Gorgon Reviews

Total Recall, for people who like movies based off books that also already had another movie based off of said book.

Do you love the old Total Recall? Yes? Then why the heck are you going to watch this film? You know it wont be anything like it, and will just make you mad because you compare the two. I say ignore it. See how this one goes. Then don’t get too pissed off when you realize this one has no trip to Marsin it.

But if we’re lucky, we are in for a mind fuck. Kind of like the recall business.

Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker, helping build police drones, in the Britain Empire. After chemical war, there are only really two livable places left, Britain (Which is a lot of Northern Europe), and Australia, now called The Colony. Guess which one is in charge? GUESS. Lead by President Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) of Britain, times are rough. Hell, Douglas lives in the Colony, but has to tramsute to Britain each day for work with his pal Harry (Bokeem Woodbine).

What? How can they do that daily? Oh haven’t you heard? The Fall is a giant gravity elevator that goes through the earth’s crust and mantle, around the core, to the other side. Don’t ask questions.

So times are rough. There are ways to get over it though, through Rekall. They will implant false memories into your brain to make it all better. People don’t trust it though. Since Douglas has been having strange dreams about a girl, he finally decides to go. Despite the calming voice of John Cho, shit hits the fan when he tries to have secret agent memories. What’s that? Apparently he already has those memories? How can that be?

Either way, shit is weird. Even his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) seems to have turn on him! She is a spy for the government? Oh nos! But at least he finally met the mysterious girl, Melina (Jessica Biel) who claims he was kidnapped and had his memories replaced, and he is actually an agent for Matthias (Bill Nighy), a resistance leader wanting the Colony to break out of Britain control.

Oh, or is all this actually just the memory that was implanted in him? That could be true as well.

For “whatever reason”, when you google Total Recall you mostly get these images.

Wooo science and action! And that is about it.

I mean shit. Okay, I know they don’t get to go to Mars. That sucks. Mars is awesome. Curiosity agrees. But you know, all this felt like was a bunch of confusion, with action, and eventually a crazy ending. I have talked before about how too many plot twists can ruin a movie. Once you reach a certain point, you lose interest, and don’t trust the film anymore. I think this movie passes that threshold. Also, if you thought the lens flares were bad in Star Trek, you are going to be pissed off watching this movie.

I mean shit. Besides the obvious, I feel like the science presented in the movie didn’t even stay too consistent. I’m looking at you magnet cars.

Fuck, I can’t even think of more to say. I just thought it was kind of boring and dumb.

From what I can tell, Trouble With The Curve seems to have snuck up out of nowhere. It is Clint Eastwood‘s first acting role in four years, and the first time he has acted in a movie he also wasn’t directing since 1993!

It is quite understandable that he is slowing down, right now clocking in at 82 years old and generally can only play the “mean old man” roles at this point, which doesn’t give him much diversity. But what does it mean that he is willing to act in a movie he has no control over? I guess he believes in that film’s message.

This is a shot of Clint Eastwood doing whatever the fuck he wants.

Eastwood plays Gus, a scout for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. He is a pretty big name in the scouting world, signing some of the greats and having an incredible eye and ear for future potential. Unfortunately, his wife died almost thirty years ago, when their daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) was only five years old.

Not being one for emotions (he is Clint Eastwood, after all!) Gus has had a strained relationship with his daughter throughout the years. Originally sending her off to live with her aunt/uncle, he began to take her on the road with her for about six years. She learned a lot about baseball, scouting, and potential, but when she hit 13 she was sent to boarding school (and later college, and law school), with barely any contact with her dad.

Mickey is now an associate lawyer, close to reaching a Partnership, making her both the youngest partner ever, and only female to have done it. But there is competition, and problems at home. Gus has problems with his prostate, and his body seems to be failing him. Most notably, his eyes. What good is a scout that can’t see the prospects?  Mickey is convinced by Pete Klein (John Goodman), the head of Braves scouting to head out with her dad to North Carolina to check out Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill), a potential future star in the MLB. The Braves have the number 2 overall pick, so if the Red Sox pass, they can nab Bo, but they have to make sure it is the real deal!

While in NC, we are given the perfect storm of dramatic potential. An aging man, going blind, too stubborn to care, and unwilling to tell his organization as his contract is coming up. A daughter, who wants nothing more than to talk with her father and finally clear the air with some of their issues. Coniving young people with fancy computers (Matthew Lillard) trying to take over the scouting department without even leaving the office. Not to mention a former pitcher that Gus signed for the Braves, who had his career end early, and is now scouting Bo for the Red Sox and scouting Mickey for himself (Justin Timberlake).

Also, there is some baseball in this movie as well.

The first thing I noticed about this movie is that it felt like the anti-Moneyball. Moneyball is a true story about how different advanced statistics could be used to determine players better than the old stats and ways of scouting. Trouble With The Curve is about how computers don’t know a thing and that the only good way of scouting is by being there in person watching them play.

The obvious real life answer is that both parts are important, computers can’t predict how a players hands move during a swing, or if they have trouble with certain situations, or their ability to bounce back. But to ignore computer stats completely is also ridiculous.

I think the movie had a good idea behind it, but didn’t execute it to its full potential. One scene early on, involving Eastwood singing “You Are My Sunshine” is one of the saddest things in awhile. It made me cry, and I thought I was in for a depressing movie. But it lets off from that sad feeling and just kind of rides neutral until the end of the film, with a happy ending and everything getting resolved. One plot point that they were clearly building towards early in the film was then ignored and brought back by the end, seemingly forced and not natural.

I will say the film had some great acting, but the way they got their point across at the end didn’t flow as well as I’d have liked.

End of Watch (I hate that there is no ‘the’ there) is another of those movies that I felt bombarded by trailers for. Unfortunately they only made a single trailer for this movie, so I saw the same two minutes over and over again. But from that trailer, I was definitely curious about this movie. Filming style was different, might have been a buddy cop movie, but at the time with very serious overtones. I do love genre bending movies!

Oh man, look how happy they are! If only they knew…

Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Peña) are partners working the hard streets of South Central LA. They are great at their job, if not a bit reckless. Brian is slowly taking classes, working on a Pre-law degree, with high aspirations. Mike is happily married (Natalie Martinez) with a child on the way.  The beginning of the film opens with a chase scene and subsequent shootout, causing the two to be suspended for a month while they make sure it was a legitimate shooting.

But no worries! They make sure they follow the book, mostly. Brian is also taking an ‘art’ class, where he has to make a movie so he decides to document his life. Why not? Cops are exciting! So he has his normal hand held camera, and some ‘spy cameras’ on their shirts, along with other footage from police scanners to make up the majority of the film.

They are like most stereotypical cop units, there is a hardass equal who always gives them crap (David Harbour), a lieutenant who only cares about results (Frank Grillo), and some other friendly cops who actually appreciate what they do (America Ferrera, Cody Horn). Heck, even Brian has started to see someone, a smart girl who is more than just a booty call (Anna Kendrick).

But when the two start an investigation on a Hispanic gang shooting, they soon find themselves deeper and deeper in the dealings with the drug cartel, who have expanded their operations out of Mexico.  Discovering mass murders, cocaine, golden guns, cash, and human trafficking have put them as the number 1 priority for the cartel to deal with. What they just assumed was a normal shift will turn into a fight for survival to just make it to the end of (the) watch.

Yes, the same Cody Horn who helped ruin Magic Mike is a cop in this. Same disgruntled face.

I know my description of the plot made it seem like a pretty serious action movie, but surprisingly I would instead describe it as a “Comedy Drama Action Thriller” film. It is seriously all of the above. I laughed, quite often, I cried once, there was the obvious action, and I felt scared more than once.

The film isn’t a typical ‘found footage’ film. I believe the director originally wanted the whole thing to be in police camera / hidden camera footage, but there is plenty of actual camera work thrown in as well. So that means we have a movie that fits multiple genres, and doesn’t even keep its camera use constant, but yet it works really really well.

Frankly I thought the movie would be stupid, but I ended up loving every minute of it. Gyllenhaal and Peña had excellent chemistry together, and it shows that they spent months shadowing LA cops and hanging out for inspiration.  My only suggestion for watching this movie is to be prepared to have scenes change suddenly. It may go from hilarious banter to scary cop moments in an instant. This form of ‘genre shock’ is pretty rare, and now something I hope to see more often in movies after this. End of Watch is a definite must see.

I originally had no intention of watching All About Steve this weekend. In fact, I had no intention of watching it anytime soon. I never felt like I’d be in the right mood.

But unfortunately, the movie I watched Friday night was so fantastic, I thought it wrong to give it a Saturday review, since more reviews are read during the week and not weekend. So, might have had a post midnight freak out to find and watch another movie. Hooray!

With that picture, I still have no idea what this is even about.

Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock) is, in a word, eccentric. She is almost like a walking encyclopedia, she knows pretty much everything, but has basically no filter. She will just keep talking and talking, regardless of who is actually listening. She also writers the crosswords for the local newspaper, not much of a career, and lives at home with her parents. Her parents! Who have also set her up on a blind date with a cameraman, Steve (Bradley Cooper).

Originally interested, he quickly realizes (minutes later) she doesn’t stop talking and also is afraid of her strong commitment talk quickly ends the date but halfassedly invites her to come out. So of course she does, she thinks it is true love!

Steve has to work with an egotistical asshole Hartman (Thomas Haden Church) who really wants to be an anchor, and they also brought along a network guy (Ken Jeong) to make sure no shenanigans occur.

But when Mary actually finds him? He freaks out. She is like a stalker! And she causes problems! A really nice and in love stalker, who doesn’t know her own level of socially unacceptable behavior. She even meets some nice hippie friends (Katy Mixon, DJ Qualls) who help her, well, stalk Steve. She may even turn out to be a hero!

A hero who really puts herself out there.

Whewww, this is definitely not what I was expecting. To give Sandra Bullock some credit, she has never acted like this in a movie before, to my knowledge. Technically I am not a Bullock expert, so I could be wrong. But wow was this portrayal something else.

I think the goal of the movie was to make the audience love her and help accept others who are different than you, but I think they did a poor job of showing it. A lot of the earlier funnier scenes in which people quickly give up on her and treat her like crap just made me feel sad, and never really laughed. I found her interesting as a character, but as a comedy they went just a weird way with it all.

I’d say watch it only if you want to see Bullock go way outside of her normal zone, but definitely not for an overall good movie or plot.

The Great Buck Howard is definitely one of the movies I bought just because of the cast list on the front, and not really knowing anything about it.

I can definitely say I have heard zero things about this movie ahead of time, which means I can ruin that moment for you if you watch it with this review. Hooray!

Kind of like ruining a mentalists act. The claps will fade :(.

Turns out, this movie is actually about Troy Gable (Colin Hanks). He doesn’t like his place in life. Law School just is not fun. It sucks. His dad (Tom Hanks, yep) forced him to pick this path though. So he says enough is enough, walks out of law school, and time to find his calling.

Maybe a writer? Sure, but it doesn’t pay. So he needs a job for bills while he thinks about writing. Why not the stage manager of the Great Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a mentalist who he has never heard of. Sure, he has apparently been on Johnny Carson 61 times, but that is old.

Now he just travels from small town to small town, with a loyal fan base who love his acts and cheesiness. Troy quickly learns what to do from Alan (Adam Scott), the soon to be former tour manager, who eventually quits and leaves in a rage. Okay, so apparently Buck is not really so great, but more of a dick. But its a job, and why not stick around?

Well, he gets to see a struggling mentalist make it through life, without missing a beat. Just takes it all out on Troy. He even has an amazing act, where he has audience members hide his “fee” for the night, while he and his staff is away, and without fail he can find it every time. If he cant, it gets donated back to the town.

Even the build up of his new trick, putting a record number of people to sleep at a time. The problem is, shit keeps going wrong. His press person is out of town, so he is stuck with a rookie girl (Emily Blunt), has crazy drivers (Steve Zahn), and a generally apathetic manager (Ricky Jay).

Here is a look as shit hits the fan. Pretty hard.

I was worried about this film, just because it was John Malkovich in a PG setting. But what the fuck was I thinking? This is John Malkovich! He does things awesomely, and you can’t help but watch.

His character of Buck Howard was definitely an interesting one to watch, and clearly the most important part of the movie, despite it being a journey of discovery for Colin Hanks’ character. He is based on the The Amazing Kreskin , who was known for finding his fee pretty much every time (but nine, oddly enough).

Did I mention Malkovich kicked ass as this character? The rest of the cast was pretty decent as well. Especially the outrageous locals at some of the shows. It is hard to describe why this film is so great, but the only word I can think of is charming, I guess. The cast works well together, and it is strangely interesting despite the subject matter. Give it a chance, and maybe you will love it.

Thinking back on it, I don’t know how much press The Five-Year Engagement ended up getting. I really only heard about it a few times, and actually never a preview. I think I heard it mentioned in the same sentence as Jeff, Who Lives at Home, just because of the actor share, and that is about it. So hey, why not just buy a movie I know nothing about, because who really wants to wait for Redbox?

Only three people in this picture are willing to wait for Redbox.

Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) met like most couples, wearing costumes drunk on New Years Eve. But boy, did they hit it off! Tom being a sous chef at a San Francisco fancy seafood shop, and she is a PhD in Psychology student! Clearly meant to be. But after their engagement party, they put off planning their wedding for a bit, when some of their good friends get pregnant and married first (Chris Pratt, Alison Brie).

That’s not too bad. But when Violet gets accepted as a postdoc at the University of Michigan for a two year awesome program, it puts a weird spin on the relationship. Oh well, Tom can probably find a new restaurant job easily in Michigan! Right? Eh..

The movie at this point becomes a series of incidents that continue to delay the planning of the wedding, with a few role reversals going on. Tom has a hard time fitting in in Michigan, way colder than he is ever used to. He doesn’t have many friends, just his sandwich shop boss (Brian Posehn) and Bill (Chris Parnell) who teaches him how to hunt and be a real woodsman. Violet immediately loves her new job, her boss (Rhys Ifans), and most of her workmates (including Mindy Kaling and Kevin Hart).

Sex, cheating, distrust, psychological experiments, and baby frights. Will the two even survive waiting five years to get married?

Not with that beard, holy crap Jason.

The first thing to notice in this film is that there is a lot of “TV Actors” making up most of the cast. Three of the four people on the cover are known for their shows more than anything else!

I decided that I needed to watch the unrated version of the movie, which is about 2 hours and 15 minutes, roughly 10 more minutes of movie, and I am not sure if that made all the difference. I think the movie definitely had its moments, I just didn’t think it needed to be as long as it was. I was losing interest by the end. I hope the theatrical one wasn’t superior, because overall I’d guesstimate my version was about twenty minutes too long. Five years is a long time, but if it takes too long, I found myself not even caring about whether or not they get married.

I will say that their romance felt a bit realer than movies normally show. They fought, they made up, they weren’t perfect for each other, but they tried to make it work. That was definitely an enjoyable aspect.

So I just learned that Step Up: Revolution is not the original name of this movie. Nope, originally it was called Step Up 4: Miami Heat. Wow. If anything, I can say that they did a good thing with the name change.

After all, who doesn’t love a good revolution? Wait. One second. Turns out people in power don’t like revolutions. Hmm. This title could be a controversy then.

Well that is good, after all, who doesn’t love a good controversy? Oh what’s that? Shy people hate controversy? That is fine, we can ignore shy people. They generally aren’t going to be dancers anyways.

Pictured above: No shy people

Miami has a lot of things going for it. One of those things is that people like to live there. But in this world, they have this crazy never heard of thing before called Flash Mobs. But instead of a regular flash mob, it is the “same people” every time, and they are a public disturbance, because they are the only type of Flash Mob. Heck, they even call themselves The Mob, for creativity purposes.

Lead by Eddy (Misha Gabriel Hamilton, who has past roles as Dancer and Detroit Dancer) and Sean (Ryan Guzman, first role!), they rock the streets and get them recorded and put on the youtubes. Why Youtube?

Because for whatever reason, they are in a competition to be the first to get 10,000,000 views on a video (or overall their videos? Not sure). Because the first to do that gets $100,000, so they do these dance flash mobs to get hits. But what if they can turn their mobbing into a message?

Emily (Kathryn McCormick, formerly Dancer, Audience Member 1, and Sexy Girl 1) is in Miami to audition for some fancy dance company, but her father, Mr. Anderson (Peter Gallagher, yes he gets no real name) doesn’t really approve. In fact, he is a real estate grabber, for his new and fancy hotels, and he plans on buying up a huge plot of land in Miami to renovate and make awesome luxury spots. Turns out this involves some of the best hang out spots and homes of some of our main cast, and that is bad.

So after she secretly joins their group (because she needs to learn to let her wild side out more in her classical /modern dance stuff, by adding some street moves), they come up with the idea to protest this stuff, making them become bigger and more powerful. But I mean, can dancing stop commerce? Also featuring Cleopatra Coleman as their DJ and Stephen Boss as another main dancer.

Just imagine how uncomfortable standing in the middle of that would be. Closeness on an escalator, gross!

You know what, there are a lot of plot problems in this movie. I could ignore them, but fuck that, lets talk about them.

First off, the youtube competition makes no sense. Everytime they mention it, I cringed because they made it seem like they didn’t even know how the internet worked. Was a vague competition, and tons of videos already have over 10,000,000 views in real life. Similarly, a video wouldn’t take months to reach that high either.

Secondly, what the fuck Emily plot line. Really? She needs to add more fire and passion to her dances? And so she starts doing hip hop crazy stuff on the streets? How is that not pretty much the entire plot from the first Step Up?

Anyways, this is a dance movie though. That is what is important! Well, first off on that, I hated the music. Pretty much every time. The best DJ in Miami my ass, what was that shit?

The dancing to the music? I wasn’t impressed. I am pretty sure I have seen dancing like that before, and well, it wasn’t as cool watching it in this movie. The only dance scene I really liked was the above fedora/business scene, their first protest dance. But hey, I might have just liked that more for the outfits and props.

Should I have complained that the movie theater staff never came out and flash mobbed our theater? Probably.

I am shocked that it took me so long to watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona. First off, it has actors/actresses I like in it. Second, I actually kept putting it on my schedule, and just putting it off. Thirdly? Someone once called it ‘Ménage à trois: the movie” to me. I mean, seriously. How did I just not stop what I was doing and watch it immediately?

The other fun note about this movie? While I worked at Blockbuster, there was like, eighteen copies of this movie for sale the whole time. Eighteen! I ended up buying a Wal-Mart copy, because it was the same price and new.

Is this the trois moment? Is it?!

Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are going to Barcelona! And now we have the movie title. They are going to stay there for a few months with relatives of Vicky (Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Dunn) because they have a big house and their children are all gone. Sweet. Vicky actually has a legitimate reason, some how her masters studies involves Spain. Cristina is just there for the support and adventure!

They also have different views on love, complete opposite, so much so that the narrator deems it important! Cristina is a free spirit, and rushes through things, flames out quickly. Vicky likes real romance and patience and long commitments. That explains why she has a fiancé (ramping up the French here people. For a movie about Spain) with Doug (Chris Messina).

But one night at a museum, they run into a local artist Juan (Javier Bardem), who looks like he just wants to seduce whoever is easier. Even invites them to an Island for awhile. Clearly things are going well for Juan and Cristina, but she gets sick, so Juan has to spend a lot of time with Vicky instead. Moment of weakness, and boom, sex. Awkwardness arises when Cristina then gets better and continues her relationship with Juan, whoops. Even moves in with him. He kind of likes both, with Vicky realizing that she doesn’t love her husband anymore.

But nope. Then the crazy ex-wife Maria (Penelope Cruz) shows up. She has to stay with them too, because she is on suicide watch. And well, maybe Juan has feeling still for her. And Vicky. And Cristina.

Damn, that is a lot of lovin’.

Yeah, jokes on you, that previous picture had Cruz not Hall.

Of course this is a Woody Allen movie. For whatever reason I didn’t know that before hand, but now that I do afterwards it makes perfect sense. He does have that mini obsession with Scarlett Johansson after all, like a lot of men. Most of us don’t put her in movies though.

This film was definitely both quirky and natural, which is a weird feeling. But after it all, I wondered what was the point. Is it to live life however you want, regardless of what other people think? To always question where you are in life? I don’t even know.

What I did see was an okay story, that did go places I wasn’t expecting, but doesn’t seem like the type of film I’d ever see again.

Confession time! From the original Bourne Trilogy, I only really saw the first one and I am pretty sure that was ten years ago. I just didn’t care that much, thought it was too slow. But you know, okay. So I had to rewatch it last week, and for the first time the second and third ones to make sure I was prepped for the newest installation, The Bourne Legacy.

Smiling Bearded Jeremy Renner wants to be your friend. Not really a joke, just a fact.

Remember everything from the first three films? Well too bad, not much of it matters. Basically, this movie takes place around the same time as the events of Ultimatum. Jason Bourne scared a lot of people when he showed up out of nowhere in NYC and started messing with them all. So much, the CIA went into lockdown.

Potentially a spoiler, but I think knowing the next part helps a lot.

A different program, called Outcome, was similar to the Treadstone program of the first three films. Instead of taking individuals who were already skilled to turn them into agents, they are taking individuals on the bottom of the totem pole and enhancing them artificially with pills.

Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is currently fucked, because he is almost out of pills. On a random mission in the Alaskan mountain range, he lost a bunch of his blues/greens, and is almost out. Even when he gets to the outpost and meets another agent (Oscar Isaac), he can’t get any extra from them. Have to file a report. Without the pills, his body will go crazy and crash. No good.

Too bad, thanks to CIA head person Eric Byer (Edward Norton), they have decided to wipe out the existence of all of the Outcome agents. Gotta kill em all, most by switching their pills, but, wouldn’t you know it, Aaron Cross escapes! Still needs the Blue/Green pills though. So he does the only thing he knows, kicking ass, to find Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who might know how to get more pills.

Or even better, a way to not need the pills anymore. Can he survive long enough to find a solution, when people with guns and other super agents chasing him? Can he stay ahead of the entire CIA and all of its surveillance long enough? Does the fact that Stacy Keach and Dennis Boutsikaris play other head of operation people actually matter to Edward Norton?

Whoa, two guns Renner? Amping up the violence here, eh?

Fuck. Not even a spoiler, but Extreme Ways by Moby does end this movie as well. Gah, when I first heard that note, I had a silent rage in my seat. I really don’t like that song.

But hey, other than that, I really like it. There were issues of course. I didn’t like the way it was spliced in the beginning, making sure you had no real knowledge of what was going on for awhile, and setting it up. Bump that, just tell me. I liked Aaron Cross better than Jason Bourne. Jason Bourne was almost emotionless, while, as you saw above, Aaron Cross at least smiled. The relationship between him and Marta also made more since than Bourne’s relationship.

When they are eventually in the Philippines, there is one chase scene that is incredibly long. Way too long. They split it up to involve different aspects (foot, vs motorcycle, vs what is chasing after them) but I felt like it got above ridiculous at that point. Either way, besides that, found it all pretty entertaining. Even the parts where Renner had that bad beard.

I don’t think the readers here are ready for this. I just don’t.

A Spanish movie, made by Americans, in America. Where we speak American, damn it!

First time I have put up the language tag without the “Foreign” tag. Because this is all USA baby. Just in Spanish.

Yeah, you were not ready for Casa De Mi Padre.

Gay cowboys eating beans around a campfire. Oscar gold.

Armando Ernesto (Will Ferrell) is the not so smart son of a rancher, and has lived at home his whole life. He has simple needs and pleasures, and loves spending times with his other ranch hand friends, Esteban (Efren Ramirez) and Manuel (Adrian Martinez). But his father, Miguel (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) is upset about something, but won’t tell his son about it, mostly because of his incompetence.

But thankfully, Raul (Deigo Luna) returns! Raul is the younger brother who left home some time ago and he looks rich and successful. Huh, wonder where it all came from? So does Armando. Miguel doesn’t care though, because his younger son is a smart man. Not to mention he brought Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez) and plans on wedding her the next day. Hooray, family growth!

Armando is super suspicious of all of this and of Sonia, she just looks like a money grabbing whore. But of course the suspicion leads to spying, and secret jealously and love. Come on Armando, don’t screw your brother like that. Even if he actually is dealing with drugs, and thus has the local cartel leader Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal) coming by to kill everyone, and also problems with the US DEA agents like Agent Parker (Nick Offerman).

Just by saying Nick Offerman, you should know exactly what kind of character he plays in this movie.

Alright readers, it is very possible I too was not ready for this movie. I just expected a normal comedy, set in Spanish though. I am fine with that. I don’t hate that. It’s weird, but could be good too. But what this ended up being is a larger parody/satire on the entire telenova experience, which is something I have definitely never experienced. Sure, I heard they were overly dramatic, basically soap operas amped up a bit.

Quite a few jokes probably relied on realizing the ridiculousness of it all, and this movie adding even more to that fact. But without knowing that? There will be few laughs. I noted that there was badly edited scenes, one in particular I loved was this fight scene involving coyotes and pumas, but the real humor will come in the smaller details. The scenes keeping the camera on the persons face just a little bit too long. Pretty much all the scenes just going on a little bit too long. Not to mention people getting offended quite easily.

Oh and the songs. There are two and there songs out of no where. Probably common place in Mexico, I don’t know. Hell, the Spanish might not have been real Spanish and I wouldn’t even know. So many layers of comedy I just couldn’t get, I think I have to watch this movie a second time to get a better grasp on it all. But for now, lets keep it neutral. Definitely a different film experience than you are used to from Will Ferrell.