Gorgon Reviews

Foreign movie! This time, by the French. There was a lot of potential Oscar buzz around The Intouchables, at least for Best Foreign Film this last year, and it was France’s official selection to the competition. But it didn’t crack the top 5 and got jack shit. That’s not a good sign, but maybe it got 6th place? Are their trophies for sixth place?

Eternal Friendship. That is your sixth place trophy.

Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a rich motherfucker. Why? Don’t worry about that. But he is loaded and now super into artwork. Unfortunately for him, he is also paralyzed from the neck down. He might have some finger use, not sure, but outside of talking and waggling his eyebrows, he is stuck, yo!

Because of that, he needs attendants 24/7, but not your normal attendant. They just treat him like a piece of shit, don’t let him do anything fun, and well, acknowledge his disabilities. But along comes Driss (Omar Sy), who doesn’t try to get the job. He just needs to get rejected to get his wellfare on, living with his family, no succeeding.

Unfortunately for him, Philippe likes his spunk and that he is different. Whether that is because has no training, talks mostly about music, or just entirely skin color, unsure of. But Philippe gives him a shot.

Of course, as expected, both men influence the others lives in positive ways, where they both learn to love, live, and take chances. Make mistakes. Get messy. That’s right, they go full Ms. Frizzle.

But more R, less G.

Alright, so describing the movie outloud (err, as I typed it I guess), I realized this movie sounded cliche as fuck. But it isn’t. Because its french! And uhh…french!

Shit. Regardless of potential clicheness, I still enjoyed it a lot. Not top of the world, but still quite a lot. They had great chemistry together, based on a true story, and Audrey Fleurot was pretty hot.

I laughed, and teared up a bit, and the film offers a nice message without getting weirdly preachy. Basically, it is YOLO in a nutshell, even if you can’t move your legs.

3 out of 4.

I don’t remember /why/ I know about Tai Chi Zero, but damn was I interested. It said steampunk and martial arts! Why not! Seems cool! I like some of those things.

Especially since currently, martial art movies seem to have left realism behind to focus on better things. More exciting things. Like unrealism. Yes. The best type of fights are unreal, we all know that. I assume that every fight type has already happened, so we have to start bending physics to make it interesting again.

This has nothing to do with this movie.

But I am glad that it features Thwaps!

So this takes place sometime in the past in China, like normal. Our main character is a freak. Really. That is his nickname The Freak (Yuan Xiaochao). That is because when he was born he had a tiny mini-horn on his head. He grew up wanting to learn how to fight, but no one took him seriously. That is until he beat up a bunch of kids his age after they hit him in his horn. Once he gets hit in the horn, he goes all demonic on people, gaining skill and destroying everyone.

Well, long story short, his town gets destroyed when he is older and his former master tells him to go learn the Chen Kung Fu, in a town on a mountain outside of civilization. But when he finally gets there, no one will teach him because he is an outsider! Some old laborer (Tony Leung Ka Fai) tries to help him learn it anyway, through repitition. Yay fake Kung Fu Styles!

But the plot comes when a former townsfolk guy Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng) has returned from college! He wants to bring the railroad to their town and increase profits. The town doesn’t like electricity, they shun him, he gets mad, and vows vengeance. We also have Mandy Lieu as his white-ish girlfriend, and Angelababy as the future love interest of the Freak, who knows the Kung Fu Style!

But first, he has to fight this little girl. True story.

That is about it plot wise! This stranger might be able to help save their town from the evil western capitalist machine ways! So the story might be super anti-America without explicitly saying it, but I am still fine with it as long as the fights are cool.

And they are cool! But they are also amusing. Easiest way to describe amusing fight to me is a Jackie Chan fight, but they take amusing fight in a new way. Through specia effects! Like some video game shit. Stage 1, Stage 2 stuff. It helps invigorate the experience!. Tons of tiny additional features to add that add to the fights, and well, they are hard to explain, and I find it funny.

What I found annoying? He went Freak mode in the first scene in the movie, before the plot, and never did the rest of the movie. Huh. Why? This might be a planned trilogy, because it doesn’t end with the plot resolved, and the sequel, Tai Chi Hero, comes out to America in June. Also, I should note, that this movie is far from steampunk in any way or form. Even stranger, this movie has Tai Chi in the title, but of course, he has to go learn Kung Fu. Who am I to question that shit. Maybe they are all the same?

3 out of 4.

This is not a Tyler Perry Movie!

It is Tyler Perry Presents. That means he didn’t do anything but provide funding or distribution. Just like how The Man With The Iron Fists was “Quentin Tarantino Presents…” and not his own movie.

I think I called it a Tyler Perry movie in my review of Temptation, but that was my bad. His name is still associated with it though. So my rant there still holds!

Before I make a fool out of myself further, lets look at Peeples, aka, the black Meet The Parents.

Two me, two things pop out making this clearly not Meet The Parents. Meeting parents can be tough. Especially if you are Wade Walker (Craig Robinson) and you make your living by singing to small groups of children. He has been in a relationship with Grace (Kerry Washington) for over a year now, and wants to propose, but he hasn’t even met her family. Not for lack of trying, she just won’t let him.

But when she goes home for a weekend, he decides to crash the party thanks to the advice of his brother (Malcolm Barrett), to meet the family and propose on the spot. It couldn’t go wrong!

Even if her dad was federal court judge (David Alan Grier) and her mom a famous diva (S. Epatha Merkerson).

Obviously, her dad doesn’t approve of him, so he will have to spend the entire weekend working on gaining their approval, while also finding out that her family has many secrets of their own. Also featuring Tyler James Williams (From Go On) as her younger brother, Kali Hawk as her sister, and Kimrie Lewis-Davis as her sister’s “Friend”.

This is the general reaction to black people over lesbians, I hear. Wouldn’t you know it, this movie wasn’t a complete piece of shit. Hooray!

In fact, performances by most of the cast were excellent. David Alan Grier hasn’t been in a leading role like this in awhile, and not only has he aged well, but he also hasn’t lost his touch. S. Epatha Merkerson gave a great impression as someone always on pharmaceuticals. Kerry Washington is normally very serious, but was great in a role having to go back and forth between childish and”normal.”

Craig Robinson, on the other hand, was exactly like he normally is. Which is fine! Just saying, don’t expect a spectacularly acted performance by Craig, but his normal funny self.

For those wondering, the title Peeples comes from the families last name, “The Peeples”, so you will get to hear that word over and over again.

Although it is predictable, I would say Peeples has a lot of heart in it, and some genuine moments. There are at least three song and dance scenes as well, including a very cute number to end the movie with.

2 out of 4.

Oh, it must be summer now. That is the only way to explain that my local theaters are finally getting some limited release films over the last few months. All the college students have gone home, so they have to cater to old people now. Which is why I got to see Stand Up Guys, a few weeks before its DVD release, a few months after it came out. Heck, I get to see Mud for next week too. Color me ecstatic. (But where are you Stoker?!).

Speaking of “Stoking,” this image has been edited from the movie version. Want to guess where?

Life sucks for retired gangsters. After all, it is hard to retire as one. You have to first not die. You also have to be released out of your gang. Even when you are, you might be later charged for crimes if you slip up, and people still might want you dead. Jeez. No on thinks of the consequences!

For Val (Al Pacino), he just spent 27 or so years in Jail, taking the blame for a crime that went bad, keeping his accomplishes secret. Yeah, what a stand up guy. Unfortunately, in that accident, he accidentally shot and killed the only son of their boss, Claphands (Mark Margolis). So Claphands is mad, but he is a vengeful fucker. He has made Val serve his entire sentence looking over his back, with plans to have him assassinated within a day of him getting back.

Claphands is so vengeful, he is making his best friend, Doc (Christopher Walken) take him out. The only assignment over the last 30 years, to kill his friend within his first release. Sucks. But Doc is going to make sure his last night with Val is a special one before he commits the deed. You know, or else they will go after his other loved ones!

Alan Arkin plays the third member of their gang, reduced to nursing home life. Lucy Punch plays a Madam, Addison Timlin a waitress, and Julianna Margulies a rape victim.

Now guess which of those woman was found in the trunk!

Meh. The first 20 minutes of the film, I was feeling pretty dead inside. It was moving slow, and it looked like it was going no where. Neither Al nor Christopher seemed to really be in to it. I mean, they are old, and they have played gangster before, so they should be old hats at this. But neither felt comfortable, and that felt true the whole movie.

It did get a bit better, there were some fun moments, but it is surprising how much of the movie ended up just being dick jokes. A lot of the gags / adventures for them felt a bit forced too. They threw away any sort of realism for a couple quick jokes or moments that weren’t really funny. Not to mention the end is a total cop out, and kind of bullshit.

I will tell you, what got me the most was the lack of respect for continuity in a movie, or at least no sense of time management. They eat at the same restaurant in a span of six hours three times. Each time with full meals for Al Pacino! They find a nice car a block away from the restaurant. Later, at the same restaurant, they have to go back to where they found the car, and talk about street names and then have a long drive over to it. Come on, don’t lie to me like that movie makers.

Shit like that bugs me.

But one scene made me tear up. I am such a softie.

1 out of 4.

If you frequent the internet, you will most likely hear about how rustled certain peoples jimmies are now that The Great Gatsby (Trailer) has been made into a movie. Again. For whatever reason, there is popular opinion that movies shouldn’t be made from popular novels, despite that is how its always been done.

People are also afraid of Baz Luhrmann. Okay, that is more understandable. Baz is a weird guy. Sometimes his films are too long. Sometimes they are just weird. But they can also be extraordinary.

So I will give it a shot. I know the imagery will be in your face, the music pumping, and probably a guy on a typewriter. The trailer features 2.5 minutes of in your face imagery and music, just to prepare you for this trip.

Ohh,, I forgot the fireworks. Fuck!Despite guessing that everyone had to read “The Great Gatsby” in high school, here is the plot in a nut shell.

Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) has moved to New York to be a stock broker, since his writing career has failed. He has a small shack next to many large mansions, and is neighbors with Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), but he is a recluse who know one really knows. Gatsby is a man of many secrets, but one of his biggest is his crush on Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), Nick’s cousin, and married to Tom (Joel Edgerton).

Aww snap. Tom is also unfaithful though, cheating on his wife with the wife (Isla Fisher) of a gas station attendant (Jason Clarke).

Basically, everyone in New York is an asshole and a liar. Except for Gatsby of course! Sure, his secrets involve him working with a man who fixed the 1919 World Series (Amitabh Bachchan), but at least he doesn’t hide who he is. Much. Alright, he is a liar too. Also featuring Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker, a friend of the Buchanans and Gatsby, and might be the only other sane person after Nick.

Because who wears that much clothing in a club? Need to take stuff on, not add more layers. Just as expected, this movie was pretty crazy, in more ways than one! There are some minor changes from the book, to set up the story, but of course that isn’t really important.

Early in the movie, I was getting kind of sick of it all though. I was overwhelmed by too much, too soon, just like the beginning of Moulin Rouge!. But eventually in the story, the parties die down, and all of the problems with the characters come to the forefront hard and fast, and to me it is when this movie gets exceptional. From the first time Gatsby and Daisy meet in the present, to the discovery of all the lies, to the final conflict, The Great Gatsby provides a whirlwind of emotion. Well acted emotion at that.

I think everyone was on their A-game during the filming and despite already knowing the story, it seemed like I was being told the story from the first time.

So while not perfect, I definitely loved the second half. Everything seemed so genuine and real, despite the CGI heavy backgrounds. If there is one thing I could have less of, it would be the green light. Definitely over used in my eyes, but I could just be jealous of the green light. That and the phrase “old sport” which I hope to never hear again.

Although I know for certain this movie won’t be DiCaprio’s Oscar winner, he still was a fantastic Gatsby and brought the character great justice.

3 out of 4.

Kids. Listen to me now.

Judging a movie by its cover is bad, we all know that. That is why I have to watch these movies and make sure they are bad, not just assume.

Well, the cover needs to be decent as well to get people interested in it, to give them a chance. The Day‘s cover isn’t too spectacular, but I at least knew some people in it. So why not give it a shot?

Fuck. Let’s do that thing where I show giant pictures to cover up the bad.

Hey. You played an evil chick in that one movie. I wonder if you are evil here too. You do look scurry.

Alright, so this story takes place in a post apocalyptic society. Something happened, people are dead, everything is scarce, and THIS MOVIE IS A LIE. IT IS ALL A LIE.

Google “The Day” and “Film” or something, check out the images. All nice color stuff, like the one above. Even the cover. But fuck you, that is not what the movie looks like in the slightest.

Oh you look quite a bit more sick there, little girl.

Yeah, that’s right. Fucking black and white-ish. Surprise! Didn’t expect that. You know, because it is basically lies in the form of advertising. I will judge it harshly. No, I didn’t think it was color before hand, but the black and white is ugly, and seems to be a last minute addition clearly.

Either way. Not many survivors. So we have a group of people who may or may not know each other. There used to be more, but they died. Now we just have five left. Rick (Dominic Monaghan), Henson (Cory Hardrict), Adam (Shawn Ashmore), Shannon (Shannyn Sossamon), and Mary (Ashley Bell).

Well, they happen upon a small house in the middle of no where, so they investigate. Oh, it has food. Too bad it also is super alarmed. Jokes on them, local cannibal tribes in the area have set up a trap! Now they have to fend off against 20 or more people. Uh oh.

So people die. Some faster than others. Some of them may be big names. If any of them survive by the end, does it really matter? The world is very bleak, after all.

Basically, the movie was shit, and it didn’t even decide to dress up like anything else. It wasn’t that long, but it took forever for the alarm to even go off. I bet this could have worked as a short film, 25 minutes max. It would have been entertaining and got the same point across.

But this movie is just filler. Extreme filler, and violence subdued thanks to the choice of filter. This is why I can’t have nice things. Hell, even the cannibals had no personality. I think I have only seen cannibals in about three movies now. One the most famous cannibal ever. This. And of course, a little musical.

All the personality one could ever imagine.

0 out of 4

I really really am not qualified to review horror films. How are they supposed to be judged? I don’t know. I either tend to love or hate them. Doubt I have any 2 out of 4 horror films. What is average?

Basically, they either creep me out (scare me) or they bore me. Occasionally, I like some for their plot, but those are rare.

For V/H/S, I’d put it in the creepy column.

Her? Well, there is a fine line between hot and creepy apparently.

Alright, I might not actually be sure what the “actual” plot of the movie is. I think its about a group of asshole kids, who fuck shit up, and film it on their cameras for others to see. Also assault women, making “Reality porn”. Not the nicest bunch. Well, these asshole kids get hired to steal a video tape from someone, it is valuable. But maybe the video tape is actually a collection of other fucked up events happening, and potentially haunted itself?

Not actually sure. But the main film is spliced with five short stories (although, they are about as long as the main story too, which is just split up). I can’t even tag any people from them or really describe them without giving away too much. But the titles do a fair enough job on their own!

Tape 56.
Amateur Night.
Second Honeymoon.
Tuesday The 17th.
The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger.
10/31/98.

You can make your own guesses with some of these. But there is a lot of themes present in the movie. Succubus. Woods. Ghost Hands. Cults. Ex Lovers. Zombies. Aliens. You name it.

I hope you tried to move the mouse in the picture.

Honestly, I found this terrifying. Not just because it involved such old technology (Kids won’t know what V/H/S tapes are!). It was interesting watching a movie about V/H/S tapes on Blu-Ray.

Not every short film is great. I didn’t really like the Emily one, or the main storyline that much. But Amateur Night was a great side story to start the films off right. It really was able to draw you in and then fuck with your mind some at the end, even if the end you saw coming (a little).

I think overall it was creatively done, even if there are things in it you have seen from other movies (as seen in picture 2 and Paranormal Activity 4). Having a different director for each short film keeps it fresh, and potentially interesting to watch multiple times.

3 out of 4

Oooh, a quirky movie. Reading the back of the cover, An Invisible Sign looks like it is supposed to be a made up woman version of A Beautiful Mind. I loved A Beautiful Mind, it made me cry, and the twist took me off guard.

Clearly this movie can only bring great things!

WARNING WARNING: QUIRKINESS OVERLOAD.

Mona Gray (Jessica Alba) loves numbers. She is 20 something though, and can’t find a job, because she is so dang weird. By weird, I just mean OCD, but no one else really notices that, they just see her being strange. When she was a kid (Bailee Madison), she had no friends, but had a math teacher (J.K. Simmons) who really got it. She didn’t know how to show her appreciation, and didn’t think he cared, so she egged his car. Typical kid stuff.

Well, he eventually quit and runs a hardware store. Not at all important to my current description.

Now she is a loser because she live with her parents even though she is right out of college. But hey, she can teach elementary school math maybe! I am sure the kids wont make fun of her either.

Alright, okay, this is nothing like A Beautiful Mind. Fine. For some reason a guy likes her (Chris Messina), while her mom (Sonia Braga) is overly stressed, because her father (John Shea) can’t function on his own anymore. There is still hope. One student, one little girl (Sophie Nyweide) might be the same sort of prodigy she was. Can she be the one who saves her life from the mundane?

Yep. Numbers everywhere. Nerd alert folks.

The ending of that description sucked, but I just needed it to stop. Typing out the plot of the movie made me sleepy, and I wanted to be sure it was finished before I got my nap on. Because woo, is this movie boring.

It has some heart to it sure. It has an interesting (ish) concept. But it decides to give it to you while smothering you with the softest pillow known to man.

In addition to that, the ending was completely bonkers. She was not qualified to be a teacher, so couldn’t even handle the one class level that seemed to pay attention to her. In fact, the ending is full of so many bad things, there is no way to like it even if you got past the bore.

Almost also feels like a strange version of Matilda, but from the teachers point of view, and no awesome magic. Or evil people. Or Danny DeVito.

1 out of 4

Fish movies! Oh the fish movies!

Okay, I am kind of bullshitting here. After all, I only know of one other fish movie that came out anywhere near this one, and that was The River Why. Very, very hipster. That was a boy’s coming of age story, who just really liked fishing and wanted to fish like a real man. Or something.

So Salmon Fishing On The Yemen is probably similar.

Wait a minute. This title is weird. “The Yemen”. There is no river called that. What the hell. Do they just mean in Yemen? I wouldn’t say “Salmon Fishing In The Italy”. Don’t be weird, movie titles.

I can’t tell who is the expert here.

Oh wait a minute. Yemen is all in the Middle East (kind of). I see now. There is no salmon in Yemen! That is a big problem I guess, but one this movie plans to over come.

Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) is a prince and he loves fishing, and wants to fish at his home in Yemen. So he contacts the UK to see if it can be done. This means they have to make a river, and introduce salmon, and hope they can live and breed there without it being too much of a problem.

The UK are interested in helping too, because any news with the middle east that has nothing to do with war can only be good. So they get Harriet (Emily Blunt) who is some political underling in the UK to get it started. So she goes to the fisheries department. Who else would know what to do? There she finds Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), world renounced Salmon expert and fisherman and lure-maker.

But he says no.

That idea is dumb.

Or maybe it is crazy enough to work? Doesn’t matter. His job is now on the line to at least try. Bah.

Then some romance happens (Which is bad, because he has a boyfriend in the military Tom Mison) and a lot of politics. Do they succeed at building a river, shipping ten thousand fish over, and having them survive, without pissing off Yemen locals and environmental group? Welllll…. Also featuring Kristin Scott Thomas as even higher up official in the UK!

There are few things I love more than adultery. Unfortunately, one of those things is not cheating and stable relationships.

2 out of 4.

The sheer existence of Iron Man 3 puts us in a difficult situation. For super hero trilogies, we often see the first film have high reviews, the second film overlap the first, and the third one disappoint. However, in this case, Iron Man 2 was clearly the inferior film to Iron Man!

Basically, I don’t know what to expect. I know I always try to keep the source material out of my reviews, but with superhero movies it is much harder, because I tend to be familiar with the comics. I am overly pumped that we are getting The Mandarin as the enemy, his own personal Dr. Doom. Marvel was afraid to add him earlier, because he is a magic guy, and they have tried to keep their movies (pre-Avengers) separate thematically. That is why Iron Man always had to face tech based threats, the Hulk faced other genetically altered villains, etc. Well, I for one and ready for the theme shift!

This is a completely new way to interpret “I want to be in you”. Iron Man 3 takes place after The Avengers (you saw that film right? And the first two Iron Man movies? They would help). There is no giant threat to Earth currently, so its mightiest heroes are back working by themselves, personally dealing with those events. Well, Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) almost died in another dimension, so he is freaking out emotionally. He is having problems sleeping, so he fills his nights building more and more iron suits; always improving, always testing new theories.

This has put quite a toll on his loved ones, including his girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), friend James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), and even body guard (Jon Favreau).

Not to mention the FUCKING MANDARIN (Ben Kingsley) is out and about, terrorizing America. There are bombings and threatening videos over television networks! Egads!

But what does The Mandarin have to do with the AIM corporation, led by a now charismatic Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), with ‘botanist’ Maya Hensen (Rebecca Hall), and his super weird body guard (James Badge Dale). Regenerating plant tissue sounds cool, but not something I’d invest in.

Ah, he is so fucking chill. Taking over the world, fucking up the Iron Men. You know. It is hard to write this review. It really is. I have conflicting ideas with how I felt about the movie. I realize that twists and turns are expected in a movie, and that saying there is a twist is a spoiler on its own, but I have to talk about the big one in vague terms.

It is shocking. It is unexpected. It is completely out of left field.

And I don’t know why it is in the movie.On one side, it pisses off fans of the comics, and on the other side, it won’t have a lasting effect on those who aren’t comic fans. There really is only two categories, and it seems weird to alienate the fans without having anything to gain. From the movie point of view, it is kind of awesome. It just shits pretty heavily on the source material.

I think the one real complaint I have with the movie is the director seems to really hate Iron Man. The armor breaks a lot, almost constantly, leaving us with a Tony Stark movie more so than Iron Man. So much for the “invincible” title that is generally associated with his name. It is almost sad how little time he is spent in the suit kicking bad guy butt.  Yet somehow, it is still action packed and crazy. There is plot reasons why the suits may have been weak, but I am not sure if I buy them.

The ending itself is also a bit unexpected. Many questions will arise from it and the future of the franchise. After The Avengers 2, Iron Man might not get a fourth film, and instead become part of other characters movies. Pepper Potts also ends up in a strange place at the end of the film, which should be fully explored later, but I fear it wont.

But you know? Despite all of that, I really think I loved the movie. It was funny, the action was great, and it was entertaining as fuck. Sure, there are some plot hols, but you will survive. It is clear, however, that Disney had extended their reach deep into the film. They introduced a kid character and his role definitely overstays its welcome. Go away kid.

I think Tony agrees with me there.

3 out of 4.