Gorgon Reviews

I won’t begin this review with another boring introduction about how I know nothing about this film (I do!). I will instead mention a strange coincidence!

For the last two weeks I have been listening to the Blueprints of Armageddon, a seven part podcast series about World War 1 by Hardcore History/Dan Carlin. I have been taking a break from audio books for awhile on my drives to and from work and movies. It is pretty good so far and I am learning a lot. And earlier this week I watched Sunset Song (review at some point), which is a Scottish film based on a book that leads up to World War I. And much to my surprise, the next night, I watched The Light Between Oceans, a film that takes place in Australia, right after World War I.

Fuck. I am so god damn into World War I right now. This cannot be a coincidence, I should develop time travel. And you know, avoid World War I, because that shit was scary.

Awww, a nice happy and calming baby to make me feel better.

A lot of people died in World War I, and a lot of survivors had to kill people to do so. PTSD is real. It has fucked over people. Like Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), who just wants to be alone. He got a job manning a lighthouse on an island called Janus in Western Australia, which is a long long distance from any civilization. He has no family to bring with him, just a home, a lighthouse, a job and an island to himself.

But eventually, Tom does get a bit lonely. And in the “nearby” town, he has met and started writing to one Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander). They instantly hit it off and fall in love and knowing that only a wife can join him on the island, they get married and begin their lives together.

Unfortunately, their lives together begin with a rocky start. And no, I am not just talking about their island coast that they warn nearby ships about. Pregnancies occur, but so do miscarriages and they start to begin to lose hope. Sure, they love each other, but a death in the family is a hard thing to cope with.

However, miracles do happen. A small row boat washes ashore and inside is a dead man (Leon Ford) and a crying baby who needs help. Have their prayers been answered? It is Tom’s duty to report this incident, but if they do that, the baby will surely be taken back and there is no way they can adopt her. Maybe they can just…lie, raise the baby as their own.

Also starring Rachel Weisz, Benedict Hardie, Garry Macdonald, Jane Menelaus, Anthony Hayes, Florence Clery, and Jack Thompson.

Nothing really says love like turning yourselves into patio furniture.

Well, I cried. I cried a lot. I cried probably more than a grown man should in a film, unless it is somewhere in his first 1-3 times watching Les Miserables. This film had all of the correct notes to just wreck me emotionally.

It had romance and loniliness. It had pregnancies and miscarriages. It had depression and danger. It had the cutest baby girl, learning how to be a real human. It had a father figure who would do anything to protect his wife and daughter (well, “daughter”), both things I can relate to. And it had morally black situations. That is more hardcore than morally grey. Because, really, at some points the right decisions are easy to determine as long as you ignore the human factor. But eventually, the situation becomes so out of control that I didn’t even try to predict what would happen next. I just wanted the movie to decide for me and show me the consequences of these decisions.

For some, the film will drag at over 2 hours long. There are lots of scenes with no dialogue, especially early on, but the shots are beautiful and the emotions are showcased in our actors eyes. But it was just right for me. I almost never wanted it to end. I was shocked every time we had a large jump in story time, basically wishing I could see every decision and action that led up to the end.

And fuck, we cannot forget about our leads. Vikander and Fassbender’s chemistry (and last names) are so strong in this film, they feel like a real couple. And hey, it turns out that they are now still a couple thanks to the film. The film showed them falling in love so well because that is what was happening between them in real life. And damn it, it shows. Strong performances were also given by Weisz and Clery, our little girl.

The Light Between Oceans is a movie I never want to see again. It is also the type of movie that makes me want to read the book it was so good. I just cannot see myself dealing with all those emotions in such a small amount of time again that I just will probably avoid it forever, despite being one of the year’s best.

Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, and Sarah, Plain and Tall are all books that were about women living in farming communities, simple lives, and totally kid friendly.

Sunset Song is not one of those things. It is about a girl, sure, a farm, yeah, but it isn’t American and it isn’t a nice and easy kid friendly book. It was a realistic novel and it is considered one of the greatest Scottish novels of the 20th century. Source: Wikipedia.

It is the type of thing that one would have imagined as a film thirty years ago but hey, better late than never.

Life doesn’t give a shit about your strength, there is still work to be done.

Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn) is almost a woman and living with her family. Her brother Will (Jack Greenlees) often comes to blows with their father (Peter Mullan), and by that, Will gets whipped still. They also have two younger siblings. Oh wait on that as well, despite her age, the mom (Daniela Nardini) is now pregnant again, with twins!

Now the family has to go and move to a bigger house and plantation. And with more space comes more problems. Depression and loneliness are a big part of it, and after a few events, it is just Chris, Will, and her father. And times are hard, money is scarce, people are jobless.

If I kept talking about the plot, I would describe more worse and worse situations. Including the start of World War I, yay!

So let’s just cut the chase, say life is hard, and introduce some more actors. Like Stuart Bowman, Douglas Rankine, and Kevin Guthrie.

Don’t be mad, just fill in the blanks and you can probably imagine all the bad stuff.

Sunset Song had a lot going for it. Apparently a great source material, a good an authentic feeling cast, gorgeous land and shots, and very uncomfortable moments. Because no one wants to see life on the farm if it is ordinary and boring. We need that bad stuff to happen to our cast in order to see some struggles and see heroes grow before our eyes.

Deyn knocks it out of the park in the leading role. She grows from an obedient oldest daughter to someone capable of running everything on her own. She is just a woman trying to suffer in a man’s world. And it is a terrible story to watch, which is why I love it so. I never got fully cry emotional, but I was still right there on her journey with her.

It is a long movie with a lot of scenes. It reinforced some aspects of World War I that I had recently learned, making it feel even more awesome. The soundtrack was also a delight, featuring some nice Scottish songs.

But what I didn’t like? The ending. It felt rushed (in a 140 minute film), and it ended on such a weird note. I have come to learn that the book is the first of a trilogy and in book form it might make sense, but as a film it just feels blah. “Is that it?” I asked my computer screen. I had felt like our main girl was suddenly no longer acting like herself. And it didn’t give any nice conclusion or anything.

So if there are more movies in the future? Fantastic, I would watch them. But I hate it when a movie doesn’t want to tell a whole complete story.

My decision to watch The 9th Life of Louis Drax seemed to happen almost by accident. In fact, I had four options for screeners to go see, an overwhelming number of choices. One of them was about to come out in theaters, so I didn’t want to rush the review. Another one didn’t come out for almost two months, and there would be more future screenings. So it came down to this film and a war film.

I settled on 9th Life merely because it seemed weird. Both films seemed interesting, both had mysterious components. But this title was just a bit stranger.

And hey, going on to read the IMDB page really didn’t answer any questions. I figured it was based on a book and would just be an actual unique movie to witness. I just didn’t imagine it would also be intense, haunting, and emotional.

And hey, you know what they say.
Wires on the head, sexy in bed.

Louis Drax (Aiden Longworth) is not your average little kid. On his 9th birthday, he finds himself falling off a cliff, straight into the ocean. You see, Louis Drax has always been accident prone. His birth was an accident, he almost killed his mom, Natalie (Sarah Gadon) in the process and needed an emergency C-Section. When he was a baby, a light fixture fell on him in his crib, breaking ribs. But Louis survived. Louis survived electric shocks, food poisoning, and more, and damn it, he is going to survive this.

Sure, he was declared legally dead for over two hours and is now in a coma, but he survived. Sure, his dad (Aaron Paul) allegedly pushed him over the edge and is now on the run missing, but he survived. He is now having visions in his coma, causing him to flashback through his life, but he survived.

And he has a great coma doctor to help him in Dr. Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan), who also gives TED talks about coma stuff that is totally relevant to the plot. However, Pascal’s relationship with Natalie, as they both mourn over Louis’ fate gets a bit too personal and with the dad potentially stalking around, it can get bad.

At the same time, they really have to get to the bottom of all these accidents. Why is God seemingly out to get this little boy, causing him to need to see a psychiatrist (Oliver Platt) for all of his issues?

Also starring Lina Roessler, Julian Wadham, Molly Parker, Barbara Hershey, and Anjali Jay.

Ah, what a happy little family. 9th birthdays are always full of falling from heights, right?

The 9th Life of Louis Drax is the type of film I would love to talk about, complete with spoilers, but that is now how my site has worked. So I will respect that and keep things vague.

9th Life was a movie going experience. Not in the same way of something like Lord of the Rings, but an emotional roller coaster, going more than up and down, but also backwards, looping, spinning, and in circles. I’m sorry, that hyperbole was kind of shit. The intro showed Louis going through accidents growing up, including as a baby, and it basically made me horrified. I cried. And that was just the beginning. (Editor’s Note: Yes, I also cried at the ending).

Louis in the coma was a strange place, full of flashbacks, weird creatures and demonic voices. What was happening in real life at the same time was just so odd and strange. In terms of the mystery, I figured it out for the most part about halfway through. However, I was wildly wrong on the smaller details and guessing a big part of the end didn’t take away from the actual experience.

No, we don’t get to see Dornan’s penis. Stop asking. This is like Fifty Shades of Grey all over again.

The acting from Gadon, Dornan, Longworth, and Paul were all top notch. This is probably the best acting I have seen from Paul since Breaking Bad. He had me in tears at one part as well. Gadon’s character was appropriately weird, Longworth carried every scene despite being such a young actor, and Dornan was a very relatable character. It was easy to see his mistakes and understand why he was making them, while also finding him sincere in all of his actions.

And shit. This movie despite being fiction is about real diseases and problems. Again, if I went into specifics, it’d count as spoilers. There was one really odd scene at first that didn’t feel realistic. However, it fit within the universe that the movie had created, so it wasn’t completely out of place. It did provide a very haunting and sad ending as all of the threads were finally unraveled.

The 9th Life of Louis Drax surprised me. I both want to see it again and kind of never again. Good performances all around and damn it, an original story as well.

Werner Herzog is kind of a big deal.

If you aren’t familiar with his name, you have probably heard of some of his work. He directed Grizzly Man, Into The Abyss, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, among many many many documentaries. He has been around for awhile and puts out some high quality work.

So I was ecstatic to be given a screening of his latest documentary. And half of my excitement came from the name itself. Lo And Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. Shit that is powerful. I don’t even know what it is about but I was right there with him.

It turns out this is Herzog’s attempt to tackle this crazy newfangled thing called “The Internet” and no, not the inner netting used to line swim trunks for a comforting snugness. No, the regular Internet we all use and love to read reviews on this website.

Of course he starts quickly with how the internet came about and thus, how our movie title came about. Apparently the first message sent from a computer to another computer was in fact, Lo and Behold, a great message for what they knew at the time meant something great.

But history schmistory, where are we at now?

Monks on twitter, yeah, that makes sense.

And without going into extreme detail, we then get to look at people who have revolutionized the simplicity of the internet and gone on to do great things. The people who are attempting to do better things. The people who are changing the world every day.

But also the negative aspects of the internet, sort of how fast a photo can spread, but not the lame way kids try to do it. In regards to graphic dead photos, because dead people have no rights (yay America!)!

And honestly, this is not the type of documentary one can really talk that much about. They are just stories about the extremes and future of the internet. Honestly, based on the description, I thought this documentary would be something completely different. I thought it would involve how small village communities in Asia and Africa had become connected, and how the internet is changing everything.

It covers some of that, but not in as much sexy detail as I would have liked. And sure, some of these people and stories I have already heard, as a denizen of the internet myself. And eventually I might have paid a bit less attention, but only for a bit, as they jump around enough to new topics to keep my interest.

This is a pretty good documentary and highlights a lot of aspects of the internet that people probably don’t know. Is it as good as his other works? No, of course not. But it is still high quality and worthy of at least one viewing.

Not surprising, what first drew me to this film was the title.

I Am Not A Serial Killer? What are you, an S-Mart Employee?

Of course this movie was based on a book of the same title, and of course, I have never heard of it either. And now we are all on the same page.

You shouldn’t have to glare to hard. Page one, dick!

John Wayne Cleaver (Max Records), yes, has a good name, but don’t worry he is not a serial killer. No, he is a weird kid, sure. His family owns the small town morgue, sure. He helps preserve corpses with his mom (Laura Fraser), of course. And yeah, he is a psychopath, but he is not a serial killer!

Don’t worry, everyone knows it. He is seeing a therapist (Karl Geary), it is official, we are all working just to keep him in check. He has rules to keep himself from lashing out, ways to force himself to be nice. Despite the fact that sure, yeah, he doesn’t care about anyone in their small town.

Well, old Mr. Crowley (Christopher Lloyd) is a weird guy. Really loves his wife. And he might have killed someone?

There is actually a serial killer in their town! Right now! And John is almost certain that Crowley is the one doing it. But he is all over the place. Sometimes he hides the bodies, sometimes he does not. And he steals organs. Huh. Erm. Okay that is weird.

Maybe Crowley isn’t just another sociopath. Maybe he is something other worldly. John is going to find out, because telling people secrets is lame.

I mean otherworldly like alien, not like Jesus.

A Minnesota Murder spree? Oh, like Fargo! I love Fargo!

Not so fast, assholes. This is nothing like Fargo. The show or the movie. Actually, well, with some supernatural elements, I guess part of it is similar to season 2.

All of it is from the point of view of our teenage psychopath, so there is a lot we don’t get to see. We don’t get to see people talking about him behind closed doors, we don’t have those heartfelt discussions about people trying to fix him. Just a kid on a mystery that is a bit bigger than life.

And it is decent. It is. It has some scares, sure. Lloyd is like, super super old now (since he was old as Doc Brown 30 years ago) but he gave a great and creepy performance.

If anything, one can say the film is unique. The ending gets a bit more crazy and the tone doesn’t match the previous 80 or so minutes, but I did love the build up towards the climax.

I am not a Serial Killer. I am just a movie reviewer. And I would say watch this if it is on Netflix one day in the future, maybe. I don’t care, I won’t kill you over it.

A24 has decided that they want to take risks. That they want to deliver amazing content, or at least weird and unique content. And sometimes both, like when it comes to Swiss Army Man!

But with also The Witch and The Lobster, they have been having a pretty good 2016 so far and are looking hard into award season.

That is why I decided to give Morris From America a chance. A movie that might deal with racism but in a very non-American light. A movie that might have strong comedic or dramatic performances. And a movie that could give me a patriotism boner.

Eating ice cream and owning the sidewalk? Yeah, those are Americans.

Morris Gentry (Markees Christmas) is from America, but now he lives in Heidelberg, Germany with his single dad (Craig Robinson). His dad has a job working for a Futbol team, which is why they now live here. He had a mom, but she died.

Needless to say, Morris is having problems fitting in. Right now it is the summer time, he has no friends and only small amounts of German. So he has a tutor (Carla Juri) to help him with the language and just getting him to open up. But she suggests he goes to a local youth center, to meet people his age and make some friends.

Well, of course, everyone there is super white and super German. And most of them are a bit racist. Some of it comes from just not seeing black people before. Some of it is curiosity. Morris sees a girl, Katrin (Lina Keller) and actually gets a crush on her, so he decides to give this youth center a shot, despite the overwhelming weird feelings.

And well, those weird feelings are real. He gets blamed for things he didn’t do, pressured and bullied and more. But hey, he just wants to be able to free style and express himself, and they are just giving him more material to work with.

Also featuring Patrick Güldenberg and Levin Henning.

That face is right, Morris. This looks like a trap.

Morris From America is one part coming of age story and one part fish in a foreign pond. I am not sure if that last part is a saying, but right now I am running with it. The idea makes a lot of sense too. There are tons of films about an American going to a new place and learning customs and the language, whether it be a drama or full of laughs. But for whatever reason it is always a white person. Why not have a black guy do the same thing?

This is not a zany movie by any means. All of the spare humor moments just come from normal human interaction, mostly father and son. I tend to feel bad for Morris when he is interacting with the German teenagers, basically 95% of time.

The movie drives home some points, but they aren’t too powerful. Apparently Germany is still super white and not the best towards people who look different. But hey, what society really isn’t like that? It is a hard balance to break.

Some of his situations are uncomfortable, some are slight, but overall, not a lot happens over the journey of the film. This is just a snapshot of his life, a small experience over a small amount of time. And well, it is just okay in that regard.

Don’t Breath. Don’t Even Breath. Breath and you’re dead. Wait, no, the opposite of all of that. Modifying a Doctor Who quote doesn’t really work in this context.

This is another film that I was almost happy to announce I knew nothing about going into it. But then I went and saw a regular movie in the theater and caught the last 20-30 seconds of the trailer. Damn, I was so close to not even having the slimmest plot outline.

But since that cat is out of the bag, the director of the film is Fede Alvarez who before now has only directed one feature film, the recent Evil Dead. Hey! That also had the same star as this one. And hey! Evil Dead was kind of awesome in a gory, never want to watch ever again way.

So paint me a little bit tickled, as I practice holding my breath like I am riding in a car through a tunnel, thinking I will get a wish out of it.

Holding your breath as an old man walks by is a sure way to get your wish of not smelling him.

Detroit kind of sucks. Not the sports teams, they are awesome of course. But the area is terrible, many properties are abandoned, and people just want to get out of there. Just watch the documentary Detropia, I reviewed it last week.

People like Rocky (Jane Levy) want to leave, but they are poor and in terrible abusive situations. That is why she turned to robbery. With her boyfriend, Money (Daniel Zovatto) and best friend Alex (Dylan Minnette) they break into rich people houses and take only items to sell to dealers on the streets. If they take too much money, it is a bigger crime and they want to be prepared if they get caught. It is easy for them, because Alex’s dad works for a security company, so Alex is able to break into his desk to steal house specific keys to deactivate the alarms.

Well, Money gets a hot tip from one of his guys on the street. There is an old man (Stephen Lang) who lives along, on a street that everyone has abandoned. No police presence, no nosy neighbors, just him and a dog. He was an Iraq war vet (The first one) and injured while there, but more importantly, he made bank when his daughter was killed in a car accident from some rich kid. So he is sitting on six figures and he potentially keeps it in his house. Oh and he is blind.

So yeah, Rocky, Alex, Money are pretty much assholes. They are going to steal from a lonely old man, blind, war vet. They are going to take that money and move out of the state, somewhere like California and make something with their lives. They just, you know, have to be the worst people ever.

I said worst people ever, not biggest pupils ever.

Alvarez has created something unique, yet familiar, scary, and morally out the window. At the same time, he created a movie that has 88 minute run time including credits and still feels incredibly too long.

And that is incredibly annoying because I was totally digging the story. Now, I hated the three young characters. Each one, regardless of their reasons for being in the house. They are all asshats for deciding to try and steal from him. But at the same time, they don’t make the Old Man to be a nice fellow either. It isn’t rooting for the bad guy, it is rooting for mutually assured destruction. I just wanted everyone to punish and get what is coming to them, while at the same time, mad the situation is even occurring in the first place. So yes, it toyed with my emotions and messed with my perception of right and wrong.

That added together could be a reason I just hated the ending. I can’t tell you exactly how long, but there was a shift about 10-15 minutes left in the film that I just wish didn’t exist in anyway. Too much is revealed, a side is chosen to be the “champion” of the film, and then it just drags on and on. There were two very appropriate places it could have ended before it got too full of itself. But it continued. Then characters continued to make terrible decisions. It became repetitive and I couldn’t wait for the end.

The cinematography was lovely, including a nice long house one take from the inside, the pitch dark scenes were wonderful, complete with large pupils, and Lang knocked it out of the park as the old man. The rest of the acting was pretty average.

This is about three fourths of a decently entertaining movie that doesn’t hold your hand and make things easy to watch. But at some point the filmmakers decide that they are bored with that and turn it into a more standard film with an almost goddamn happy ending, despite the many unhappy circumstances involved.

When I heard about the movie Southside With You, my first reaction was to laugh. The plot, about Barack and Michelle Obama first’s date just sounded so oddly specific.

But at the same time, technically, I didn’t know anything about them when they were younger. Did they have lofty political ambitions? Were they jerks? Why did their first date make them fall in love? Was their first date actually a good story.

Shit, the hook actually worked. I wanted to find out more. And I also based it off the assumption that there is no way they would make a movie like this unless it was an interesting first date. Sure, some liberties would be taken, but the real life story has to be a good one. My first date with my wife would be terrible as a movie, but maybe the second or third date would be better.

I also find it funny that, outside of documentaries, this is the first movie about Obama’s life. Our last president was stuck with the unflattering W. as his legacy, but Obama gets a romance flick. Better PR team I guess!

Also, I was secretly hoping that this would basically be like Before Sunrise, but more Obama-y.

Technically, this film takes place before sunrise. Technically every film does.

The year is 1989, the season is summer, and the city is Chicago. To put that into more perspective, I would have been a few months old only at the time, because I am still a young little whippersnapper.

Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) is a second year associate at a law firm. She went to Ivy League schools for her degrees and has succeeded in a white and male dominated field. And yes, she still lives with her parents, because her father has MS. She doesn’t really date, but today…well, that is still true.

Because today she is going to a meeting with Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers). He is a summer intern at the same law firm, while going to Harvard for his own law degree. He invited her out to a meeting about local community problems that he figured she would be interested in. And that is all it is, according to Michelle. Certainly not a date, that would be inappropriate, she is his adviser.

But it turns out that when he picks her up in his beaten down car early in the morning, the meeting isn’t actually until 4. What a ruse! He wants to take her to a museum first to see an Afrocentric art exhibit. And some food in the park. But if she doesn’t want it to be a date, then hell, they can just be friends. Just talking, getting to know each other, friends.

You sly little so-and-so Barack.

It takes a lot of acting balls to want to play someone real, let alone real and super famous. The President and First Lady are really high up there in terms of famousness and some pretty big shoes to fill. And with that, I want to say that Sumpter as Michelle reminded me constantly of Suzanne Cryer‘s character on Silicon Valley. Just the way she talked and where she placed pauses, that is all I could think about. I also can say that I have absolutely no idea what the hell Michelle Obama talks like now or did back then. I assume it is an accurate portrayal, but it was definitely jarring throughout the whole film.

On the same side, I know what Barack Obama sounds like. I have heard many of his speeches. The mannerisms that Sawyers gave clicked really well with my view of the president and it was awesome to see. By the end, I accepted Sumpter’s Michelle as well and figured they were both spot on. Because damn it, why else would she use that voice?

Enough about the voices, Sumpter and Sawyers also remarkably had enough of the look down to make this film very believable. It was just about two young, highly educated and motivated people, trying to make the best out of their lives and help others along the way. It is a great propaganda piece, very in your face to some of the more vocal arguments about Obama. They talked about his family, his birth, his religion and more.

Sure, it wasn’t Before Sunrise, but very few films are. Instead, Southside With You is a nice romance flick. It feels real, it is full of wonderful smaller moments that build up into something bigger than the sum of its parts. The leads are charming. And it will really humanize two individuals that are somewhat hard to relate to.

For those avid readers of Gorgon Reviews, you might think this documentary sounds familiar. Well, first of all, thank you to the three of you. Second of all, you are thinking about Schooled: The Price of College Sports, which was about the exploitation of college athletes for profit.

This is The Business of Amateurs, which is about the exploitation of college athletes for profit and other reasons!

Now obviously this is a subject I am already immensely passionate about it. I have gotten into arguments about it in real life. I have even read a book on the subject, which is a big commitment for me. There is no good reason for people to be brought to colleges, controlled 100% of their time, make the college millions, while not earning a livable wage, getting educated, or being able to have other jobs or use their success for their gain.

And yeah, The Business of Amateurs is another documentary about the subject. But like I said, it is different. It is more than just the moral reasons why people shouldn’t be exploited that way. They go into some science. And the documentary is written, directed, and narrated by Bob DeMars, a former college football player, so it is also a bit more personal.

Looking closely at the cover, I found myself a little bit moved.

Remember the movie Concussion? The film that was supposed to shake the NFL and bring the truth, but was extremely watered down, if not well acted? Well, this documentary goes a lot into health as well.

We have players who are not making money, who have to practice daily for hours, play in games, hitting their head over and over again. The majority of them are not going to the NFL, will not be making big bucks, and they are potentially setting themselves up for brain damage, depression, and a young death.

Couple that with scholarships that can be taken away if you are injured, and you got a system that cares not at all for the athletes that show up. They drop you as soon as you are hurt, and won’t help you when you have bigger problems in the future for work you did for them.

But I don’t want to get too specific into all of the details.

This documentary has a lot of interesting information and I don’t want to go over all of it. I clearly loved it, but it had some minor issues. It is very clearly an amateur film (about amateurs!), some scenes aren’t well polished, some just scream out indie. This is only important in that other scenes are very well, so the disconnect is felt as it goes back and forth.

Additionally, the documentary doesn’t talk about sports outside of Football and Basketball, the big money earners. We get to hear about how some real life athletes outside of the top two are affected after their education, but they don’t go into how those programs are funded and how they could survive if the players earned some damn income relative to the income they bring in. It was more noticeable thanks to going to the NCAA museum where they showed many sports, but again, didn’t really talk about them.

Either way, this is another documentary, and many more people, explaining why the current system is fucked up, and maybe, eventually, more people will realize it.

When they first announced The Angry Birds Movie, you couldn’t have paid me to see the prescreening of it. That is because I was steadily employed when it was first announced. Now, when the actually prescreening occurred, I would have gladly accepted money to go to it. Alas, if I went I would have had to go for free and that still wasn’t good enough.

Now I played Angry Birds before. Yeah, like, in 2010, really early after it came out. I had an Android phone and it was 100% free, with a lot of components to it, so yeah, I played the shit out of it. Then I eventually stopped caring. I hated the space game, hated the star wars one, and well, just stopped caring, and never looked back.

At the same time I was annoyed by all the clothing and merchandising that was suddenly existing. It was just a small phone game, why would someone want a backpack with them on it? Oh well, I ignored it and then hey, six years after the game, a movie appeared.

Needless to say, waiting for it on DVD was always a safe bet for me.

Oh yeah, they really captured his anger there.

Red (Jason Sudeikis), is a bird, and he is angry. Everyone else on this island is happy, but not him. He is pissed off. All the minor things really piss him off. And after a series of incidents, he has found himself face first in an egg, so now the chick thinks he is its daddy. So the family goes to court over the incident and the judge (Keegan-Michael Key) sentences him to Anger Management class, the harshest sentence!

At the class, it is run by a white bird named Matilda (Maya Rudolph). He also meets a yellow bird who is incredibly fast, Chuck (Josh Gad), a big black bird who explodes sometimes, Bomb (Danny McBride), and a very, very large red bird who doesn’t talk a whole lot, Terence (Sean Penn).

But wait! A ship appears over the ocean. On it, a large pig named Leonard (Bill Hader), bringing gifts and technology to their small area. Everyone loves them, except for Red, because his house gets damaged in their arrival and he doesn’t let it go. All of the other birds get annoyed at Red’s anger and basically make him leave. Red decides that something must be up, as more and more pigs are arriving every day. He decides to bring Chuck and Bomb with him on a quest to find the Mighty Eagle (Peter Dinklage), famed super bird who can FLY to help save the day.

And if that doesn’t work, well, then maybe they will have to fix things on their own before everything goes sour.

Also featuring voice work from Kate McKinnon, Tituss Burgess, Hannibal Buress, Tony Hale, and Ike Barinholtz.

Oh, that pig is a king too. Royalty. King Leonard, the majestically hammy.

If you couldn’t tell, I went into this movie expecting to hate it. A franchise that has become both forgettable and annoying, about a game with not a lot of plot. It seemed like a cash grab (and regardless of quality, it is still that). Judging from the animation style, I expected it to be just as annoying as most of the Minions movies have been.

And then I laughed. I laughed quite a few times. I was surprised at how much humor they actually smushed into the film. It has a pretty standard 90 minute-ish run time, but there are so many things going on, almost at all times. It was made for the ADHD crowd. Background jokes, frontground jokes, puns, double meanings, and more. And of course globs of reference humor. The last time I saw this many jokes in an animated film was Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2.

Despite how quick everything went, it still also took its time, surprisingly. It took almost a whole hour into the film before the pigs finally went bad and did the bad stuff, leaving just the last act to chase them down and tear down their city in retaliation, aka, the angry birds game part. Normally that would be an issue but time surprisingly flew by.

Heh, like the birds when you sling them.

The Angry Birds Movie has a shitty title and a shitty franchise, but damn it, it was a pretty funny film and a decent experience. It won’t change the animated world, but it will make you giggle.