Gorgon Reviews

The Hunter came out almost a year ago, last July. I am pretty sure I got it sometime around then too. Whoops. One of those random gains that you forget about for apparently 10 or so months.

Let’s make this a metaphor about life. I just won’t explain that metaphor, to complete this very bad intro to a review.

Hopefully shitty enough to cause a bar fight. Or sexy enough. Shit, what causes bar fights again?

Red Leaf is a military biotech company. Yeah, didn’t you know that those were a thing? Because they totally are! Military. Biotech. Some sort of crazy weapon based thing. Well, they have reports that the Tasmanian Tiger has been spotted recently in Tasmania. Makes sense. Unless you realize that that they have been extinct since 1963! Oh hooray, a breakthrough for the species! Maybe they can breed them back to a populated state!

Wait. Hmm. Red Leaf isn’t a fan of that. In fact, they hire The Hunter (Willem Dafoe) to head to Tasmania, capture the tiger, extract its DNA and kill any other tigers he is able to find. Holy shit, that’s the opposite of saving them! It turns out they might have some paralyzing venom in their bite, and they want to weaponize the fuck out of it, charming. They also want no one else to get a hold of it. Evil!

He heads to Tasmania, pretending to be a Biology researcher, and stays at a local cabin. Lucy (Frances O’Connor) is drugged up on pain meds, despite having two children. Her husband died, he was a wildlife protection guy. Hah.

Either way, The Hunter goes into the wild 12 days at a time, setting traps, looking for the Tiger and then returns to the cabin. He begins to like the kids, fix their home life, and even the mom. They almost make a quaint little family. At the same time he has to deal with local battles between the environmentalists and the loggers, who get violent over each other.

Will the Hunter find the tiger and carry out the deed? Or will he give in to the pressures of other groups. After all, if he refuses, they will probably just keep sending people to do the job until it gets done. Sam Neill is also in this movie as random helpful neighbor guy/guide.

Ah, they got a picture of everyone who saw The Hunter on opening night.

The cool thing about The Hunter is that if you watch it, you are treated to some kick ass Tasmanian scenery. It is filmed entirely in the country, so it gives it some layers of authenticity. There are also people there who claim to see the Tigers, but have no real substantial proof, so it is based on local legends. If you like Willem Dafoe, you get a lot of him in the movie. Not shirtless or anything. Just it is mostly him being a bad ass (or pseudo badass).

However, the movie does move pretty slow. On top of that, even though the ending was unexpected, I didn’t like what it gave me. It all seemed completely out of left field, and probably not the best course of action to end it. They had the balls to end it that way, but I didn’t find the character change to be believable.

You know what that means? Average! Hooray. I’m bored.

2 out of 4.

I have been told by one of my friends that Netflix has been pushing Bachelorette on them pretty strongly over their last few movies. No matter the movie. Now, I am not going to make the claim that they will ignore their “If you like this, you might like x?” formula sometimes for advertisements, but the evidence seems pretty strong.

For shame, Netflix. But I took it overall as a request to see the movie myself, you know, like I tend to do, and decide if its worth all this Netflix hype. Maybe they are just making up for its lack of advertisements elsewhere? After all, pretty impressive cast. Kind of. But I only heard about it after it hit video, so clearly people didn’t care about hyping it in the slightest.

If you saw the cast, you did not guess the bride to be correctly.

Becky (Rebel Wilson) is getting married, yay! This actually kind of pisses of Regan (Kirsten Dunst), her best friend. How could her “Fat friend” find happiness in marriage before her? What the heck?! Either way, she will be her maid of honor and help her plan a kick ass wedding, but they still need their two best friends from college, Gena (Lizzy Caplan) and Katie (Isla Fisher).

To help with the recap, we have Becky the Happy, Regan the uptight and pompous, Katie the drunk and cokefiend, and Gena the sarcastic and apathetic. Great, different personalities, and not one of which is the “slut” (arguable, when Katie is drunk, but shh).

Well, things get dicey at the bachelorette party, when the stripper (Andrew Rannells) calls Becky a pigface, a mean nickname in high school. Shit, are her friends actually still mean bitches who can’t be nice for once? Things start getting out of hand, including a ripped up wedding dress. This leads the remaining trio to go out to try and fix all the problems the night before the nuptials.

It also features Adam Scott, Hayes MacArthur, Kyle Bornheimer, and James Marsden! They play either the groom, exes who are still in love, or new people who just want to get laid. I will let you figure out who goes with who.

Pictured, the female version of The Hangover. It would be Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Bradley Cooper personality wise.

Well, this movie is a little bit bleak. I mean that in the best way possible. All three of the main girls have unlikable virtues associated with them, and they are all pretty callous, but that makes the film more exciting for me. Bad people, being bad. They are trying to make a harder comedy, but with women! Sure, maybe I should be worried that movies trying to do this tend to be about weddings, because apparently that is the only thing women do. I will let someone trained in sociology to figure out the ramifications about that.

It wasn’t an insanely funny movie by any means, but at least it was a bit interesting. I am mostly annoyed by the ending, in which they attempted to redeem every character and wrap up their plot lines in happy endings.

Boo. The entire movie was about unhappy people. I wanted more unhappy endings. Bring on the sad people!

2 out of 4.

I love the summer. It lets me watch all the things I missed, and all the things I didn’t even know existed. Did you know there was a remake of Fame? No, not that TV show, like 2009 a new Fame movie. Hooray?

Yeah, I never saw the original. Or the show. Or the Broadway version. But I know this one is classified as a musical, and I like musicals, so fuck it.

The potential seems high for dance punching and fighting! Classic West Side Story. Just like the original Fame, I have been told, this story is told in a similar style. It is just a small group of friends in learning how to perform high school. No, it is a few different people who might not share social groups. It is split into 5 parts, of which are nicely labeled, I think. Audition, Freshman Year, Sophomore Year, Junior Year, Senior Year.

We get to see a few students over their careers in the high school, and what makes them tick. Like Jenny Garrison (Kay Panabaker, who you may remember from No Ordinary Family and younger sister of Danielle Panabaker). She is some sort of actor who can’t less lose. This Marco kid (Asher Book) tried to date her for two years and she finally relents. When she takes a card from a big time actor, who might give her a part, Marco is jealous. But she goes to him anyways, basically gets sexually harassed, and Marco can’t stand that commitment and leaves her.

Wait what? Way to be a douche Marco.

Or Kevin (Paul McGill). He came from bumfuck Iowa to be a dancer. He isn’t that good, yet somehow still accepted into the program. People make fun of him. Alice (Kherington Payne) outshines him. His senior year, his teacher won’t give him a recommendation because he is that bad, so he tries that suicide thing. What? How the hell could you be in a dance school for four years if you aren’t good enough?

Let’s try again. Denise (Naturi Naughton) and Malik (Collins Pennie) are both lying to their parents. Denise’s thinks the school is so much more uptight and she’d practice cello 24/7. Malik’s mom thinks he goes to a regular school (what?). Turns out Denise can sing, so Malik and Victor (Walter Perez) put her vocals on a track they are making, which gets played at a club. Alright! But when local producers hear it, they only like her vocals, not their work. Whoops.

Neil (Paul Iacono) wants to be a director, makes documentaries, gets a job to make an indie short film! But really, he just got scammed out of his money. Fuck.

These are all kind of depressing. I don’t want to go on anymore. But hey. Charles S. Dutton is in this movie as random teacher guy. That’s something?

Kay is the most famous actress in this, yet I couldn’t find her doing artsy things.
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Oh hey, yeah, I gave reckless spoilers in that review, because no one is going to watch it. No one. If you planned on it, stop right now. It is a jumbled mess. The music is bad. The dancing is whatever. I cared nothing about any of the characters, and just waited for it to be over.

None of the plot lines were particularly good, but they had no chance with so little being told about each person over a four year period. Even if I wanted to care, I couldn’t. Most of them got shit on throughout the years too, in various ways. But because so little time is on every single person, plot lines also get forget about and just ignored for the end of the movie.

How the hell are all these non talented kids getting into a program like this? That is a stupid plot line. Bad movie. Bad.

0 out of 4.

The reason I saw this movie is basically an accident. You see, I went in to rent The Oranges the other night, and well, all 2 copies were out. What?! So, P section is next to O, this is still labeled as new release, only planned to be in there for 30 seconds, so grabbed Price Check and went on home.

Yeah, blind watch!

Maybe we will get some good old fashioned gender violence.

Pete Cozy (Eric Mabius) is satiated with his job and station in life. He works as some sort of business guy in some sort of sueprmarket chain. What does he do? Hard to say. Let’s just say he is a low level businessman, making about $40,000 a year, and fine with it. He has a wife (Annie Parisse) and a child, but they have many bills to pay. But at least he gets to spend time with his family.

When his boss leaves, another is flown in to take his place. Hiring within the company is stupid. But Susan Felders (Parker Posey) is a little bit strange. To be fair, she is in a new situation and wants to have a good impression, and be successful, but it puts everyone off and no one gives her a chance. Pete is reluctant, because the first thing she does is fire someone, and not the person he recommended, while also doubling his salary and making him her assistant. Awesome.

But with more money comes more responsibilities, and Susan might have made promises that their small team office can’t jut handle. He just wants to make enough to live and hang out with his family. He definitely doesn’t want to accidentally have an affair. Whoops. Oh yeah, that happens too.

This boardroom meeting is weird. Who gave them a table?

It was hard to get through the plot outline, it truly was. I might have had to take a nap during it. Instead I ran a lab around my lab. Overall, watching the movie was good for my physical health, just not my mental health.

About twenty minutes in or so, I just didn’t care anymore. Despite being a comedy, nothing entertaining happens nor makes me laugh. Like zero. Maybe they were going for awkward humor? Hard to tell. If so, they did badly at it.

Like, I didn’t hate hate it. I was just bored. Parker Posey isn’t the most likeable of actresses, but she was especially off the annoying charts in this one. Almost worse than Zach Galifianakis in Due Date, which is saying something.

Now I am just rambling. Don’t watch it. But every movie on the previews for it looked decent.

1 out of 4.

For whatever reason, just like my previous review of Star Trek, I am finding the right words to describe Star Trek Into Darkness.

I feel like a fake, a liar. I am a nerd who knows not a lot about the Star Trek series and never really cared to find out. So as to whether or not this movie fits the Star Trek world, I can’t comment on. But I tell you what I can do. Ignore the source material and just tell you if the movie is awesome or not. Basically what I do for every movie anyways!

I honestly don’t know if this is from the first or second Star Trek. The movie takes place right where we left off. Kirk (Chris Pine) is still captain of the Starship Enterprise, with the exact same crew. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is the first officer, Sulu (John Cho) the pilot, Bones (Karl Urban) the doctor, Scotty (Simon Pegg) the engineer, and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) as whatever they do on the ship.

Well, things quickly hit the fan when a bombing occurs in one of Star Fleet’s libraries, plotted by John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a former Star Fleet officer. That’s right, someone turning against his own former employers! Must have received a very poor severance package. After a few other attacks, he escapes to Kronos, home planet of the Klingons, the warrior race who wouldn’t mind having a reason to conquer Earth.

Well, crap, I guess they are screwed. Unless…

Clearly the best plan of action is to use long range Plasma Missiles to take him out (no trial needed), while hopefully not starting an intergalactic war. I trust Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) personally, so I am sure the strategy will work.  Bruce Greenwood also returns as Admiral Pike, and Alice Eve is brought in as mysterious science/weapons expert Carol.

Nope. No Shame at all here at Gorgon Reviews.I saw the sequel in 3D and I am almost certain it didn’t warrant the higher price. The film was made for IMAX and later changed to include 3D, so it was a sort of afterthought. In terms of “rounding” out the picture, it didn’t really work for me, and felt wasted. But hey, some sticks fly at your face in the beginning, and I might have actually tried to dodge them.

I loved Star Trek Into Darkness. It was exciting, it was action packed, and it refilled my lens flare quota for the rest of the year. It is of course beyond perfect. I left out a lot of plot details, but I disliked that problems introduced early in the film were fixed only a few minutes later. It made me wonder why even write those problems in the first place and made me feel like they were rehashing the first movie.

I also hate that they introduced regenerative blood into the series. Regeneration itself is a very tricky subject, as it becomes a deus ex machina. Unfortunately it also appeared in Iron Man 3 and was one of the worst plot fixers in both movies.

I’d stil suggest watching the movie and avoid IMDB/Wikipedia, there are spoilers everywhere.

Despite not being a Trekkie, I am deep enough in this Pop Culture game to understand a lot of the throwbacks and homages to the original series/films. In fact, I liked this film enough that I almost want to try and watch the older Star Trek films, out of curiosity. Almost.

3 out of 4.

I didn’t think I would be able to see Mud until it was released on Blu-Ray later in the year. After all, Iowa isn’t necessarily the epicenter of the film community, so even a bigger “Indie” release like Mud would probably never get to our small town lifestyle. But here I stand corrected and I only had to wait three weeks after its release!

Hopefully this is a nice change for the indie/arts movies in the area. I’d rather get them 3 weeks late than never at all! Even though the Mud Trailer only seems about small town living and befriending a criminal on the run, it still looks awesome.

My current guess for crime is pedophilia. Arkansas is generally a quiet state that you never see in the news about…well, anything at all. Ellis (Tye Sheridan) is a 14 year old boy who lives a relatively normal life on the Mississippi River. His family lives in a house boat, he gets an allowance from his dad for helping deliver fish to neighbors, he goes to school, but mostly he just likes to adventure and play outside. With the help of his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland, first film/TV role ever), they find the strangest thing: a boat stuck in a tree on a small island.

Finders keepers, so they are happy to have a new boat/tree house. But then they find out they were not the first ones there. They find a stranger with crosses in his shoes, a gun, and a request. Help bring him food and eventually restore the boat, he will give them his gun. He is there waiting for a girl, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), and cannot leave to find her because he is wanted by the law for a mistake.

He also wants to go by the name Mud (Matthew McConaughey). Strange name, kind of dirty, but who am I to judge?

Mud will have to rely on two kids going through their own personal problems to help him escape down the Mississippi, hopefully with the love of his life. Also staring Sam Shepard as a mysterious neighbor on the river.

I can’t tell if they are worried, scared, or bored. I will continue to assume pedo. McConaughey, McConaughey, McConaughey. Holy crap, McConaughey. Maybe it is just his voice, which gives him an unfair advantage, but I am in awe of his performance. He outshines any other role he has been in (yes, this includes Magic Mike), but he also does it with such ease, it appears that talent just oozes out of his body.

Mud itself is a pretty slow moving film, which fits perfectly given its setting. It uses scenic swamp imagery to really drive its ideas home, and helps us realize that no one, especially our heroes, are perfect. I classify this film as a Drama Romance, but it wouldn’t be like any Romance film you have seen before. The ending is unpredictable, the characters and finale are realistic.

Although I liked where all the characters ended up and how their plot lines finished, I didn’t like the entire ending. The ending included a shootout, which was a stark change of pace from the rest of the film. It seemed like a few minute where realism flew out of the window, with results that are really out of place.

Despite how fantastic his acting was, I doubt McConaughey will receive a nod from the Oscars. Sure, it is only May and I haven’t seen any other big contenders this year yet, I just doubt that his character played a big enough role to be recognized as one of the absolute greats.

3 out of 4.

You know who we need more in our lives? Hugh Laurie. That is who you were going to say, right? After all, House M.D. ended a year ago, and he hasn’t been in many movies recently, outside of voice work. It is almost not fair!

Which is why when I heard about The Oranges I jumped immediately to the nearest rental place to give a go. I also immediately recognize people from Arrested Development, Gossip Girl, The O.C., The West Wing, and The Big C. That is a lot of show people in this movie!

Why so gloomy Alia? You upset that you don’t get cover treatment despite being the narrator? I understand those feels.

In New Jersey, we have two families, The Ostroffs and The Wallings (on Orange Drive!). They have lived across the street for some time, and their families are best of friends. David (Laurie) and Paige Walling (Catherine Keener), with their children Vanessa (Alia Shawket) and Toby (Adam Brody). Toby is successful and moved out, Vanessa is not yet successful and still living at home. She is also the narrator! At least she has that going for her.

Across the street are Carol (Allison Janney) and Terry Ostroff (Oliver Platt), the latter kind of obsessed with his best friend David. They have one daughter, Nina (Leighton Meester), who hasn’t been home in five years, off at college and partying everywhere. But one Thanksgiving, she returns, after having recently broken up with her long term boyfriend.

Well, instead of hooking up with Toby, like her mom strives hard for, she falls into someone else’s lab. David Walling! (Again, Hugh Laurie, the neighbor dad). Heyyy, that’s weird.

Shit quickly hits the fan clearly, once everyone finds out what is happening. Marriages get ruined, people hate each other, and Vanessa just feels incredibly awkward.

Yeah, so basically this is good clean inter-family fun.

I like that the relationship wasn’t some overly sexualized thing Sure, big age difference, known each other for over 20 years, many other issues, but it felt like they actually might have cared for each other.

Buuuuut outside of that, I thought the movie missed the mark completely. Even though the two characters just want to be happy, the movie goes about it in such a strange way, I don’t find myself caring about any of the characters. I also thought the ending was pretty bad, not a fan of really any of the conclusions.

It just isn’t that funny. Hard to say anything else about it. Hugh Laurie was okay. However, the movie is skippable.

2 out of 4.

Oh wow, with The Gatekeepers, I believe it is the first documentary that I have seen in the theaters.

The first one not based on a musical act, that is.

Either way, local theater probably got it by accident, and despite never hearing about it, I decided to give it a spin. Not to mention it was nominated for an academy award! (It lost to Searching For Sugar Man).

Long story short, Shin Bet is the main intelligence agency for Israel since the Six-Day War. Basically it was a surprise attack by Israel, thus a quick war, which expanded its borders to include the West Bank and Gaza strip. After that, the territory they had just gained was full of Palestinians, so they had to make sure they didn’t try to revolt or cause trouble. This lead to occupation, and the Shin Bet being an important tool to protect Israel from terrorism.

The Gatekeepers is a documentary interviewing the last six heads of Shin Bet, to talk about the last four decades, prod them into telling secrets or what have you. You know, since they are now all out of the organization for various reasons. Yay secrets! Yay terrorists talk!

Yep, an actual picture from the documentary about people talking. Looks entertaining as fuck, right?

Well, the information gained from these men was neat. Seeing them talk about torture, sketch propositions, morality, and regrets in their life. Very very interesting.

But it could have been laid out WAY better and more coherently.

I didn’t know this documentary would be all subtitles, but that makes sense and is fine. However, the subtitle work was shit. Over 10 occasions I couldn’t read the subtitles clearly or at all, which is kind of really fucking annoying. The least they could do is make it not a challenge to figure out what is being said. After all, documentaries tend to be about gaining and sharing information. If you fail at the most basic levels, then what the hell.

I think it also could have been ordered a lot better. When each man first is shown in the movie, they show up a quick graphic telling me their name, and when they were head of the Shin Bet, but never again. Although it is pieced together chronologically, it isn’t just an interview with one and then the next and so on. No, they all talk about all six events. After all, they all were in Shin Bet doing things before being the head, and afterwards they still paid attention to the events. It is great getting multiple perspectives on events, but you know what would have been even better? Knowing which man was in charge at which point in time the entire movie, not just the few seconds they showed it to me.

Despite going chronologically, I never knew when in time every event they talked about occurred, so even if I can somehow remember who was head and when, I still wouldn’t know who was in charge. These are simple problems to fix that would amplify getting the information out there better. Heck, even a permanent placard in the top right hand corner just having their name/years on it permanently would be preferable.

Finally, the strange CGI graphics implemented in the movie, to show multiple TVs in a control (Or Intelligence like) room to transition between scenes just felt tacky.

Although I think the information is interesting, despite knowing practically nothing myself, I think they put together a piece of shit documentary on most of the technical angles to feature it.

1 out of 4.

“Hey, website guy, why do you keep watching bad movies, then getting upset that the movies are bad?”

Well, reader. Just because a movie is direct to video, not advertised, or unheard of doesn’t mean it is automatically bad. I have found many great films that were blind watches, so that is part of the thrill. Sure, more may have been shit, but when the good ones show up, it is a great feeling. It is a feeling that lets me tell the world that they need to see a movie, so that they too can have some joy in their lives.

But this time, The Courier happens to fall in line with the majority, and isn’t a good outlier.

Generic photo, void of any action.

So in this movie we have a courier (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). We know he is a courier, because his name is The Courier. It is important to establish himself as a courier, and not a transporter, because making a movie about a transporter would be silly. Either way, some guy (Til Schweiger) makes it so he has to deliver a package to another man. He just wont let him know where to find the man, because that would be too easy. So instead, he is getting a lot of money to use his skills to find the man and deliver the package. If he doesn’t, he will die.

Oh, well, I guess he better get to it then.

Some people die, some torture, some plot twist, then some action stuff. Mickey Rourke. Lili Taylor. Miguel Ferrer. Mark Margolis. Yawn.

Generic stand off, still void of any action.

So here is a problem I am facing. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He is a charismatic guy, I guess. He could be a nice action star. I liked him in a few movies. But now he has been the lead in two movies I have rated 0 out of 4 (The other being The Possession). I don’t do that too often, just as rare as a 4 out of 4. I am proud of my bell curve of ratings! So two films I have just hated that I watched it and would never recommend to anyone in my life ever.

What the hell, Jeff?

This movie was so bad, they didn’t even advertise it correctly, and not for the reason you think. You probably have never heard of the movie, that is fine. It is a direct to video, no theater, action movie. Whatever. But it did have some movie posters regardless. Like this one here. Go on, look. Kind of cool, sure. BUT THEY SPELLED MICKEY ROURKE’S NAME WRONG. On their own dang official poster.

Hah. Just hah.

Get the fuck out of here, The Courier.

0 out of 4.

So, I really didn’t want to write this review for Confucius, and it probably will show!

Accidentally, for my website, I guess I also reviewed three foreign movies in a row. One Japanese, One French, and now Chinese. This was entirely unintentional. When the fuck did I become so culturally diverse with my movies? Seriously, I feel like a European.

I picked up this one because I could see it in Blu-Ray and hell, I knew who Confucius was. Maybe I could learn a lot from it? Tai Chi Zero from earlier in the week was a preview watch and something I had to see, unfortunately on DVD. The Intouchables was recommended by a European and an Australian.

I feel the need to explain myself in great detail. I promise, no more foreign films for the rest of this month!

But seriously, I just want to see a movie about people thinking of good advice. Hard.

So this movie is about Confucius. The man, the myth, the legend.

It takes place a long time ago, and I don’t know how much of it is true.

It must be true! They wouldn’t just ramp up the accolades of an ancient philospher/leader, right? Right.

Well. Confucius did a lot, and was wise, and had some trials. But he passed them, with a can do attitude and elbow grease. I believe that is a Confucius saying. He lead wars, made laws, became a wandering scholar, and saved lives. But he was also played by Yun-Fat Chow. What!? Yeah. That guy who is in all those movies. He had a serious role as one of the most popular Chinese historical figures of all time (After Mulan of course), and isn’t well known for being serious I wouldn’t say.

But hey, its a movie about Confucius for China to love, not me to judge (too bad, its the job).

YES! EVEN MORE LARGE HEAD THINKING SHOTS!

Here is something funny about the release of this movie. It came out in 2010, a few weeks after Avatar. You know the one, the record breaking movie. Well, China wanted everyone in China to like Confucius, not a western movie like Avatar. So Avatar would be pulled from over 1500 2D Screens in China for this film, and that made people mad. Too bad no one cared, because everyone saw Avatar in 3D anyways. After a week or so, Confucius still wasn’t being watched, and they returned the 2D Avatar to a bunch of screens. James Cameron fucked over the Chinese nationals pretty hard.

The reason it bombed probably isn’t because Avatar was awesome, but mostly because it was boring as shit. Confucius is such a big important cool dude, and watching his movie made me feel incredibly bored. Hell, I watched it while laying down shirtless probably eating Pringles, and seeing his great life didn’t even make me feel bad about my own. I just didn’t care. It was nice visually, but didn’t entertain me on any noticeable levels. Huh, I guess I accidentally made another Avatar comparison.

1 out of 4.