Gorgon Reviews

Alright, this story is a bit embarrassing. The first time I saw the trailer for The Bling Ring, it was when I was about to see Spring Breakers.

It was the trailer RIGHT before the movie, and for some reason Cinemark didn’t do their dumb “LOLOL DONT TEXT K?” ad that takes you out of the moment right before the film.

So I thought the trailer was part of Spring Breakers. Like. A story based on the “True story” of Spring Breakers, which was fake. Some meta shit to fuck with me. They were very similar. I am dumb.

To be fair, they are kind of dumb too.

In Hollywood, shit is rough. Everyone wants to be in the business, but only some people are in the business. Los Angeles is home to so many celebrities, and they are all super cocky. In 2007, they got what was coming to them.

When Marc (Israel Broussard) just moved to the area, after getting in trouble at his last school. There he finds Rebecca (Katie Chang), an old friend of his from a past school. Score. He is just happy to have a friend again.

Well, they start breaking into cars if they are unlocked. Why not, free stuff? Then they go to homes of people on vacation. Those noobs also left a door unlocked. Free money is the best money. Well, thanks to stuff like TMZ, they find out that Paris Hilton is out of town at an awards show, and her address is something google-able. So they waltz over, and hey look, she left her key under her doormat. Fancy place. Lots of stuff. It’d be hard to notice if anything gets missing.

Their friends get totally jealous too. So they decide to go back, but this time with Sam (Taissa Farmiga), Nicki (Emma Watson), and Chloe (Claire Julien).

But just as Icarus got too close to the son, these kids got a little bit too cocky in their stealings. Caring less about cameras. Less about taking only a little. Less about hiding their bounty. It totally then bites them on the ass. Which is why we get a movie. Yay movie!

Yay dancing! You’re welcome, Internet readers.

Finding out that Sofia Coppola directed this movie had me a bit worried. Her last movie before this, Somewhere, was well…it was a movie. I think. It just felt like an incredible waste of time that I got nothing out of.

On a similar note, I would say that every time something remotely interesting happens in real life, that we don’t always have to make a movie about it. But I guess it became popular because of the Vanity Fair article on the whole situation. Really this whole thing is about celebrities being real people, who forget things, like security, just like the rest of us.

I can’t really say the acting was great, it didn’t feel amazing or bad. The cuts were a bit annoying, and the ending came at a strange point in the story. I think it could have been ended way earlier when they were sentenced for their crime. But the movie just…kept going.

Don’t you hate it when things don’t know how to end? Oh. Right. Sorry. It was okay.

2 out of 4.

Do not go see the movie Planes.

Fuck Planes

This won’t be a typical movie review, thus the use of quotation marks in the title. Normally I do a little bit of research about a film before I watch it, just so I can lay down some fun facts in these reviews. But what I discovered about Planes I found to be so unacceptable, I didn’t feel right telling everyone about it. But first, a little bit of back story.

For the main poster and Trailer for Planes, we see that it takes place “From Above the World of Cars.” Remember Cars?

Cars came out originally in 2006 as a Pixar movie. I linked to my original review of it, but if you are lazy, basically I describe how the movie is bad morally for children. In Cars, your job in life is based solely on what car type you are. The only exception is if you want to live below your means.

Cars 2 came out five years after that, also made by Pixar. This time they changed the main character and turned it into a strange Bond parody. More importantly, we should look at the villains. The main villains for Cars 2 are lemons, aka cars that were built badly and break down all the time. These cars only wanted more equality, but instead they are the butt of everyone’s joke.

This is all even more twisted when you realize that these cars were all created somehow. These cars age and live a life, so presumably more and more cars are created every day. These lemon cars in particular were created with the sole purpose of being lesser quality than their peers. Yeah, I’d be pissed off too.

No matter how you look at it, Cars 2 was a cash grab movie, made almost solely to sell merchandise.

So now, only two years after Cars 2, we are given Planes. One notable difference (that few people realize) is that this movie is no longer done by Pixar, but instead just Disney. You might be thinking, “Hey! Disney CGI isn’t that bad, they just did Wreck-It Ralph! This one might be awesome too!”

Yes. I too am a plane.

Well, Wreck-It Ralph was done by Walt Disney Animation Studios, their normal big movie company. Planes was done by DisneyToon Studios, who are most known for making the lame sequels to popular Disney movies. You know, Cinderella II: Dreams May Come, Cinderella III: A Twist In Time, Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World, and more. The last time they had a theatrical release was in 2006, with Bambi II, and that was only in theaters in Europe. Their last five movies that went direct to video were all based around Tinkerbell.

So why were they given Planes? Well it turns out, Planes originally was going to also be a direct to video release. However, Disney liked the animation enough to let them have a theater release. Great. Since Planes was meant to be direct to video release, it almost implies that they didn’t put a lot of work into it.

The budget for Planes was only $20 Million. To put that into perspective, Cars had a budget around $120 Million, and Cars 2 around $200 million. Turbo ended up at $135 million, and Wreck-It Ralph was at $165 million. CGI animated films are very expensive to make because the technology is expensive and they take years to produce. With a budget that low, either the film was rushed, or the CGI quality is low.I believe the evidence point towards both of these facts being true, since production of Planes didn’t begin until a few months after Cars 2 came out and was originally coming out Spring 2013.

If you want more evidence, they have already announced that Planes will be a trilogy. The first sequel has already been named, Planes: Fire & Rescue. The sequel also already has a release date set for July 18, 2014. Next summer! Less than a year after the first film, I can only assume that it is being rushed out.

To recap, in great detail I have explained why the Planes movie is just a huge cash grab. It has a low budget indicating lesser quality animation and less time spent for polishing/developing. It happens to be a spin-off of another cash grab movie. It is made by a studio who is only known for their low quality sequels to all of our favorite Disney movies. It is also banking on the fact that most people who see it will assume Pixar made the movie.

Unfortunately, by now, Disney has already profited on this film. Why? The same reason Cars 2 has made so much money. Merchandising. With a budget that low, they don’t have to care about quality when the merchandising alone is just pure profit.

So I plead with you, do the right thing, and do not go see this movie in theaters. Do not buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray. Don’t buy any of its toys for your families or friends. Disney should be punished for trying to pull this type of crap on us, making almost a mockery of the entire idea of movies as an art form.

Something something something planes.

Just to keep this legitimate, here is a quick synopsis and review.

Dusty (Dane Cook) is a crop duster from the midwest, who dreams of being a great racer, and joining the race around the world. Unfortunately, he is afraid of heights, which totally makes sense. Well, he qualifies barely and makes it to the race around the world! But certain other planes don’t like him, because he isn’t a racing plane. So with a little bit of can do spirit, he hopes to prove everyone wrong, and he can succeed despite being created for one purpose!

Also featuring the voice talents of Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, John Cleese, Cedric the Entertainer, and more.

I’d say that this movie did a good job of breaking the morals given to us by the Car movies. After all, it is a plane doing something beyond its design and achieving greatness. But in the film, in order for him to achieve his dream, he literally has to change everything about himself first. It really brings up the philosophy question dealing with the Ship of Theseus. Can we really say a crop duster has won a race, if he removed his crop dusting ability and replaced all of his parts?

The movie itself offers nothing new. It is incredibly inaccurate in terms of geography, despite making it clear that it takes place on some strange human-less earth. There are plot holes that a jet could fit through. They even showed scenes of planes during World War II, which accidentally makes this film incredibly dark. Is this really a world where planes go to war with other planes, and hundreds of machines die? Well, I guess it makes it more human-like in that regard.

Now remember, please do not support this movie.

0 out of 4.

Trying to watch all of the Ryan Gosling movies has taken me down some strange twist and turns. Thankfully, most of them are older movies outside of my range, so I don’t have to review them. But if you saw my review of All Good Things, then you know there is some fucked up shit out there.

Using fucked up is an over exaggeration for that movie. Because then I watched Only God Forgives, written and directed by the same guy who directed Drive. Which was an artsy movie, interesting, violence heavy, but overall pretty fantastic. Even compared to Drive, Only God Forgives is truly the most fucked up of his entire career.

Fucked is use in a different way from the way I use it for Lars and the Real Girl.

“Well howdy there pilgrim…”Julian (Gosling) is your average American. He doesn’t say much. He lives in Thailand. He runs a boxing arena that is a front for a big drug smuggling operation. Yep. Average American indeed. His brother Billy (Tom Burke) is a big dick though. Rapes an underage prostitute. Gets arrested.

Lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), aka the Angel of Vengeance, arrives on the scene and lets the father beat Billy to death for the deed. Shit, son. Not only that, he then cuts off the arms of the father, for letting his daughter in prostitution in the first place! At least he is just?

Julian was going to fuck the dad up, but hey, he lost his arms already, and Billy had it coming. It didn’t stop Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) from traveling to Thailand to identify the body. You know, Julian’s mom. They have a strange relationship, he is surprised to see her. She wants blood. He doesn’t care. She wants to take out the Angel of Vengeance. He doesn’t care.

Then a lot more fucked up shit happens then the movie ends.

Have sword, will slash.Looking up random stuff about the film, I found out that the director wanted to make a more modern and set in Asia cowboy movie. Or something. Which I can kind of see. I guess Gosling is the cowboy in a dangerous land(Thailand, not the wild west). Kind of a lone ranger. Doesn’t speak much. Fights a lot. Maybe crooked.

Whatever. The cowboy elements are there.

But the film could also be something about mysticism in Asia. Or something about anger and violence he felt when his second daughter was being born.

Really, it could be anything. This is all stuff the director said, so it seems to be all over the place.

Gosling’s character only speaks 22 lines of film. No one really talks a lot. But we do get some karaoke scenes, so we get singing as well! It is another visual heavy picture, with strange dark colors, set in the seedy parts of town. The whole thing seems to be set during the night as well. Daytime is for rookies. Thailand scares me cause of shit like this, and The Hangover Part II.

It is really hard to talk about this movie, so I kind of just want to shut up now. I don’t even know what to think anymore. Somebody hold me.

2 out of 4.

To The Wonder is another movie I accidentally waited a long time to see. It is that video on demand stuff, I tell ya. It came out in APRIL, and I realized a month later I could see it. Very exciting. After all, I knew the actors in it.

I also knew that it was Roger Ebert’s last review. Pretty fucking exciting. Then just like every other damn video on demand movie, I forgot about it and look where I am now. Reviewing it after it comes out on DVD, like a chump. Sigh.

Life’s a beach, and then you’re Ben Affleck.

The movie begins in France. Huzzah! Neil (Ben Affleck) is a non descriptive American traveling in Europe. While there, he meets a Ukranian woman, Marina (Olga Kurylenko), and her daughter Tatiana. They fall in love, kind of, especially at this place: the Mont Saint-Michel. Aka, where that picture from above is taken.

So he invites her back to the US with her daughter to the wonderful land of Oklahoma. Because when I think of the US, I think Oklahoma.

By now you will realize something about this film. There is a lot of beautiful imagery. There is a lot of voice over in another language (woo subtitles). There is a lot of not talking. Huh? Yeah. The characters don’t really talk. There is little to none actual dialogue in this movie. Ben Affleck almost has more words spoken in Clerks II, which is shocking.

For whatever reason (I guess we get to make one up), Neil is afraid of marriage, so eventually Marina gets sent back to France. Neil is left doing some vague environment work with problems that vaguely hurt the poor people. He rekindles with Jane (Rachel McAdams) who has had a recent rough past, and loves her up too. Just no marriage.

Marina has a bad time in France. Loses her daughter to her ex-husband, has no job. But eventually finds her way back in Oklahoma, with the man she loved before.

Also, there is a priest, Father Quintana (Javier Bardem). He is important? Somehow?

See? He gets his own cool artsy shots and stuff.

Fuck. What in the fuck. Artsy movies sometimes really piss me off, when they go all art and no…substance? I want to say substance. It seems harsh, but it feels appropriate.

I found out there wasn’t a real script for this movie. Just an idea. Which explains how the entire thing is void of any real dialogue, minus one scene between Rachel and Ben. The actors were told to use body language and act a much as possible. You know what happens when you only use body language? A lot of strange scenes where two people are standing near each other, but looking off to the sunset or the hills, and then back at each other, then back at the scenery. All spliced together with other imagery.

Gah. I should I have paid attention to the director. Terrence Malick. I’ve reviewed one other movie from him. The Tree Of Life. A very polarizing movie, with good imagery, that people either loved or hated. I wonder if this is the same? I’ve actually only heard negative things, but I still wanted to watch for Ben.

Yes. A lot of the movie is visually pleasing, but I don’t want to see characters stand around during voice overs for two hours in pretty scenery. It is just not worth it.

The fact that I could write that plot summary only came thanks to the wikipedia article on it. Without it being explained, a lot of it just seemed up in the air and for anyone to interpret as they would like. I interpreted it as a shitty movie.

0 out of 4.

Fruitvale Station is the true story of the last day of Oscar Grant’s life in 2009. Who is Oscar Grant and why should you care?

Good question.

This Wikipedia article sums it all up nice and…well in great fucking detail. So much detail. Not an easy read at all.

Basically in an arrest, police officers were being rougher than usual early on New Year’s Day. One of the officer ended up firing a shot into the back of Oscar, killing him later. Thanks to technology, a lot of videos quickly surfaced on the internet, and brought the case to the national spotlight. Then, you know, this movie.

SPOILER. Someone dies in this movie. Side note, this movie is hard to explain. You know what happens at the ending. Hell, if you didn’t read this review, you know how it ends? Why? Because this is how it starts:

Actual footage of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale train station. One of the cell phone cams, about a minute long, a brief altercation, and the shot. Then the movie starts.

This is a pseudo-fictionalized last day for Oscar (Michael B. Jordan). December 31st also happens to be his mother’s (Octavia Spencer) birthday, so a lot of the day is prepping for dinner at her house and then plans in the city for midnight.

He recently lost his job as a butcher, and has gotten back into dealing drugs, but he wants to turn his life around. He has been in prison twice before, but just got out again a few months ago. He has a daughter, with his long term girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz). He has a big family and a nice support network.

Shit, what else do I say? I don’t. He had a rough life, then he got shot. Kevin Durand also made a surprise small appearance as a cop. Not the asshole cop, just one of them.

Plenty of imagery to make sure you got the full emotions out of it too.Some movies are just hard to describe, for sure. And after all, with a movie like this one where you KNOW how it ends, the experience is the entire point. But what kind of point was it trying to make?

Anytime someone dies, it is a tragedy. The death is worse if the age is low (he was 22) and the circumstances unjust (shot in the back during an arrest) and even worsier if it has authority overstepping their bounds. The timing of this movie couldn’t be better, with a different famous death just finishing its trial, with the George Zimmerman / Treyvon Martin case.

This only feels relevant because it is a movie distributed by The Weinstein Company, who are well known for advertising. Aka, the best money spent on advertising is free advertising. Just look at their Bully nonsense.

So I think it is unethical to release this movie around that trial for more money and exposure, but I think the movie itself is worthy of being made on its own merits. I don’t like lumping the two things, because the situations are very very different. I won’t get political, I will end it there.

The movie itself is VERY well acted, especially Michael B. Jordan. Everyone else is fine, but he is the only character basically on the screen 100%. The middle of the film had its boring moments, but that was necessary for the buildup. I think it was strange for them to show the actual footage at the beginning. It really took a lot out for me, since they recreated it at the end of the movie anyways. It seems like it could have been better incorporated somehow. Random scenes had extreme elements of shaky cam, just from walking through a room, or a quick run down a street. Those were annoying, not helpful.

I hope some of the smaller details were actual events. They had nice graphics for every phone call and text he made, all of which are records that could easily be gathered, so it would be nifty if they were the actual texts and phone calls he made that day.

Good movie, sad ending, great acting, some dull parts and questionable advertising. Very excited for Michael B. Jordan to be in more movies, that is for sure, brah.

3 out of 4.

I almost saw Frances Ha two months ago. For real. I was going to drive an hour to see it and do some other things in the capital city.

It was the only movie at the indie theater that I hadn’t already seen, or knew I was going to see shortly after. It was all going according to plan.

Then I ran out of money and said nope. Also, the prospect of watching the movie didn’t appeal to me. I knew it had Greta Gerwig, who is in like, every indie movie now. But it was also in black and white. Ehhh, black and white…

Frances Hi!

Frances (Gerwig) is a 27 year old woman living life in the NYC! Yah! She lives with her best friend, Sophie (Mickey Sumner). They are basically the same person in different bodies and hair colors. Good times are had by them all. Until Frances has to leave her boyfriend and also can no longer live with Sophie.

Shit.

This movie takes place roughly over a year. It is her trying to survive in NYC, without her confidant, as they drift farther, and closer, and farther apart. No one likes losing a friend. But she is getting less work at the dance company, and times are tough.

She ends up finding a room with two men, Lev (Adam Driver), who tried to sleep with her and every other woman, and Benji (Michael Zegen), who would describe Frances as undate-able. She lives temporarily with a fellow dancer Rachel (Grace Gummer, currently on season 2 of The Newsroom). She also will have to move back to California, live in another country, and live in the woods and her old university before she gets back on her always dancing feet. Maybe.

At the same time, Sophie is getting very serious with her boyfriend Patch (Patrick Heusinger) who may be a good guy. Not really sure. We see everything from Frances’ point of view.

Frances Ho?

Fun fact. Greta Gerwig cast her parents as her parents! Ahh! What fun!

Description for the movie was hard. A woman in NYC. But the plot moved really fucking fast. The movie itself is under 90 minutes, so it has a short time frame, but it feels even shorter than that. It flies by so fucking fast.

Why is it fast? The way the movie was cut. Many short scenes, all spliced together to show a passing of time. That’s right. It is basically a shit ton of montages. Without the sports. Whether it be awkward dates, or awkward dinners, everything is quickly paced, and still conveys the appropriate emotions to the viewer.

You will feel awkward, uncomfortable, and sad. Which is great.

It didn’t end up being super artsy. The art direction and black and white was some sort of love song to Woody Allen probably. More importantly, I think that most people who watch this will find their time well spent.

3 out of 4.

To answer the first question on everyone’s mind, yes I did dress up like a Smurf for the premiere of The Smurfs 2. It was smurftastic!

Initially, watching the trailer, I was enraged at the plot. In a nutshell, Gargamel (Hank Azaria) tried to create a couple of Smurfs, but they turned out grey and evil. He needs to know how to make them blue, to extract their essence and then become a powerful sorcerer. But they can only get the formula from Smurfette (Katy Perry), who they have to convince to be naughty and join their force.

NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY.Why does that upset me? Because I know that Smurfette was a Gargamel creation in the first place (Despite the first movie contradicting that statement). He wanted to create chaos in an all male Smurf society, by introducing a woman. That makes sense. So why did he have problems creating more Smurfs? Oh, because the movie changed things up a bit. More importantly, they explained it all and made it completely reasonable.

In this world, Smurfette was also originally gray, until Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) turned her true blue and into a happy go lucky Smurf. Yay! Now everything is okay! Only her and Papa Smurf know the formula, which is why they steal her back into the real world to beat it out of her…with kindness. It is also Smurfette’s birthday, and as the Smurfs tried to keep the party a secret, she assumed no one remembered and felt quite sad. Poor Smurfette.

Due to some miscalculations, the rescue team consists of Papa Smurf, Vanity Smurf (John Oliver), Grumpy Smurf (George Lopez), and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin).

Oh, but they aren’t alone. No, they have human friends from the first film! Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays), their son, and Patrick’s step-dad, Victor (Brendan Gleeson).

Can this rag tag group of Smurfs find and convince Smurfette they love her before time runs out? Or will the Naughties, Vexy (Christina Ricci) and Hackus (J.B. Smoove) get to her first?

But let’s not forget about dat cat.I actually left out a lot of the minor plot points in this one. You’re welcome, that means the movie will be a bit more surprising if you head out to see it. Honestly, it might be worth it if you have a family.

You don’t have to see the first film to understand this film, you just need to know that they have some human friends. Pretty standard for a family film.

What can you get out of the Smurfs? A lot of smurfin’ puns. Smurf this, smurf that, puns everywhere. Hank Azaria continues to be a smurfing excellent Gargamel. The work he puts into the voice and that character is beyond phenomenal. It is smurfing nuts!

I laughed quite a bit at some of the jokes. The fact that the plot made sense in this universe only made it better. However, there were a few smurf problems.

Vanity Smurf? I wish they killed off some Smurfs. As one of the three main personalities on the trek, being narcissistic, he ALWAYS talks. Unfortunately, everything he says is the exact same vain pun, over and over again. It got smurfing real fast. At least Grumpy Smurf had an interesting plot line. Clumsy Smurf was ignored completely. They had the chance to branch out and give us some newer Smurfs to highlight, but they didn’t.

Really, if they make another Smurfs movie, I hope they keep them in their own world. If they want, bring NPH and the other humans to them this time. Their world has plenty of lore, magic, and fun to be a great setting. Most of all, it has more than a handful of Smurfs, so everyone can fight for the metaphorical spotlight.

 

2 out of 4.

With The Smurfs 2 and 2 Guns releasing on the same day, I thought I would be clever and do a joint review called “Smurf 2 Guns.” Get it? Hilarious! Too bad Entertainment Weekly beat me to the scoop. Sigh. I will beat those guys one of these days, I swear.

Because of that, instead, we get a regular movie review! Hooray! I will jump right on in.

With two stars at their finest, we hope. Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Michael Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) are about to rob a bank.

Let’s back up. These individuals are working for Mexican Cartel Kingpin, Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). They just traded him 500 Passports in exchange for $100,000 in Cocaine, but he gave them cash instead. Lame. Now in order to take him down, they will have to rob a bank with his safety deposit box. In that box, there will be $3 million or so in cash that they can use for tax evasion charges, or something. Wait what, take him down?

Let’s back it up again. Bobby is secretly DEA, working undercover to bring Papi Greco in to authorities. He has been working on this case for three years, but his boss is about to pull the plug, and the only one who trusts him is his on again / off again secret lover Deb (Paula Patton), another supervisor.

Stig secretly works for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Yes, trust me, that’s a thing. You may be aware of its acronym, NCIS. Why is the Navy doing any sort of investigation into a Mexican Drug Lord, and in Texas? Don’t ask me. Don’t ask Stig either. He is just listening to orders from his superior, Quince (James Marsden).

However, after they rob the bank, they find more than $3 million waiting for them. In fact, there is over $40 million in the small town bank. Damn. Something isn’t right. When they try to reveal their actual identities right after, nothing goes right, and they are left on their own to find out just what the heck is going on. Things take an even bigger turn for the worse when the mysterious Earl (Bill Paxton) shows up in town, questioning just about everyone as to where HIS money ended up.

2 guns. 2 guys. 2 ropes. If you get what I am sayin’.2 Guns is billed mostly as an action comedy, a genre made very apparent from the trailer. A lot of nice one liners and wise cracks. Good show. While the action element is certainly there, the comedy element is incredibly light and sporadic in the actual movie. Wahlberg’s character makes a few jokes early on, but they quickly seem to disappear once all the betrayal starts. Heck, I found Paxton’s character to be the most humorous, but that was only because he was mysterious and a cowboy.

Speaking of characters, the secondary cast members weren’t used very well. Paxton (as I just described) was at least a bit interesting. The fact that James Marsden is in this movie almost feels like an oversight, with no real reasons for a big star to be in that roll. They also reduced the CIA to mere money hungry meanieheads, without any real explanation at all. In fact, the NCIS, DEA, and entire US government is seen as corrupt and inept, for no real reason at all.

In terms of plot, it is all over the place. They tried (very little) to explain why Stig was even investigating Papi in the first place, but it didn’t make any sense. The actual scene itself was quick too, just in case you wanted to understand the plot.

So half of the movie I am confused, trying to figure out how any of it makes sense. When they did finally explain why it didn’t make any sense, their actual reasons feel unacceptable.

Not a spoiler, but someone was pulling the strings secretly behind all of it, and set them up to rob a larger amount of money than they expected. Surprise surprise. But given how long these men have been working their posts, there is really no way anyone could have orchestrated any of the events that would lead them to rob a bank, without other people finding out.

The factual details are also out of whack. I could only shake my head during the “break into the navy base” scene. It felt comical, in the bad way, how little they cared about accuracy with it.

I initially thought I would forget about 2 Guns in a few months. Now I might forget about it within 2 weeks.

1 out of 4.

Uwe Uwe Uwe. Boll Boll Boll.

Potentially the most hated director in the world. More hated than Michael Bay.

He is known for two things. Making shitty movies hated by most people (like BloodRayne), and a few years ago saying he is willing to box any critic who says his movies suck. Well jeez. Although it gained him internet points, I won’t let something like that get in the way of saying whether or not a movie sucks.

So why did I watch this new movie, Assault On Wall Street, that went straight to video? Because that’s the whole fucking point of my website, damn it.

I make the pew pew pew joke too many times. But it is important here. To the plot. Pew pew.

Jim Baxford (Dominic Purcell) is your everyday normal guy. He works as a security guard for an armored truck company. You know, he works for a living, isn’t a Wall Street fat cat.

Speaking of Wall Street, the economic collapse thing happens. He loses a big investment he made with his stock dude, Robert (Lochlyn Munro). Why? Because the corporation saved their own asses, not their customers/investors. He tries to start a suit, but his lawyer fucks him over too, and does things without his permission.

Also his wife has cancer (Erin Karpluk). Or something, I forgot. Probably cancer. That is taking up a lot of their funds, because his small town job doesn’t give the best insurance. So they start going into debt. Credit scores go higher. In fact. This shit leads to him losing his job. He can’t have a job protecting money if he himself is bad with money.

Basically, shit is raining down on Jim. One thing after the other. One even bigger thing happens, that I won’t spoil, but it basically breaks him completely. He can’t stand it. He takes his severance package and spends it on guns. He practices. It is time to strike back. It is time to take out his own personal form of vengeance against these bankers. One at a time, and hopefully end up at Jeremy Stancroft (John Heard), the CEO that hurt him the most.

There comes a time when good man must wear mask.

Uwe Boll really did shit on Dominic Purcell’s character in this movie. That is the entire first half of the movie, which is less than 100 minutes anyways. Bad things happening, and him slowly breaking. Which is good, we needed a lot to happen to him for him to break. Although it was still a bit boring at times, and somewhat overly dramatic.

The killing spree in the second half was also a bit slow. To start. A quick snipe or two and hide. But it built up until he became a newspaper phenomenom, until he finally stormed in on an office, taking out a whole floor and more.

Sure, it could be considered mindless violence, but the actual ending confrontation between him and Jeremy Stancraft was pretty great. Some monologue-ing, and a twist I didn’t see coming.

If it wasn’t for the slower aspects, I would have rated this higher, because that ending was awesome.

2 out of 4.

I miss Twilight. Twilight made everything easy. I knew what I would do for my Milestone Reviews, and everyone would get why they received the extra attention. It made sense.

I worry a bit, just a little bit, you guys don’t see why these things are a big deal.

So for milestone #850, I knew I had to do Journey To The Center Of The Earth. This 2008 remake was an early use of the 3D craze that hadn’t yet fully formed in American cinema. In fact, it may have been in red/blue 3D, but I can’t confirm that.

But more importantly, I am a graduate student in Geophysics, if you missed that in other reviews. Or you know, you are someone reading this who actually doesn’t know me in person. So examining movies that I know will be very nonscientific is something that I just can’t resist! Especially those about the Earth.

And with that, let’s trash the fuck out of this movie.

Yep, that face is just asking for some movie fucking. This movie is not a remake of the book or movie. No, it takes place in a universe where those movies and books exist. Fucking Jules Verne meta up in here. But we will get back to that later.

Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser), is some sort of Volcanologist. Like a legit one, works at a university, (college?) teaches geology, and has a shitty lab to measure seismology. Only three sensors still work. He is continuing his brother’s work, but he hasn’t been seen in 10 years. Sucks to suck.

Even worse, his lab is going to get shut down and turned into someone else’s lab. Someone higher in the university, someone played by Seth Meyers! Oh no, life sucks!

This photo doesn’t fit anywhere. But hey, good clean family fun is upcoming.Speaking of his life sucking, he forgot his sister-in-law is bringing her kid over today. Fuuu. So messy. Sean (Josh Hutcherson) is there for ten days and about to be bored shitless. So Trevor looks for child toys to entertain Sean and finds an old box in his attic. What is in it? Why, Journey to the Center of the Earth of course!

But it is all covered with notes. Huh? Crazy. This must have been his brother’s. Strange strange. Apparently he thought the book was real and a guide to go under the Earth! Where crazy shit is, yo. That’d be surprising. Fuck it, let’s go to Iceland to check it out!

Still not at the part for cool pictures. So here is a big fucking plant. Iceland! They try to meet an old professor. Nope, he ain’t there no mo’. Just his Icelandic, hot daughter, Hannah Ásgeirsson (Anita Briem). Nice. Apparently her dad is gone too, he went with Max into a Volcano. Seems silly. Because it is silly.

Turns out they were “Vernians”, people who thought his books were real, all of them, not fiction. Huh. Okay. So that is enough reason for them to go check out a volcano.

“Yep, this is definitely a hole! Trust me, I know holes!” – TrevorFuck yes. Volcano. Abandoned caves. MINE TRACKS. Abandoned mines? Yes, abandoned mines. Mine cart racing. Yes. All this stuff. Eventually they find a shit ton of diamonds and jewels. Hurrah. But then they fall down a hole. A really long hole.

Seriously, he really knows a lot about holes. Aw shit, even though they fell for miles and miles, they didn’t die! Because water started to appear and that eased their fall? Who cares how fast they were falling. Water doesn’t hurt when you fall on it, not a bit!

But the good news is, the book was right. They found a completely different mini-earth where life is thriving and stuff exists at the center of Earth. Literally, at the center. Wait, they made it to the center? That is like, 4,000 miles down. How fucking far did they fall and not die?

Never fucking mind.

Just stare at the pretty looking mini planet or whatever the fuck is going on here. Well, they think it’s awesome, but they don’t want to die down here. Like assholes. So they want to escape and thankfully have a map like thing to get out. They just have to wait for an eruption and another giant tube. They will make a boat and ride the steam to the surface. Which is very, very doable. Why the fuck not?

They also have to sail across a giant underground ocean to get there, during a storm, with killer giant fish coming at them!

Just thinking about it all is getting me really wet.Well, in the ocean they lose the kid, he flies off. But thankfully they all somehow still meet up somewhere. WHILE GETTING CHASED BY A GIANT DINOSAUR WHAAT AHHHH! What the hell is it eating down there? We’ve only seen plants, fish and small birds. Da fuq?

They escape, but get to the tube too late. Oh no, water is gone. And no boat!

Thankfully a dinosaur skull can make a boat. And they can crack the wall to bring down a stream of water to the magma, to force them up before the volcano explodes to safety!

Safety? Fuck that.

Evolution worked almost identical to the earth thing. I guess. Just bigger everything else. And glow birds. They escape, life is good, and eventually we get another and another movie.

Yeah! More movies! But they won’t let Brendan Fraser be in them? That seems fucked up. Who let Josh Hutcherson stay?

The first few scenes in the movie made me realize I wasn’t going to have a good time. Trevor seemed pompous and elitist, with no reason to back it up. He gets lucky and thinks he is the hottest shit ever. He probably works at a community college, not a distinguished University.

Well, hey I don’t care for pompous people. He makes us look bad.

Okay, I am pompous too, but I feel like I deserve it. I run a successful movie review website!

If you have to watch any movie, watch the one from the 1950s. It is actually a lot better and not super fucking meta.

1 out of 4.