Gorgon Reviews

Who doesn’t love an older franchise getting a reboot? Well, older Godzilla fans for one. They probably wouldn’t even consider this movie a reboot, just a continuum in the long storied history of the Godzilla franchise. But me? Sure, it is a reboot. We all remember the 1998 Godzilla. Even you in the corner probably remember it. I don’t care how many movies came out since then in Japan, if any. I only know there was a sixteen year gap between this one and the old one, and no characters are the same.

Well, one character is the same, I guess.

But fuck those older movies. This one is newer! With graphics!

State of the art Robot Graphics!

The year? 1999. Probably to mess with the other movie a bit. Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is working at a nuclear reactor in Japan as a head Engineer, noticing some seismic waves, when holy crap, big disaster occurs! People die, questions are raised, and maybe, the whole thing is covered up.

Fast forward to now! Fifteen years later! Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Joe’s son is now a grown up, just a lad during the incident. He is in the armed forces, a bomb diffusion-er. I guess you can say he is good at calming high intensity situations. He is just arriving back home to see his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and kid when he has to go BACK to Japan to get his father out of jail.

He is now a conspiracy junkie and snuck back into the heavily radiated area they had to leave. Well, Ford joins his dad on a mission to go back to the plant, when holy crap, big disaster occurs! People die, questions are raised, and maybe, the whole thing is covered up. Just kidding, video footage gets out, at least one giant monster exists and it is about to fuck up a lot of shit!

But what do these creatures have to do with the mysterious Monarch group, lead by our only major Japanese character Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and his three lined assistant (Sally Hawkins).

Also, the role of Godzilla is played by Brian Posehn.

It has often been prophesized that Posehn given enough radiation could cause this must destruction.

I think I have admitted to past to not really caring about the large raging lizard known as Godzilla. I can’t get into those movies, despite having multiple friends who have been raving about them and awaiting this movie for a few years.

However, I am a fan of really well done, exciting and entertaining movies. So, I guess I am a pretty huge damn fan of this movie. Godzilla is only right around two hours and never really has any pacing issues. Do you get to see giant creatures battling in the first thirty minutes? No, of course not, but the build up and the human drama early on really set the tone for what was going to go down. Shit, Bryan Cranston’s role isn’t that big in this movie, but he damn near made me cry with his own intensity.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson has had a pretty good movie career over the last few years, some good movies, some bad ones, but usually solid acting. In this one, he mostly displayed a calming silent attitude when faced with near death situations, but I think it worked out well.

But who cares about HUMANS when we have giant monsters FIGHTING? Were the fights great? Yes. There are fights rhgouhout the movie, although some of them are teased or kept intentionally dark to only give you snippets, but by the end it is definitely worth it. A lot of fan service here for Godzilla junkies along with chances for easily made sequels in the future.

Even more exciting is the science! Obviously it isn’t 100% correct, because we’d probably have Godzilla-esque things now. But for the movie, it seemed to work out pretty well in my mind. Yay reasonable science in a movie!

Looking at the summer schedule, Godzilla is likely to be the best “disaster film” of the next few months.

Brought to you by the people who gave us Invincible and Miracle? Well, Million Dollar Arm is breaking up the one word name scheme then.

The two movies above were interesting, I guess. But even as a hockey fan, I didn’t really care too much for Miracle. Too much marriage drama over nothing coupled with some awkward inaccuracies like mixing up Sweden and Finland’s flags at the end.

So, knowing that those movies were just okay, I guess that is what this movie is going to aim for? But since it is based on a real event, that is extremely recent, I already know how it ends up. Dudes get signed by the Pirates. They spend a lot of time in the minors, some time in the MLB, and do okay to bad at pitching.

His big smile is due to the dollar signs that flash on the inside of his sunglasses.

This film takes back in the ancient time of like, 2008 or so. Just like the British Empire of yore, we have people hoping to exploit the rich untapped potential of a foreign nation. Err, also just like the British Empire, this land is India.

Things are going bad for JB (Jon Hamm) and his advertising firm. They wanted to branch out on their own, make their own mark in the world, and they are having trouble making money and signing any real clients. Once they fail for the thousandth time, JB decides fuck all this nonsense. Let’s create a gimmick, change some lives, and become famous that way!

He sees Cricket on TV and thinks he can turn cricket players into baseball pitchers in one year. The first Indian MLB player will bring in a ton of new fans to the sport and lots of advertising and endorsements. Bling bling, playa!

So he gets an investor, creates a reality show in India, eventually finds two young guys (Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal), and an Indian translator who likes baseball and will work for free (Pitobash) and begins the training to get them into the MLB. But can they do it in just a few months?! ?!!?!?!!? !!!!?

Lot of other people here of course. Alan Arkin, small role as a talent scout. Bill Paxton as a crazy method man for teaching pitching. Lake Bell as the tenant in JB’s guest house who is the romantic love interest. Aasif Mandvi is the Indian friend of JB to not make this whole thing super racist/imperial like. I guess it kind of works.

I think my two photos this time clearly represent business before pleasure.

Alright, first and easiest complaint about this movie is the length. The idea phase happens realitve quickly, so somewhere in the trip to India, finding of the boys and the training it just takes too long to get to the eventual end point. Too much of the movie is JB being an asshole, so it gets tiring. Maybe knowing the outcome doesn’t help this fact. But Lincoln kept up its entertaining aspects despite knowing how that finished too.

A lot of the characters are pretty good, but hats off mostly to our three characters from India. Sharma and Mittal aren’t similar in any way, both of their characters have personality and shine in different ways and excel for different reasons. Huh, kind of like the real life counter parts. But also Pitobash. Man was he amusing, probably made me laugh the most. I hope he is based on a real life person too, because that guy sounds like a cool guy to be friends with.

Hamm? Well, he played a dick sports agent who eventually found a heart to care for the kids he brought over and then they succeeded. But is it really a change of heart when it takes multiple people multiple times to tell him the same thing? JB is the type of character who will do almost anything to get ahead. He is desperate, that is why he went to India. Wouldn’t put it past him to fake the caring thing too, just because he knows it will make him that money.

So whatever, a pseudo inspiring tale I guess. It isn’t terrible, just is too long and again, is so recent we know that even though they came over and pitched, they didn’t revolutionize anything. They aren’t Jackie Robinson or anything.

Come on Disney. Find a sexier sports moment to make a movie out of next, please.

Farmland. Farmers. Iowa. Hey, I live in Iowa!

So, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that there was a huge crowd to see a documentary about farmers. They had the biggest theater in my city and there were barely any empty seats. The only real reason I went is because they were giving away some tickets, free movies yo. Not to mention to excitement of the crowd for a one time only showing of a movie.

They really love their farming here, so hell yeah, let’s watch it with them.

Farmland is a pretty basic documentary. Apparently a lot of old people own farm land, and they might die off soon. Not a lot of people are going into the farming industry for many reasons, and eventually there might not be good people to run the land. No farmers? No farms! Oh no!

So this documentary goes over six individuals who are all in various aspect of the farming life, and all under 30.

Brad Bellah Rancher in Texas. He wears a cowboy hat, grew up being a rancher, and still raises cows with his new family. Leighton Cooley from Georgia, who raises Chickens and other minor crops. Has a huge farm area, second generation I think. There is David Loberg, a Nebraskan who raises corn/soybeans, also at least a second generation.

We have Sutton Morgan from California, fourth generation, but doing huge organic farms and is very successful. Margaret Schlass a first generation woman in Philly, doing organic stuff also, but more small time and co-op based. Finally, we have Ryan Veldhuizen, a Minnesota native fourth generation pig farmer.

Yep. No one from Iowa. Denied!

Cowboys, cowboy hats, and cows? Is this my future calling?

This documentary was made to inform the general public about the wonders of farming, the hardships, and the fact that they aren’t just a bunch of dumb hicks. It is to get younger people interested in the profession and save America’s farming future!

But man, from someone without much of a farming background, it was just okay. It had some funny moments, but I wouldn’t say I learned a lot either. I guess it was okay to see their lives, and what they did throughout a year, but eh, still not really too interesting for me.

It did have some sweet moments too, particularly with the Nebraskan farmer. His dad died a year before the film, so they talked about him a few times and how he took over the business. Then there was a moment where he tried to explain a specific moment from his past, and he just started to babble incoherently, fighting back tears. It was extremely hard to not cry along with him. I looked around the packed theater? Dozens of teary faces in my vicinity. Very touching, but doesn’t make the movie great.

I can tell you if you grew up near farms or plan on going into farms, you will love this movie. The theater clapped at the end. Huge ovation over a documentary about farming. I guess that is what happens when you watch a movie like this in Iowa.

Readers, don’t judge me. But when a movie has such a succinct and eye catching title, can you really blame a person for being curious about the movie?

Literally, Asian School Girls seems to just be able high school Asian women who have to defeat bad guys and kill them. Very simple plot from the cover. That is all I knew going in!

And so this will be a short review. Mostly because I can’t find any pictures of it on the internet.

Basically, four girls (Sam Aotaki, Catherine Hyein Kim, Belle Hengsathorn, Minnie Scarlet) of which whose ethnicity you can guess go to a night club despite high school status. They have fake IDs! During the night, they are invited by two handsome men to come hang out at their place. Unfortunately, it was all a set up where they instead are drugged and raped.

This causes one of them to commit suicide. In grief, and anger at a police department who doesn’t seem to be able to help (Andray Johnson), they decide to get some weapons and enact their own revenge.

They just need money first, so you know, they become strippers, and then eventually kill some people.

Accidentally misleading, since only three of the four go on the killing spree.

Oh boy. This movie started off rough, and kept its sandpaper level quality. First thing I found out about this movie was that it was made by The Asylum. They make a lot of low budget straight to DVD crap, selling bad graphics and sex, movies that are titled eerily similar to bigger blockbusters, and of course fucking Sharknado.

It was extremely hard to pay attention to this movie filled with no substance and terrible action. That’s right, a movie about revenge and killing bad guys has terrible action. Some of it is graphic sure, but most of it is shit.

This movie does have copious amounts of nudity. Way too much, since it is all just awkwardly long stripping scenes for the most part. Speaking of awkward, they threw in a lesbian scene too for shits and giggles.

Yeah, skip this movie. I knew it should have been terrible. But eh, sometimes I just give things the benefit of the doubt.

Fuck this movie. Just, get it out of the way. During The Nut Job I predicted Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return would end up being the second worst animated movie of 2014. I was wrong. At this point, I don’t see how there could be anything worst than this trash of a film throughout the rest of the year. No way. No way at all.

It was so many levels of shitty, I don’t think I can properly spend time explaining it all, so I made a short play to try and explain it all.

Here are most of the characters. Not of the play, but of the shitstorm movie.

Executive 1: Alright, we need a sure fire hit for the company. We got about $70 million in budget, and we want to cover ALL demographics. We want the nostalgia, we want the kids, we want songs, we want jokes, we want it all.

Executive 2: We gotta get that Glee girl involved. She is relatively free with the dead boyfriend news being almost a year old now.

E1: Yeah, get her to be the lead!

E2: How bout we do another Wizard of Oz movie? That one last year was pretty well received, and they didn’t try at all!

E1: Brilliant! Who doesn’t love the Scarecrow and Tin Man and Lion! We can make a sequel. Bring everyone back!

E2: But sir! We are out of villains! All the witches are dead!

E1: Shit, we can’t just have them having fun and going on an adventure. We need excitement!

E2: Well, we could get Ralph, our idea man…

E1: Ralph? That man is a wild card, shit, just saying his name three times tends to get him involved.

(Just then, Ralph busts in the boardroom door, pen and paper in his hands).

RtWC: FUCK THIS! WILD CARDS DON’T NEED TO WAIT THREE TIMES! HERE IS OUR MOVIE.

BOOM. FIRST OFF, DOROTHY’S HOUSE GOT FUCKED UP BY A TORNADO. LET’S MAKE THE VILLAIN BE AN APPRAISER WHO KICKS HER OUT OF THE HOUSE. ALSO, LET’S CHANGE THE LOOK OF HER AUNT AND UNCLE. HER AUNT HAS TO BE YOUNGER, HER UNCLE NOW BALDER. IT WILL WORK.

E1: Yeah people probably won’t remember the look of the outside non Oz characters.

RtWC: ALRIGHT. LET’S GET HER BACK TO OZ. WE NEED TO UP THE NOSTALGIA. FIRST THING WE SEE ARE HER FRIENDS, ALL FREAKY AFTER THEIR NEW BRAIN HEART AND SHIT. ALSO, FLYING MONKEYS. WE NEED MORE OF THEM.

LET’S SAY THE WITCH HAD A BROTHER. BUT HE IS A JESTER, BECAUSE THE WITCH IS A BITCH. HE IS EVIL NOW BECAUSE OF THIS STUFF. WHY NOT. HE IS ALSO OUR COMIC RELIEF. FUCKING JESTERS.

ANYWAYS, SOMETHING WILL GO WRONG, DOROTHY WILL HAVE TO MEET NEW PEOPLE.

LIKE A FAT OWL THAT CAN’T FLY AND IS SMART. AND A MAN MADE OUT OF MARSHMELLOWS. A PORCELAIN DOLL. THEY HAD THOSE LAST MOVIE, LET’S DO MORE OF THEM.

E2: Is the Jester going to have a stupid death like the witch?

RtWC: I DON’T KNOW, LET’S NOT WORRY ABOUT THE END TIL WE START FILMING. HERE ARE SOME PLOT POINTS. ANGRY APPLE TREES? BRING THEM BACK, BUT THIS TIME LET ONE OF THEM KILL HIMSELF FOR DOROTHY.

THEY ARE GONNA TREAT HER LIKE ROYALTY EVERYWHERE SHE GOES. IN FACT, LET THE FACT THAT SHE IS DOROTHY SOLVE 95% OF HER PROBLEMS! THE PORCELAIN DOLL? LET’S HAVE A TIME WHERE SHE BREAKS APART AND EVERYONE THINKS SHE IS DEAD.

E1: Now now, looking into your other notes, I see have written down here that the doll breaks a bunch of porcelain suitors, who then go on talking and living lives, just need to be glued back together to walk again. Why would anyone think she is dead?

RtWC: BECAUSE WE WILL INEXPLICABLY MAKE HER NOT TALK AND JUST LIE THERE POST CRACK, DESPITE HAVING HER WHOLE HEAD GOOD WHICH SHOULD IMMEDIATELY ALLOW HER TO DISPEL ANY OF THOSE THOUGHTS.

E2: Are any of these new friends going to serve a purpose to her journey?

RtWC: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THAT’S JUST FOR MORE MERCHANDISING! I WANT POINTLESS CHARACTERS AND TIE-INS. I WANT FAKE DRAMATICS. I WANT EVERYTHING TO HAVE AN EASY SOLUTION AND THERE BE NO REAL THREAT TO OUR CHARACTERS.

LISTEN, ALL WE NEED IS AT LEAST ONE REALLY BIG NAME, SAY PATRICK STEWART OR MARTIN SHORT. THEN WE CAN FILL SIDE CHARACTERS WITH OLDER, NOT AS FAMOUS PEOPLE. LIKE DAN AYKROYD, JAMES BELUSHI, KELSEY GRAMMER, OLIVER PLATT AND HUGH DANCY. THEN GET SOME “FRESH FACES,” LIKE BERNADETTE PETERS AND MEGAN HILTY. WE MAKE THEM SING AND DANCE, AND CAN DO IT ALL FOR PROBABLY $20 MIL WITH OUR ANIMATION QUALITY.

E1: Hey, we have $70 million on the table! Where would the other $50 million go?

(The three men look at each other, smile, and agree to greenlight the movie).

Anyways, that was probably terrible. But it was still more entertaining than this trash. I didn’t even begin to touch what didn’t make sense with this movie. Just. Fuck.

Finally, a movie that can relate to almost anyone. Neighbors. Hey, I have had neighbors most of my life! Some people live on farms in the middle of no where with no real neighbors. Those people aren’t the target audience for this movie though. I doubt they are anyone’s target audience really.

Also it is the first big comedy of the summer. Last year we got This Is The End as our first big movie (because I am just making shit up now and ignoring other films, like The Hangover 3. Let me make up this imaginary point, jeez), and that one set a bar too high for most other comedies to follow.

Can Neighbors do the same?

Not with these squares trying to act cool. Nope nope nope.

Mac (Seth Rogen) and, Kelly (Rose Byrne) are adults! They have finally done it! They created a human from their love and they have a house!

But then they got…grr…neighbors! They thought it would be a lovely gay couple. No, it was a frat house. How’d they get a house in the middle of a residential neighborhood? Who knows. But they are stoked, because it is time to party. Their president, THE Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron) and a VP of Pete (Dave Franco).

Mac and Kelly try and be cool about it all. Sure they have a baby, but as long as they are cool, the frat will probably try to keep it down. The frat is willing to be friendly with them, as long as they don’t call the cops ever, just them first.

Well, they call the cops eventually after a party that won’t end and won’t get quiet. That makes the frat angry. They decide to rage war on their neighbors, as they have messed with the wrong frat. Then shenanigans happen. Shenanigans!

We also get Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Jerrod Carmichael as frat guys. And Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo as friends of Mac and Kelly. And Hannibal Buress as a cop! But his role is limited.

When there are multiple De Niros, you will never know who is talking to who.

I have long talked about how great Zac Efron is in past reviews, and it is still true here, so I won’t talk about it more here. Seth Rogen is very much like his normal self, so I won’t talk about that more here.

Instead, I will talk about Rose Byrne, who was absolutely hilarious in the movie along with the rest of the cast. I realize I rarely praise the female in a comedy, but she really held her own against some of these other professionals of comedy. She doesn’t do comedy much, outside of Bridesmaids I really can’t remember anything, so it really came as a big surprise to me.

The film definitely has its moments. The one De Niro scene had me in stitches, and reminded me a bit of the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

It was a good show from an all-star-ish cast with hardly any downtime in between laughs.

Yay moms.

Hopefully if you are a mom, you also know you are a mom. I hear sometimes guys finding out they are dads a year or many years later, and that is unfortunate. So I have to assume that is true for some moms too. I’d be a shame to not know you were a mom for like, ten years.

Anyways, the movie Moms’ Night Out is meant for those moms who know they are moms.

MOVIE QUIZ TIME: One of these characters is not a mom in this movie. Can you guess which one?!

Oh being a mom. The world’s hardest job, apparently. It is harder than being a dad, because it involves measurably more vaginal stretching.

Just ask Allyson (Sarah Drew)! She is a blogger and a mom. A mom blogger. But she actually doesn’t actively write. Too busy momming. Has three kids and a husband (Sean Astin) who travels a bunch. You’d think Mother’s Day would be a restful day for her, but nope, kids. Even church is hectic! Her spirit animal of hope is Sondra (Patricia Heaton), the pastor’s wife (Alex Kendrick). She definitely has it together, no stress at all. Just a rebellious teenage daughter.

Allyson’s other friend is Izzy (Logan White), another mom of two. Her husband (Robert Amaya) is afraid of tiny children for whatever reason. He is very traditional and doesn’t want to ever look after his own kids in the nicest way possible.

After the disastrous mother’s day, Allyson decides to organize a Moms’ Night Out. Just moms, make the dads be the moms for once, so the moms can just be carefree ladies. Yeah! Fancy restaurants! Bowling maybe! No responsibilities! But when her (sister-in-law? Half-sister?) Bridget (Abbie Cobb) gets involved, and they find out her baby is missing because her boyfriend (Harry Shum Jr.) left it with a friend, well, then oh buddy oh gee whiz. That ends up just being the first of many problems! Oh poop. Why can’t they ever have just a night off? Being a mom is just so gosh darn turrible.

Also staring David Hunt as a cab driver, Kevin Downes as an “irresponsible gaming friend” of Sean, and Trace Adkins as a tattoo artist.

Unlike the last picture, this one features zero moms.

Moms mom mommity mom mom. That is their target audience with this movie. It does glorify “moms”, yes. But mostly the stay at home mom. The mom who also helps serve her husband mom. The mom who is in charge of doing most of the kid activities while the husbands get to play games and work a job. That’s right. This is a movie has a very old concept of what it means to be a mom. One of the four moms, I guess, has a job, but only part time because her husband is more of a slacker.

Basically, this movie is secretly a religious movie. The guy who plays a pastor? He did those movies like Courageous and Fireproof. He didn’t do this one, he is just in it as an actor playing a pastor. Big role move for him there.

I’d say this movie is almost offensive in that regard. In fact, they made the moms feel mostly frantic and unable to handle anything that came their way. They made the moms kind of feel pathetic. This elevated the side characters like the cabbie and the Trace Adkins into amusing roles as they ended up doing a lot to help and save the day. So the get the jokes, they make me laugh occasionally, which is what saves this movie from being completely terrible.

Sean Astin and Kevin Downes play characters named Sean and Kevin. Come on guys, try a little. I am not saying that shouldn’t allowed, but in this case two characters had their real names, which is redonkulous.

For sure, do not take your mothers to see this movie.

Video on Demand is starting to be my favorite thing. A lot of indie movies are doing it now. Living in a place without indie movies, I have had to wait for DVD releases all the time. But Video on Demand lets me give them some actual money, and watch it at home in my own luxury.

This has let me watch Joe, a movie recommended to me.

I had no idea who was in it and what it was about either, so, another mysterious watch!

But it has railroad tracks, and you know what they say about railroad tracks.

Aw shit, it is based on a book. Oh well, hopefully no one actually read it.

Despite being named Joe, this movie is kind of really about Gary (Tye Sheridan). Gary needs a job for him and his dad (Gary Poulter). They move around a lot, just an honest labor job would do.

Gary finds Joe (Nicholas Cage). Joe works secretly for a logging company. They have forests that have some non useful trees in them. They basically poison the weak trees so they die, so that they can be replaced with an ideal lumber. Under the table, maybe illegal, but it pays nicely.

But Joe isn’t necessarily a great man. He used to be a con, gave it up for real work. He still made a lot of enemies. He has a huge distrust of cops. But he likes Gary. Gary works hard.

He doesn’t like Gary’s dad though. That man is an alcoholic and doesn’t do anything worthwhile. Despite the kinship, Gary might do better away from his dad. Looks like we have a lot of southern drama to look forward to with this film.

Also there is a Ronnie Gene Blevins and Adriene Mishler in this movie. Also a lot of locals from the area, but I don’t remember their names from the movie, and they don’t have IMDB photos, so uhh. I can’t really tag them.

Size does matter.

The absurdly big picture is there for a reason. Look at it. Bask in its glory. Look at that beard. It is lush and it is on Nicholas Cage’s face.

There are a lot of Cage haters out there, and honestly, a lot of that is probably valid. He has definitely been in a lot of terrible movies, but also quite a few good ones. He is just the type of guy willing to do anything and try any new role. This is basically just another new role he has tried and it worked very well.

Cage was really fucking good in this movie. It reminded me a bit about Mud, because it had a mysterious con man being the role model for some kids. Awkward enough, Tye Sheridan was the kid in Mud too. Also set in the south, 3 letter title about the main adult lead, and all that.

In fact, I think it’s better than Mud. There is more than just drama, but a lot of heartfelt scenes, and some surprising action too. This movie doesn’t hold your hand to explain every little thing. It is just really fucking good.

So there you go, for the first time in a long time, a really highly rated Cage movie.

There comes a time in every movies life when it needs to pick a genre out of a hat and just run with it. Sometimes, they get genres accidentally stuck together when it comes to be their time, so they might get odd combinations like “Thriller Comedy” or “Urban Sci-Fi”. In the case of Stage Fright, it was able to pull out “Horror Musical”. Sure, musicals could be in really any genre. But even the ones with “darker themes” such as Rocky Horror Picture Show or Little Shop of Horrors or Cannibal! The Musical are all just actually musical comedies. I guess the closest we have right now is Repo! The Genetic Opera. But that is all sorts of weird.

So can Stage Fright be the musical that is also truly a horror?

Well, it has a horror musical veteran in this, so why not?

The movie starts with the worldwide premiere of The Haunting of the Opera, which is a fake Phantom of the Opera, obviously. Similar plot and all. It’s star is miss Kylie Swanson (Minnie Driver), who was killed after her opening night wonderful performance. Awkward. She left behind two kids, Buddy (Douglas Smith) and Camilla (Allie MacDonald). They are taken in by Roger (Meat Loaf), the director or producer or something of the original musical and long time friend of Kylie.

Then, ten years later. Roger has started a musical summer camp for kids to grow their talent and put on shows, to teach everyone that musicals are great! Camilla and Buddy are not campers, they just work in the kitchen. But the camp this year is putting on their own Japanese inspired version of The Haunting of the Opera. That is terrible. But Camilla feels strangely allured to it. She wants to audition for the lead role, like her mom did, and truly honor her.

Yadda yadda yadda, other people want the part. We got an annoying director (Brandon Uranowitz), another lead lady (Melanie Leishman), a weird lead actor (Ephraim Ellis), and a head tech guy who likes Camilla (Kent Nolan). Oh, and eventually a killer starts taking out parts of the cast and crew. Shit, again? What’s up with that? Is that musical haunted or something?!

Haunting musicals can make women fall into trance. A modern day snake charmer, really.

Well, turns out this musical, like the others, really isn’t too scary. Nope, but it does half original music and actually a decent number of laughs! Maybe horror musicals are just inherently funny, because it is hard to take it too seriously when people just belt into song?

There actually weren’t too many original songs in this, just a couple, and then a song from the musical that gets song a few times. But the songs that they did make up were very entertaining/clever/funny. So props to them there!

I find it funny that I can’t think of anything really else to say analysis wise. Not really scary, but the gore existed at some points. The killer isn’t a big shocker. But I am just so happy that they tried to do something like this, and it was decently amusing, that hey, it gets a nice grade.

I just now realized that the title Gimme Shelter is spelled wrong. What the hell, movie makers. I demand another i.

Besides that, this song didn’t use the The Rolling Stones song either. All I knew about this movie is that I heard some good things about it, and that it of course never came to my area when it was out in theaters. Typical, typical lame area.

Oh well, DVD releases wouldn’t be exciting if I always saw the stuff before they came out, right?

Spoiler – The Shelter is a church.

Agnes/Apple (Vanessa Hudgens) is your typical troubled teen girl. Her mom (Rosario Dawson) is a crack whore, they live in the slums, with lots of drugs and gross stuff. And she is pregnant from a boy she met, who wants nothing to do with her now. So she has had it, cuts her hair, and runs away from home.

Where to? Maybe her dad’s house! Who she has never met before, because he was a kid in college when he met the mom for basically a very short relationship. He didn’t find out about her existence until years later, and felt bad, but didn’t come and save her from her life either. Either way, he (Brendan Fraser) is now a rich dude with a family, some wall street shit. She wants to stay with him, but his wife doesn’t appreciate the fact that she is pregnant and doesn’t want to raise the baby for her. She wants Apple to get an abortion!

Well, Apple doesn’t like that either. So she goes back on the streets. Then she gets eventually put into a home for teenage girls who are pregnant. Yay shelter.

Starring also James Earl Jones as a preacher, which may be his first time in a role like that, and Ann Dowd as the troubled teen home owner.

Give it up for the make up department for grossing us out with Dawson’s teeth.

I am pretty sure during this movie I saw a fade to black. One of those things to signal an end of scene or commercial break or whatever. Is this secretly a made for TV movie that instead went to theaters? Because that is what it felt like. It felt like a Hallmark after school special or something. A movie about why abortions are bad and your family might not be your real family.

Here is a positive. I can say this wasn’t an expected role for Vanessa Hudgens. There was no singing, no dancing, she wasn’t sexy, just a teen with a lot of emotions and not many people she could trust.

But the movie felt like a giant lecture. The ending too was kind of odd. That is when I found out it was just based on another fucking true story, that they thought was good enough for a movie, but in reality it wasn’t. Yeah. This review I guess will be shorter than a normal one, because I am already done.