falling down and existing for so long before I want to walk away and play video games.

Without even transitional frames to group this into at least stages of development, or statistics about babies, I am left to derive my own point for the documentary to exist. However, at only 80 minutes, you are going to get roughly 20 minutes per baby and still not know about the different cultures. Some babies play with rocks, some babies play with fancy equipment. The end. I am sure I will figure all that out in the next year anyways.

Sometimes when I like to pretend that I am cool, I use words like Dope and Chill. I will admit, when I first saw the screening listing for Dope, I honestly got it confused with the Straight Outta Compton movie coming out, figuring they renamed it for some reason. (How White am I? I spelled that first “Straight Out Of Compton” because I really didn’t know).

I mean, could there really be two movies about black youth in California, despite being very very different topics, in the same summer? It is strange to say but it is actually hard to believe that.

But I am excited. I am all for diversity in my movie watching. And since I know absolutely nothing about Dope going into it, I feel kind of excited at what it might be about. Hopefully the references aren’t too hip for me.

The trio is basically a themed gang from The Warriors.

When the movie started, I knew I was immediately wrong with any preconceptions I had. I honestly thought it would be set in the early 90’s on the poster alone, but it is actually a modern day movie about some kids who just really liked the 90’s music scene.

Malcolm (Shameik Moore), Jib (Tony Revolori, of The Grand Budapest Hotel fame) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) are loaner geeks who have banded together to form a friendship. They are from a generally poor neighborhood and don’t really want to become gang bangers selling dope and going to jail. So they start a punk band and avoid getting into trouble to get into college!

That is until the night of Dom’s party (Rakim Mayers aka A$ap Rocky (I don’t know what to call him?)). Sure it may seem strange for them to go to a party of a thug dope dealer, but they want to live a little bit during their senior years before it is too late. Plus, Nakia (Zoe Kravitz) promised to dance with Malcolm if he showed up.

I don’t know what they expected, but the party of course was full of drugs, booze, and hot tunes (I could rap, probably). They have a pretty awesome night! Until the cops show up, raid the place, and the next thing Malcolm knows, his bag is full of drugs and a gun that he doesn’t notice until the next day at school. Yeah boyyy. Now he has to deal with this dope, not knowing who to trust with the information. Sketchy phone guys? Some mysterious AJ? Sell it on his own? Shit, he has Harvard to try and get into. And he doesn’t want to go to jail so dang close to getting out of the hood!

Also featuring the talents of Chanel Iman, Quincy Brown, Roger Guenveur Smith, Blake Anderson, and some narration by Forest Whitaker.

Please be a punk song about donuts. Please be a punk song about donuts.

Dope is the first movie I have seen from director Rick Famuyiwa, who also was the only writer of the movie, and if his past films are of any comparable quality then I should probably check some of them out. It should also be noted that the main producers was also our narrator, Whitaker, and an executive producer was Pharrell Williams. So despite its relatively unknown cast, it had some star power behind it. Although it should be noted, the narration was only at the beginning and felt quite excessive and unnecessary. Didn’t match the rest of the film.

But let’s go back to that cast. I was personally happy to not recognize any of the main characters (outside of the Lobby Boy). For our lead, the only movie or show I would have seen him in was Joyful Noise, where his character name was “Our Lady of Perpetual Tears Choir Master”, so I can’t even tell you if he had a speaking role. Moore blew me away, in all honesty. Everything about him felt sincere and real. Moore conveyed so much throughout the film through facial expressions alone, which is especially helpful since he didn’t play a smooth talking confident character for the most part. He was relatable and he was awesome.

The film was also surprisingly up to date with current technologies and they do a good job of introducing concepts that not a lot of people know about. Dark web stuff. It makes a lot of sense that this is the first movie that is allowing tickets to be bought via bitcoins.

Favorite part about the film would be just how realistic the portrayal of modern hood life is like. It isn’t just gangs, just drugs, just poverty. There is a lot of hope and a lot of people just trying to fit in. None of the characters were extreme stereotypes, providing some slightly thought provoking conversations despite the urban language throughout.

Overall, Dope is a surprisingly funny, realistic and a feel good movie that came up out of nowhere. I am not going to listen to MC Hammer today out of respect for that.

Happy Valley is the place to be! Football is the life for me! Penn State all going to hide! Watch out for lawsuits, keep your boys inside!

I hope you read that in the tune of the green acres theme song. I tried my best to keep it PG.

Happy Valley is a documentary that takes us on a journey to State College, Pennsylvania, where Penn State lives. Yes, you are allowed to be disappointed that it isn’t actually called Happy Valley on any maps.

If you haven’t heard about Penn State lately, then you don’t remember the end of 2011 when Jerry Sandusky, a guy who was the defensive coordinator for their football team, was arrested for being a little boy toucher. Over a 15 year span he was accused of over 50 sexual abuses to little boys. Even worse, he did it through a program called The Second Mile that he founded to help at risk and underprivileged youth. There are a lot of words you can say about an individual like Jerry, but I will just settle on being pretty fucked up.

But then there is Joe. Joe Paterno. Head coach for the team for about 45 years, where before that he was the assistant coach for 15 years! A man who basically lived his whole life with Penn State football, a man who was basically a modern day saint who could do no wrong and was heavily worshiped throughout the state.

Did he…did he know about all of this?

WE ARE! LOCKED GATE!

Unfortunately yes. And he admitted to it a little bit too. He knew of an incident in 2001/02 about Sandusky and a boy in the shower. He even told his direct supervisor when he found out. The issue with Joe is that is all he did. Nothing came out of it for Jerry until 10 years later. But a lot of people are concerned about Joe not doing anything more than just passing the news along. After all, Jerry wasn’t even a coach anymore at the time and still had access to their facilities for the next 10 years. Did he not care? Did he try to protect a fan?

Even more unfortunately, we don’t really get to know. Not long after Paterno was let go after this scandal went global, he developed cancer and died literally a month or so later. His story went with him. Was he a saint? We he a dark man? It is hard to say.

What we do know is that the people and students at Penn State did not like this issue one bet, rioting, still worshiping Joe as a hero and not letting the media throw their city under the bus. And with this documentary, you get to hear from Joe’s son, Jerry’s adopted son, students and citizens of State College, PA, people on both sides of the debate. Happy Valley explores how deep tradition plays into mindset of the individuals there and the extremes they will go to, to protect the ones they worship.

I thought the documentary did a good job of showcasing just how spirited people can be about college matters and how much their judgement can be clouded through repetition. There is no way Joe could have been a bad guy, right? They have been told that their whole lives that he is better than sliced bread. I don’t think there are any other people in modern times who have been so loved to quickly despised in such a well documented amount. This is the only documentary out there where you will get to see how perceptions change, or stay the same, despite the facts.

When Unfinished Business hit theaters, it committed Seppuku on itself almost immediately? Why? Well, it is a comedy, and it has some famous people in it, AND it was released in theaters, it just didn’t do any screenings for anyone.

I can understand why a movie like Step Up: All In might not do screeners. It is for a very specific group or audience, who will see it, critics be damned. And if you aren’t into dancing, you won’t like it.

I can see why a low budget indie movie with no famous people would also hold no screeners. They are art house films and want awards, not money. (This is a lie, everyone wants money).

But what is supposed to be an A-Level comedy? They are saying they have literally no confidence in this movie at all and are just releasing it while hoping no one will really notice. It is not a good thing to know going into a film and really makes you wonder how bad it could be before you even see anything.

I mean, it has Vince Vaughn and beer, how could this not appeal to the majority of Americans at this point?

Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn), before having an unfortunate name, is also about to leave his work. He is in sales, selling things, but the what is not important. He feels like he is getting screwed out of his pay check, because his boss, Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller) (what the fuck is that name?) wants to renegotiate how much he is getting for a new sale. So he decides to walk out. And much like Jerry Maguire, he was left basically alone and sad.

Wait, there are two people with him! Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkinson), who has a mandatory age of retirement or something, but doesn’t really want to stop working, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), someone who was applying for a job but is willing to work for Dan! Yeah! They will start their own business selling…things!

A year later, life sucks. They aren’t doing great, they don’t have an office. Dan has troubles at home. His son (Britton Sear) is getting bullied, his girl (Ella Anderson) is needing him to work on a project about his unsuccessful life, and his wife (June Diane Raphael) wants to put the boy in private school, but Dan can’t talk about their financial woes.

Either way, they finally are going to close on a deal. Just need to shake hands with a Jim (James Marsden) and they will have money to fix all the things! Well, then there is fucking Chuck, suddenly in the races and they have a lot more work to do. And also Nick Frost is hanging out.

They just have to do the things to maybe get the deal! The things! The things!

Pancake is probably one of the greatest last names in movie history.

You know, this is probably 2013’s fault. In that year we had The Internship (which I actually liked) and Delivery Man (a scene for scene remake of a French Canadian film), both of which basically bombed and were groaned at by critics. All with Vince at the helm! Since then he had nothing in 2014, a cameo in Anchorman 2, and that is it. Literally, a string of bad movies might have killed his career. After all, this movie began its shoots in October 2013, and a year later had to do reshoots. I guess the studio really did have no faith at all. Nor did the public, giving this the lowest grossing film opening of his career.

And it is sad to say that all of it is entirely warranted. This is a comedy in the sense that occasionally an amusing scene may happen. In no way does it ever give the minute after minute of laughter that you are hoping for with this movie. No, and it doesn’t help that this film has entirely too many serious moments in it, serious moments that don’t end up affecting the viewer on an emotional level. The movie isn’t just stale, but the entire time you are watching you are waiting to figure out just what the point of the whole film is.

The drama, the plot, the comedy, the acting for the most part is all terrible in this film. The pacing is all over the place and it honestly feels like everyone is super passive. Vaughn’s character is passive, the bad guys are passive. 90 minutes of people standing around and talking about doing great things, and of course, not.

The only reason I am giving it the 1 and not a 0 is, surprisingly, Dave Franco. He basically plays someone who is literally retarded. It was very strange and yet, it was very different for little Franco. His character was able to bring a smile to my face through his simplicity and his discoveries through this film journey. If we could have a spin-off movie of him traveling the world, that would be ideal.

The good news for Vince is that he is about to star in True Detective season 2. He is hoping to have some sort of Vaughn-Respawn for his career, just like the recent McConaissance.

Kill me once, kill me twice, kill me deadly, as Lita Ford kind of almost once said.

Ms Ford couldn’t count to three, much like Valve, but it is for good reason. Kill Me Three Times? That is definitely excessive. Two is usually excessive as well, unless you believe in resurrection, but most cultures don’t have double resurrection as far as I can tell.

Now, this could be some strange Beetlejuice situation, where the only way to die is killing the entity three times. Maybe the person in question is a third cat and two thirds human (how to genetics work?), so they only were given 3 lives instead of 9.

Actually, yes, that is my official answer going into this movie. A movie that must be about a man who is one-third cat. And no, I hope it isn’t anything like Catwoman.

Although wearing all black and having a sexually awakened pose does give me pause.

In the Australian action thriller comedy (?) we’ve all been waiting for, we get to see Simon Pegg play a hit man! Sure, Charlie Wolfe is a bit eccentric, with a mustache and all. And maybe he doesn’t take out his targets in one well placed sniper kill. But you know, he eventually gets the job done! And right after getting the job done, he gets a call to do another job! Ha ha! Life is good, plenty of work, people to kill.

It is simple, Jack Taylor (Callan Mulvey) wants his wife, Alice (Alice Braga), killed and he wants Charlie to do it. A nice lump of sum for the job too. He wants her dead for the reason anyone would, getting cheated on. She cheated on him with a MECHANIC, Dylan (Luke Hemsworth), which makes sense, given that he is the third (and oldest) Hemsworth.

However, the issue is that Charlie wasn’t the only one who was hired to kill Alice! Enter mild mannered dentist, Natahn Webb (Sullivan Stapleton). He has a bit of a gambling addiction and owes some powerful people a lot of money. His wife and receptionist Lucy (Teresa Palmer) is going to help him out, and they are going to be awkward about it.

Also featuring Steve Le Marquand and Bryan Brown. And other shenanigans and twists occur of course, but if I told you them, you’d have no reason to watch the movie.

Like, omg, how did that knife get in his hand?!

Kill Me Three Times was actually a bit harder of a film to describe for two reasons. One, the story isn’t told in standard chronological order. It jumps around a bit. Why? Just to see things in different points of view, and get some flash backs. That is why. It could be fine, but in this case it didn’t enhance the movie at all.

Two, the movie was boring as fuck. I am so disappointed by how uninterested the film went as it dragged along. This element of course made the scenes where we were able to see events again from a different point of view even more dull. I was bored the first time they showed it to me, now I get to be bored from a new angle!

I don’t remember laughing at all. I thought some scenes may have been amusing, but no outright guffaws bellowed from my diaphragm. Was it a bit dark? Sure. And there was technically a little bit of action to make it interesting.

Pegg wasn’t terrible, but his character also felt underutilized. There was a bit too much advertising his character for how much of the movie was about all the other characters as well, if you know what I mean.

Overall, I would describe Kill Me Three Times as a bad cluster fuck. A movie that wanted to be a Tarantino film and dropped the mark a few yards before a first down.

I have avoided it long enough. I can tell you I didn’t want to see McFarland, USA, at all. Cross country is not an inherently exciting sports. It is a bunch of people running long distance. It is just another inspirational Disney sports movie. So the company that brought us Remember The Titans, which was and still is amazing. But they also brought us Invincible (meh), Miracle (meh, as a hockey fan), and Million Dollar Arm (big meh).

What have they done for me lately? That is what I want to know. Not a whole lot. So the prospect of another inspirational true sports story doesn’t exactly get me excited. Couple that with the sports choice, and the fact that Kevin Costner is at the lead, there is just a lot of apathy around this project. Check out my Black or White review about Costner and his recent movies, I don’t need to bring them back up here, but overall he has been on a mostly disappointing trek of films.

As for my final complaint, McFarland, USA. What? Why the second part? What state is this city really in? Did you try at first just “McFarland”? Because that sounds a bit more bold to me. Adding the USA makes it seem like some fake town on a TV show because the writers were feeling lazy.

If you expected pictures of anything but running from this movie, you are surely a dumbass.

Jim White (Costner) is your average white dude football coach. Then he got mad at his players playing like shitty players and threw a cleat at a kid.

Next thing you know, his wife (Maria Bello) and kids are moving! Guess who got fired! (It was Jim). The only job he could find was as an assistant coach in the middle of nowhere, a place called McFarland. Well, he doesn’t last long there either. No, he doesn’t get fired, but after he doesn’t let a kid who was pretty beat up get back on the field during a game, the coach has a hissy fit. So he can keep teaching his random classes, but not be on the team. Gee, well that blows.

Until Jim gets bored and decides to start up a cross country team. Why? Because he is bored and doesn’t like hanging out with his kids. He also notices a lot of these kids can run pretty fast and run home and well, let’s put dos and dos together.

Eventually he gets his team of 7 kids! Ramiro Rodriguez, Carlos Pratts, Johnny Ortiz, Rafael Martinez, Hector Duran, Sergio Avelar and Michael Aguero.

So Jim White, with his white-ness, takes a group of Hispanic boys and turns them into winners! Running winners! And college winners too! (spoiler?)

Also, I feel obligated to include Valente Rodriguez as the principal, because he made me laugh once.

Ah yes, the classic “yep, this is still a picture of people running!” follow up!

I don’t even know why they make movies about people running long distances anymore. Did everyone else not watch Forrest Gump? That dude ran forever and literally cross country. Sure, this was a true story of a coach who ended up winning a lot of cross country meets over a 14 year period and at least all the kids in the movie were real. But it still lacks the wow factor that a movie needs to have.

Inspiration is one thing. If it doesn’t entertain while it inspires, what will a viewer actually get out of it? It doesn’t help that this movie is OVER two hours long with not a whole lot going on. It is mostly a lot of “how do I reach these keeeds” type moments, which at this point is one of the most boring subsets of the genre.

Here is how you teach kids to run good. Are you ready? Well, first they already for the most part have to be good runners before you get them. Buy them some new shoes. And make them practice. A lot. All the time. Make them practice running up and down tiny man made hills and get them used to that. And then? Then you win the things.

It didn’t really feel like the coach in question was great in the film version, again, just a guy who didn’t like where he was and kept his time busy with coaching athletes which is all he really liked to do.

This film features average to okay (at least consistent) from everyone involved and stories you heard many times before in better contexts.