Gorgon Reviews

If you are reading this and feel confused, don’t be. Yes, I had the nerve to post a fake review. You can read it here, and should. And I did it before. I did a fake review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with fake spoilers. Those were good times, before I had the ability to even see movies early.

But no, now I will really review God’s Not Dead 2. I had to pay money to see this one though. I had to go to a Thursday night screening, and thanks to soccer practice, I had to wait for the 10 pm showing. I had to watch previews and spend like $10, it was terrible.

Why? Well, I wanted to have some integrity in my fake review. If I made a fake review with just the trailer, I would have missed side plots and subtleties and you would have seen right through it. So instead I had to give myself just 3 hours of sleep that day and write a silly review for a silly joke holiday. But don’t worry. This is the real one. This one will pull out all the stops.

Yeah, you might want to wipe that grin away from your face.

GND2 takes place not only after the first film, but in the same basic location. Which turns out is Houston? In a made up high school instead of a made up college. The exploits of the first guy were heard large and wide, but Christianity was still being shunned.

Enter happy go lucky Grace (Melissa Joan Hart). Nothing gets her down except for not being able to help her students. Like Brooke (Hayley Orrantia), from an atheist family. She lost her brother six months ago and her parents (Maria Canals-Barrera, Carey Scott) seemed to have already gotten over it and are harassing her to get into a good college. So she goes to Grace outside of school to ask for help and she talks about Jesus. This is fine of course. Brooke also finds a bible in her brother’s room. He was secretly religious!

Later on at school, Grace is teaching about non violent protesters, MLK and Gandhi, and Brooke asks if it is similar to what Jesus spoke about. Non violence stuff. Sure. Why not. Brooke says yes, cites her source, and moves on. Some nameless kid apparently complains because later Grace has to meet with the school board over preaching in class! She refuses to apologize to avoid punishment, and they don’t want to fire her over it, but they decide to let the ACLU take her to court. They apparently really really want this battle.

The ACLU lawyer (Ray Wise) actually goes to Brooke’s parents to get them to be the main plantiff. Brooke is a minor so she has no say. They agree, because it might help her get into college. And now the ACLU can make an example of Grace, take her for everything she has and get a precedent about any Jesus talk in the classroom.

Also in this movie. Paul Kwo returns as a Chinese atheist turned Christian with many questions. David A.R. White is still a pastor who refuses to give his sermons to the government and serves on the jury. Benjamin A. Onyango is back, because fuck it. And Trisha LaFache is back as a reporter, with her cancer gone because she found Jesus. She doesn’t really have a purpose in this film at all.

We also have Robin Givens as the principal, Jesse Metcalfe as Grace’s lawyer who doesn’t believe either, Pat Boone as Grace’s old dad, Ernie Hudson as the judge, and Sadie Robertson as Brooke’s best friend and the niece of Trisha’s character.

Letting God be your witness sounds nice, but doesn’t help you in the court.

Fppppptbtbtbb.

What in the actual fuck. Let me first say that God’s Not Dead is the worse movie. It ends with one character homeless, abandoned by family (/beaten a little bit), but finding Jesus so its okay. A reporter getting Cancer despite finding Jesus, and the teacher losing, accepting everything, and still finding Jesus in time to get killed right away. It was a complete mess.

This film is also a complete mess, but with less death. Now, one obvious problem with this movie is that they take a normal teaching situation that in no way, anywhere, would there ever be an issue with it. That helps drive the point home I guess, because everyone watching it knows she is innocent and the trial becomes extremely ridiculous because of it. Of course we are on her side, the writers suck and are implying that this type of thing happens all the time. It almost makes every argument the movie tries to make invalid because they didn’t even try to present something plausible.

Like the first film.

They made the ACLU guy out to be some huge evil villain. He probably eats babies. He scowls and twirls his imaginary mustache when he tells the parents before the trial that they will “for once and all finally prove that GOD IS DEAD!” I had to imagine some lightning bolts in the background, it really helped.

But literally the trial isn’t about Jesus existing or not. The entire trial is a bad sham that flows in no logical way. First of all, Grace’s main defense is she did nothing wrong and wasn’t preaching in the classroom. They decide (half way through the trial) that their best defense is to prove a historical Jesus, which means she can mention Jesus in a history class. Makes sense. However, all of the uproar outside of the trial is about religion in the classroom and whether Christians can talk about Jesus in a religious way. Grace isn’t arguing she should be able to do that, she knows when it is appropriate and never suggested preaching should be in the classroom. Or mandatory school prayer. Or anything.

So guess what. She wins in the end. Not by proving the historic Jesus. But because of having a break down when her own lawyer verbally attacks her to talk about her faith. He goes super mean, making everyone feel bad and going to her side. That’s right, they don’t even try to win the trial in a good way. They do something that wouldn’t be allowed in a trial (because treating your witness as “hostile” doesn’t mean yelling and screaming a fit) and end it in the worst way. It is so damn stupid.

As a follow up, Brooke couldn’t talk to the teacher the whole time (because reasons?), and when she finally does, it is after the trial. Everyone is gone after the verdict, but she says no, go spread the word. Somehow Brooke gets out of the courthouse first, before eager reporters and everything, to scream out that “GOD’S NOT DEAD!” to hundreds of Christian supporters for a big party. They were there, silently protesting while atheist people yelled and called names the whole time. Of course, the trial didn’t conclude anything about the legitimacy of religion.

And if the religious people say it was a win for religions, then they missed the point of Grace’s defense and the fact that she did nothing wrong. So they are pretty hypocritical. Celebrating in that way seems to imply that Grace did preach in class and it is now allowed. It is all nonsensical.

I need another picture in here. My bad.

I think that is all I needed to rant about the trial. So here are other annoyances.

One side plot is Paul Kwo finding his new religion difficult to grasp. He doesn’t stop going to classes or anything, he just is also Christian. So we have a scene where his dad comes right off the plane from China, still in his business suit, to yell at him and tell him he has disappointed his family and not his son anymore. Because he became Christian without changing any other aspect of his life. It is ridiculous. A few scenes later, his character decides to become a pastor, which changes his future and would then warrant maybe a father coming to yell at his son for throwing his life away. But the events are all out of order here.

Trisha LaFache’s reporter is useless here. She is a bad spiritual guide or something. But what is strange about her involves Duck Dynasty. A show and cast that are real in this film. She interacted with them in the first film. So they decide to make Brooke’s BFF her niece as well, just to fit her in. And that girl is played by Sadie Robertson, a real life member of the Duck Dynasty clan, who is even on the show. That is both awkward given her plot, and bad given it breaks the immersion having a real person in the world as an actress playing someone new.

Finally, the pastor Dave plot line is all over the place. He gets sick, is super busy, has to be on the jury, but also has to give his sermons to the government for reasons. Why? They only really have one quick scene to explain it, and it is gone in the blink of an eye. A line is uttered that “they tried it in Houston!” to explain its relevance. However, we know that this movie also takes place in Houston, so…

Anyways, Dave refuses to turn in his sermons and instead turns in a letter. After that scene, the movie forgets about it and credits roll. It was a bad way to set up a future movie, again, based on a non real issue. However we did get a post credit scene of the pastor getting arrested for not turning in sermons. Ah, there it goes. God’s Not Dead 3, eventually. Setting up their cinematic universe.

This film has a lot of issues. It brings up real historians and lies about what they said about Jesus. It attempts in no way to actually prove anything through the trial, going for cheap entertainment and to make an echo chamber instead of actually producing any meaningful change.

From the director of Once and Begin Again comes Sing Street!

If you are a Houston resident, you can click the link below to Gofobo to claim ADVANCED PASSES for

Passes are limited, so get them quickly before they are all gone! It is in the bigger downstairs theater and it is impressive screen to watch a movie on if you have never been before!

SING STREET takes us back to 1980s Dublin seen through the eyes of a 14-year-old boy named Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) who is looking for a break from a home strained by his parents’ relationship and money troubles, while trying to adjust to his new inner-city public school where the kids are rough and the teachers are rougher. He finds a glimmer of hope in the mysterious, über-cool and beautiful Raphina (Lucy Boynton), and with the aim of winning her heart he invites her to star in his band’s music videos. There’s only one problem: he’s not part of a band…yet. She agrees, and now Conor must deliver what he’s promised – calling himself “Cosmo” and immersing himself in the vibrant rock music trends of the decade, he forms a band with a few lads, and the group pours their heart into writing lyrics and shooting videos. Inspired by writer/director John Carney’s (ONCE, BEGIN AGAIN) life and love for music, SING STREET shows us a world where music has the power to take us away from the turmoil of everyday life and transform us into something greater.

Sigh, my first review of an Alan Rickman film since his passing.

Unlike other stars, Rickman only had two films in post production at the time of his death. This film, Eye in the Sky, and Alice Through the Looking Glass, which he is just the voice of the caterpillar.

That makes Eye in the Sky his last live action role, so arguably his last film ever. Such a shame, because these films tend to be a bit stinky, and not knowing anything about the plot, I doubt it will have a good send off for his character like they had for Robin Williams in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. Heck, or even anything like Paul Walker in Furious 7.

No, this will probably just be a normal role, nothing fancy, but hopefully not forgettable. Because screw the Alice movie.

Rest in peace you beautiful bastard.

Drone warfare. A lot of problems with it, morally, ethically, and so on. It basically can turn war into a video game, where we have no one on the other side getting hurt, and we can hurt them without impunity. Terrorist in a house? Bomb the house! If the house had civilians in it, then whoops! And then we move on.

Eye in the Sky is about one fictional attack.

Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is a British agent who has been leading a task force looking for Ayesha AL-Hady (Lex King) and a few other people on their East African most wanted list. Ayesha is actually a British citizen who has gone against her country to become a terrorist in Nigeria. They hear about a meeting between her, her husband (also in the top 5 wanted list), and a few others taking place. So they get the local Nigerian police force to help them set up a sting, with their “eyes in the sky” coming from an American drone, piloted by Steve Watts (Aaron Paul).

But things don’t go as they have planned. A few of them get in a car and change meeting location to a heavily militarized neighborhood, so the Nigerians cannot enter without starting a huge battle with many casualties. This was supposed to be a capture mission for these people to stand trial. A local Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi) has to go undercover with a tiny bug drone to see inside the new house, where they find the members of their list, and material for suicide bomb vests. Shit. This changes everything. If they are setting up to go blow up a shopping center, maybe hundreds of lives are at stake. And since they cannot get a force in their easily, they might just have to bomb the building.

Can they do that? Can they go from a capture to a kill mission? Do they have clearance? Does the fact that American and British citizens in the house change things? Or, how bout the presence of a little neighborhood girl, selling bread right outside of the house? Well, jeez. I wouldn’t want to have to make these decisions, and apparently most other people in this film agree.

A lot of people are in this. On the British soldier/bureaucrat side we have: Iain Glen, Babou Ceesay, Alan Rickman, Monica Dolan, Jeremy Northam, and Richard McCabe. Some of our Americans are played by Phoebe Fox and Gavin Hood (the director)! And our locals on the ground crew and its citizens are: Ebby Weyime, Armaan Haggio, Aisha Takow, Faisa Hassan, and Vusi Kunene.

His gamer tag has to be “CaptainNow,” just look at him!

Yes, this really is a film just about a single fictional drone strike, and a whole lot of people talking about it. In terms of action scenes, there is really only one actual scene. It had running and guns firing and lasted mere minutes. The rest of the film was talking, and people waiting to talk.

And it was somehow the most intense feeling ever. I was literally on the edge of my seat throughout the film, only leaning back when I had to laugh nervously or get a small “whew’ in before something else went wrong. A rollercoaster of words.

You will get mad at characters, cheer certain ones on, and then quickly change your mind five minutes later. They really examine this whole situation, and every time a wrench is throne, it is unbelievable.

But the best part of Eye in the Sky, is that it never really says that one way is right and the other is wrong. Yes, a decision is made, and the decision affects dozens of people, not including those who are actually in Nigeria. It gave a lot of respect to both arguments for drone strikes, way more than say, London Has Fallen, who just hamfisted its opinion into us with a scream of “FREEDOM!”

Good news Alan Rickman. Your last live action film didn’t suck. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go marathon Harry Potter and cry everytime.

If you don’t know who Hank Williams is, then you are probably not an American. Or at least not a Southern American. Which is okay in either regards, we will take all readers here at Gorgon Reviews.

He was a pretty big deal in the country music industry, and since Walk The Line got to be a big deal, it makes sense to see other country legends getting their own biopics. Hell, even the titles are similar with I Saw The Light. Verb the Noun and titled after real songs.

Here is really what I know about this film. It was supposed to be a big deal, was liked in festivals, and supposed to come out during awards season last year. But it was delayed until April the next year. Something happened along the way and the people in charge no longer thought the film was as good as they had hoped. Real shame. More British people should be playing Country superstars, after all.

There’s an Avengers joke around here somewhere.

Let’s talk about Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston), a young country singer from Alabama. The movie begins with him marrying Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen) at an auto shop. This is her second marriage and she already has a daughter, but this is real love. And besides, she is going to join him on some songs and on the radio show he gets to sing for.

Well, her singing ain’t as pretty as her face, and that causes some problems, including his own support for her dreams. But Hank has his own dreams. He wants to play at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville someday, his Carnegie Hall, basically. Yeah, sure, he is just 23 or so, but he thinks he can make it. He just has to get more publicity and hit songs. With Audrey as his manager, he gets some singles and CDs, but eventually gets the help of Fred Rose (Bradley Whitford), who helps get him to the Opry with his hit cover of Lovesick Blues.

And then everyone becomes a Hank Williams country fan! Everyone! Which means more alcohol problems for Hank. He also gets some back problems too, which leads to a bit of pain killer drug abuse. And all the constant traveling and depression puts strains on his relationships with his wife and children.

Uhh, yeah, and then the movie is about the problems Hank faced. Including his extra lady problems, including Billie (Maddie Hasson) and Bobbie (Wrenn Schmidt), his mother (Cherry Jones) and his favorite band mate friend guy (Wes Langlois).

Ladies loved Hank, but not as much as Hank loved the ladies.

Hank WIlliams is actually a tragic figure in the country scene. His life was short, but he did a whole lot in that life and helped shape country music forever. I Saw The Light could have been a pretty dark tale, with some great acting and hardships on the screen, with the occassional tune to keep us on our toes. But instead, I Saw The Light is just a mess of a film, dull and boring from the get go.

For sake of keeping things honest, there was a moment where I fell asleep during the film. It was early on when the film was going nowhere, at most I missed the amount a bathroom break would cause.

I really cannot comment on how much Hiddleston looks or sounds like the actual Hank Williams, but I will say Hiddleston had an impressive American Country voice that surprised me. The songs in the movie weren’t bad and probably the most enjoyable element. Hiddleston had a goofy grin most of the time and made everything look very fun.

I listened to the official soundtrack for the film however, and it is horrible. Half of the songs on it are not performed by Hiddleston, but background tracks in the movie. Because of that, not every song they actually sing in the film made it to the soundtrack. None of the songs that feature Audrey, not the beautiful Cold Cold Heart that opened the film, not even his version of Lovesick Blues. It is a travesty.

And one more thought on the music. This film is called I Saw The Light. It wasn’t made by Williams, but he did sing it and make it pretty famous. And you know what? Williams doesn’t sing the name sake song in the whole damn movie. Sure it shows up near the end. It is a good rendition too, but one that carries absolutely no emotional weight behind it thanks to the piss poor editing and story decisions the movie makers made.

Like I said. The music is mostly fine, but the story is choppy and the directing and editing decisions are bad. I don’t always know what is happening. It sometimes feels like a made for TV family bio film, then we get random boobs and Fuck to show that it is actually an R film. They can only imply an abortion and usually only imply infidelity. It is probably one of the worst examples of trying to show the bad sides of a celebrity while actively ignoring it at the same time.

This is not the film Hank Williams deserves.

When God’s Not Dead came out in 2014, it was a complete joke. It was a very low budget Christian faith film. It was based on a shitty internet story, not any form of reality. It was supposed to be made and ignored but people flocked to see it so it became a wide release to get some of that sweet sweet money. It was a bad effort.

Needless to say, I and everyone else was extremely skeptical about news of a sequel. What would God’s Not Dead 2 be about? Would it be an unrelated different religious story or it would it be a direct follow up with our old main character destroying more professors? If it is a direct follow up, would it tie up any of the many loose ends of the first film?

Or would it just be a cash grab given the success of the first. The scariest option. More of the same. I shudder at the thought.

So does blank stare Sabrina.

Remember Martin (Paul Kwo), the Chinese student who had the nerve to learn about and believe in Jesus in the first film? Well he is back! So is Amy Ryan (Trisha LaFache) the liberal reporter who got the cancer, and of course Reverend Dave (David A.R. White) and Reverend Jude (Benjamin A. Onyango). But I won’t go into their back stories. Because we have a new hero.

Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan-Hart), an optimistic and great History teacher at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. High School (that’s relevant). In particular, she teachers AP History as well. One of her students, Brooke (Hayley Orrantia), has been having a hard time after her brother died six months ago. She cannot get over it and it is affecting her grades. Her parents (Carey Scott, Maria Canals-Barrera) have gotten over it however and it is because they are atheists. She isn’t Christian, she just doesn’t know. But she talks to Grace outside of school and finds out her brother had a bible. So she starts finding out about Jesus. Which is why during a lesson on MLK and Gandhi, Brooke asks (during class!) if it was the same non-violent approach mentioned by Jesus. And Grace answers. And everyone moves on.

Nope, just kidding. A student brings it up and a complaint is made. The principal (Robin Givens) can’t do anything about it, the school board just wants an apology, but Grace refuses because she does nothing wrong. There is nothing left to do but to go to trial over it then. Where the school board can watch and make decisions from it, because the ACLU has agreed to do this case because they want precedent to make sure God cannot be in schools ever again. Their lawyer (Ray Wise) is a bad bad dude.

So Grace gets a lawyer from her union, Tom (Jesse Metcalfe), a non religious man. And they have to argue that not only was she not preaching, but she was talking about the historical Jesus (and prove he existed) which is why he should be able to be mentioned in AP History. They just have to convince a very good jury who are out for blood.

Also featuring Pat Boone as Grace’s old father, Ernie Hudson as the judge, and Sadie Robertson as Brooke’s BFF.

The face you make when people are mean butts and you just want to not be there.

Harold Cronk, you beautiful genius. You drag us in with the first film by creating a phenomenon out of nowhere, just to build a fan base. Make that sweet sweet cash. He took all that money and wanted to build something bigger out of it. So for the sequel he has better cameras. Someone who knows the word cinematograhy. And better actors. Come on, Ernie Hudson as the judge is brilliant. And having Melissa Joan Hart, a person most well known for explaining things and being a witch, and making her become religious can only be described as genius. No one cared when Kevin Sorbo was an atheist professor, because that makes sense. He used to play a damn demi-god!

Not only are the cameras and cast better, but the script is better as well. The film brings back older characters to tie up the loose ends created in the first film. We now know why the Asian guy was initially afraid of Jesus. We know what happened to the reporter who got the cancer. We know that Duck Dynasty lived on to see another day. We don’t know what happened to the Muslim girl who became homeless due to changing religion, but eh, who cares, she used to be Muslim.

Last but not least, the court room drama. Never have I bit my nails so much. The tension was high as the two lawyers battled over jury dominance. Both sides argued so well, but the Jesus side argued much better. Everything they said was 100% right and factual. Based on the film, I can only hope that a case like this really does open up in the courts, because it would be a landslide victory for religion and its role in government. Fuck, it was so good I am basically a believer now.

Gods Not Dead 2 may be the most important film of the year and will change a lot of people’s minds about faith.

I first heard about Meet The Patels months ago, and that is because an alumnus from my High School was the director! Now, she went there 14 years before me or so, but it was still cool. We got quite a few newsletters letting us know it was going to theaters and eventually Netflix.

Despite the connection though, I won’t be biased favorable for it. If anything, I might be biased against it. Because despite our school connection and being a member of the press, they wouldn’t give me a press screening to watch the film. What a bunch of jerks.

Patel is apparently a very popular Indian last name. Our story is about Ravi Patel, who is about to turn 30 and is currently unmarried. Unmarried and Indian! At that age! Oh no! His parents were part of an arranged marriage of course, after his dad had already moved to India. His wife was the 12th match and they knew it would work. And the mom is also quite good at arranging marriages, so it looks bad that her son hasn’t even had a girlfriend in 30 years!

But…but Ravi has had a girlfriend. He was dating a white ginger chick for two whole years without his family knowing about it. But he had an “Indian” problem and some commitment issues, so they ended it right before the documentary. The “Indian” problem is that he has always pictured himself marrying an Indian woman and knows it is what his family wants.

So he goes to his parents and agrees for them to work on arranging a marriage for him.

A photo of them taking a photo! Madness.

Now, arranged marriages aren’t like they used to be. The parents had to print out a bio sheet on their son and send it all around the country to friends and family, all of which passed it on. At the same time, the parents began to receive information on ladies across America. They sort through the ladies and give him women they think he will enjoy. He just has to go on a date with the woman and they decide on their own if they want to date any more in the future. If not, the parents keep trying and keep hooking them up with company.

And Ravi’s sister, Geeta, is there the whole time to document and film the whole thing. Weddings, Indian dating sites, and speed dating at Patel reunions. No it’s no weird. Basically everyone is a Patel, and most Patel’s just marry other Patel’s from different parts of India.

As a documentary, this story is about Ravi, but he isn’t really an interesting character. What makes the documentary interesting is learning about modern Indian American dating customs. The levels the parents go through to provide for their children. That is what an average viewer will appreciate about this documentary.

Ravi’s story on its own is…well, predictable. If you know how stories work, you can probably figure out how this thing will end already. I hope it was actually a real story and not a scheme done by the brother/sister to make it seem like a better story. But who can really say?

Meet The Patels is the type of documentary you might want to put on while working on other projects, not bothering to pause it if you need to run to the water closet. An average story about average people, with some nice culture aspects occasionally thrown in.

Happy Holidays from the end of March!

I wanted to see Krampus when it came out early in December, but unfortunately there weren’t any prescreenings for the film. Guess they assumed critics would hate it, or not get the point, man.

Either way, I was disappointed, but not disappointed enough to spend money on going to the film. December is busy for awards movies, not comedy horror films!

But the idea of a Krampus movie was very exciting. I haven’t even seen a Christmas horror film since Rare Exports years ago, which was wonderful and you should consider adding it to your Christmas collection.

But this one has scary clowns, so you know it might be more horror than comedy.

It’s Christmas time, yay! We are going to celebrate at the Engel household with their family coming over. Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) have to make sure their house is clean, food cooked and everything decorated for Santa. After all, their kid Max (Emjay Anthony) still believes despite being like 10 or something. Also living in the house is their older daughter Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Omi (Krista Stadler), Tom’s mom. She speaks German!

Anyways, the family eventually comes over. Rednecks. Howard (David Koechner), Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), and Linda (Allison Tolman) with some dick kids (Queenie Samuel, Lolo Owen) and a baby.

Needless to say, the other boy kids tease poor Max for believing in Santa. They find his letter to Santa and read it outloud, making fun of his wishes for things like his parents to love each other more, and so on. He gets mad and rips up his letter throwing it into the wind! And with that, the power in the whole city goes out. And the winter storm gets a little bit more wintry.

Strange things are afoot. But let’s just cut to the chase. People have ruined Christmas. Krampus is here to punish them.

Damn grandma, you are brave enough to take on the Krampus alone?

When you go into a comedy horror film, you can never really expect a whole lot. They rarely have large budgets and are never really too funny or too scary. Krampus seems to fit the bill like the other ones, with a slightly more impressive budget.

I feel bad for Adam Scott, who often is put into these sort of roles (see Piranha) and lower budget comedies (see Hot Tub Time Machine 2). He is a funny guy who keeps getting stuck in bad to mediocre films.

Krampus at times is a little scary. Toys come to life in a very The Nightmare Before Christmas way. The Krampus itself felt downplayed with most of the work being done by creepy helper demon things. But knowing that even the kids weren’t safe was a nice surprise that a lot of films seem to avoid.

As for the comedy, well, there really wasn’t any. The comedy came from strange things happening, like CGI gingerbread men attacking them. No other real jokes outside of the weird factor, which is the most disappointing aspect of the film.

It did an okay job at the scary parts, but failed when it came to making me chuckle.

The male stripper film sensation has really taken off. Three in just a few years! What an exciting new genre. I can only imagine that soon these will be marketed towards teenagers and driving big summer franchises based on “novels” and produced by Lionsgate!

Why did I want to see Chocolate City? Well first of all, I try to watch all the dance movies. Even after seeing the disgusting Battlefield America.

Second, come on, it is basically being advertised as the Black Magic Mike. Outside of bad Marlon Wayan parodies, if your film can be described as the black version of another film, then generally it could be very entertaining. Because it isn’t just an actor swap, it is a complete genre shift, with different issues and different goals.

They can create something wonderful. Or they could create something forgettable, like Peeples.

Or they could stare deeply into your soul and take it when you are most vulnerable.

Michael (Robert Ri’chard) is in college, on a partial scholarship, and working at a local diner as a chef. He has friends, rides a bike, and does good in school. And he can dance. That is important. But things aren’t looking super good at his house. His mother (Vivica A. Fox) is struggling to pay bills, and his older brother who lives at home (DeRay Davis) doesn’t have a job either. So funds are barely coming in, but he is told not to worry, he needs to work on his school work.

Despite his mom’s wishes, he gets some overtime at work. But in a bathroom, he also meets a man named Princeton (Michael Jai White), who offers him some working gig. So Michael grabs his brother and they meet up with Princeton at his club. They expect to be in line for bouncer or server or something, but sure enough, he runs a male stripper club, and it is amateur night. Since they already came all this way and Michael has muscles, he hits the stage, and makes a ton of dollar bills.

This is something he can really start to enjoy. All the attention, even if he has a girlfriend (Eurika Pratts), the money to help his family, and the money to help himself. He can be Sexy Chocolate, a terrible dancing name, but it is what it is. He just has to lie to everyone about where it is coming from and make sure people know it isn’t drugs. Hooray!

Also starring Tyson Beckford, Darrin Dewitt Hensen, Ginuwine, Ernest Thomas, Carmen Electra, and of course, Jean-Claude La Marre.

They had to train for a big group dance. Because Magic Mike.

Chocolate City knows it is the “black Magic Mike” and they run with it. Hell, they make two references to the film, one almost instantly. Which again, is not an issue as long as they tell their own story and make it believable or entertaining or decent.

But they didn’t. They went one of the cheap routes, and gave us a lazy movie hoping to monetize off the success of another film. Damn.

First of all, the dancing in this film was lackluster and mostly missing. A lot of shots show their dancers only from the waste up, especially our main character early on. I can’t imagine him becoming a big success, when we never really get to see him show off his moves. They have him and the other dancers starring straight at the camera, in order to make you few like a patron I guess, which is more awkward than interesting.

Some of the non-star dancers we can see dancing, but even then, the choreography is lame or very simple. The ladies in these clubs apparently just rain down the dollar bills for barely anything as if they have endless purses.

Say what you will about Magic Mike, but the excellent dancing was half the point.

I have no idea what is up with this director, Jean-Clause La Marre. He has directed and produced a lot of films, all low budget, and a lot of them where he stars in them as a Pastor Jones character. He really likes to play a preacher I guess. It is comical looking at his IMDB page and quite clear he might not be the most qualified person to direct an entertaining male stripper film.

Our characters aren’t really relatable. The main star is a dumb ass who lies to everyone. And eventually, of course, he sees the light and realizes he should stop. Of course. Except the very last scene ruins any amount of character development he might have gained by the end, turning the whole film into a quick “just kidding!” joke.

I am disappointed with Michael Jai White too. I enjoy him for the most part, and he is playing the Matthew McConaughey role, but it never really pays out or has that level of professionalism.

I guess I will just see where it goes, because coming this year, Chocolate City: Vegas!

I could never really get into Red vs Blue, but I also never really got into Halo. There could be a correlation there! I tried probably three times to start Red Vs Blue, but never finished season 1 despite liking it. Then years later I would try again, and of course start over to understand the “plot”, eventually stop before season 1 ended, and it continued on and on.

That being said, I am not entirely familiar with anything else Rooster Teeth has done. But they did make a movie, Lazer Team, and after being in theaters for only two weeks, it was released on YouTube Red. YouTube Red is a subscription based YouTube service that has no ads and lets you run it in the background on your phone as a music player. And hey, it has some original shows and movies on there as well, with Lazer Team being one of its first major films to be released on the platform.

How neat!

I mean, none of this says anything about how good it is. But it does show how neat it is.

I expect a piles of lasers in a movie with this title. All kinds too. Especially the pew pew variety.

In the 1970’s, the US government received a message from aliens and were able to secretly decode it. They found out that eventually an alien race would come to destroy the Earth. But in order to help them, the Antareans would send them a single power suit a few days before they get there so they would have a chance. So they found a gifted baby and raised him to be the perfect man. Adam (Alan Ritchson) would be the strongest, fastest, and smartest person they could develop, and he would save the Earth one day!

Or not. Now in modern day, after a series of events, we have a few modern slackers and dummies in the same spot. Hagan (Burnie Burns) is a low level sheriff in the small town and hasn’t ever done anything great with his life. He has in his custody Zach (Michael Jones), a talented high school football quarterback, who has the hots for Hagan’s daughter (Alexandria DeBerry) and is an idiot. Herman (Colton Dunn) used to be a quarterback at the high school, but couldn’t go on to college or pro because Hagan missed a block in their last game, giving him a permanent leg injury. And Woody (Gavin Free) is Herman’s dumb friend.

Due to alcohol and arguing, they accidentally end up shooting a UFO out of the sky, before it can make it to the military base. They discover the suit and begin to put the pieces on. Hagan gets a glove that makes a shield, Zach a glove that can shoot lasers, Herman some boots that can make him fast, and Woody a helmet that will eventually make him smarter. They of course don’t know any of this at the time, but eventually the pieces once activated merged themselves permanently to their body.

Which of course means, this group of losers have a few days to figure out how to work as a team, because they are now the only hope the world has. Also featuring Steve Shearer as the main military commander.

Only one of them even has a laser! How sad.

Lazer Team is a small budget sci-fi comedy, and knowing that helps lower your expectations going in. This is not going to be Turbo Kid, which is also an indie film, but had a lot behind it to make it something special. No, this is a movie where plot and effects are secondary, what the creators and actors are really after are the laughs. They want to make you giddy and smile.

And on that note, they still only do just an okay job.

The main character by Burnie Burns (aka one of the greatest names ever), the writer of this film and main member of Rooster Teeth, is playing the straight man so he rarely has the better moments. He is extremely passive and throughout the film I never really get behind him to root for him. No, the only character I care about is Zach, the dumb ass quarterback, because he is the funniest one. Michael Jones looks like a poor mans Adam Devine, but he works well in this film.

They had one character who isn’t smart, get the helmet to make him super smart. Unfortunately, a lot of those jokes don’t have a huge effect, because we barely knew him as a dumb character before the changes started. It did lead to some nice jokes, but most fell flat given the lack of history with him.

Even though the jokes were only just okay, I did end up liking the ending of the film. Some good action and explanation happen and it is an ending that can make one look forward to future films. Just disappointed that some of the action scenes earlier on didn’t seem to pack as much punch.

Oh well. Okay film, good first try, do better next time or I will come down on you with the rage of a lower-tier film critic!

The hardest part about understanding Krisha, before watching it, is pronouncing the title correctly. Did you have an “n” in the title? I called it Krishna for days before watching it and realizing I was wrong.

Krisha is also apparently a name. What a time to be alive!

And uhhh. I uhhh. I have nothing else to say about this movie. Let’s just get into it.

First scene unfortunately reminds me of Army of Darkness.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time where people eat food and watch football and get ready to shop before and after. The most American holiday. More American than Christmas, because Christmas is mostly about spending money, and only somewhat about eating, with zero football. Some people also spend time with family, but they are weird.

This is one of those weird families!

Krisha (Krisha Fairchild) hasn’t had a Thanksgiving with her family in ten years. She is old though and they have invited her back after some problems. She isn’t even the oldest one there! Her mom (Billie Fairchild) will be there too.

And well, most of it is normal Thanksgiving things. A big ass turkey. Food prep. Horse play. Watching pornos. The normal stuff.

And a lot of talking. But eventually, in the final 20-30 minutes, some drama will happen and yelling and bad things.

Also featuring, well, fuck it, here is the whole cast: Atheena Frizzell, Augustine Frizzell, Bill Wise, Bryan Casserly, Chase Joliet, Chris Doubek, Olivia Grace Applegate, Rose Nelson, Alex Dobrenko, Robyn Fairchild, and Victoria Fairchild.

Yep, just talking and smoking. Thanksgiving is the best.

I posted the full cast list for a reason. First of all, I don’t really remember the names of the family members that were actually important. Most of them do not have IMDB pictures so that makes it difficult to really figure it out.

And secondly, at least half of the cast is related. Half of the cast play characters with their same first name. It is clear for the most part this film is about a real family that, for all I know, is actually experiencing these same issues. So the director or writer did this to add realism to the film. That could be considered genius, I call that lazy.

Half of the cast are not actors, so realism aside, this type of thing shows. Most of them are the background characters, but it is still just a very strange experience.

As for the film, the drama all comes at the end, so most of the first hour of the film is just waiting. Watching people do normal things and have normal conversations. Waiting and waiting. They don’t have you waiting too long, because the film is only 80 minutes, but an hour is still incredibly long.

This movie was based on a short, which I imagine got to the point in a much smaller amount of time. And frankly, they should have kept it this way. Because when the bad things started to happen, and the screaming, it was too little, too late. I lost interest. The acting was fine from our main character, but it didn’t even seem like a big deal.

Krisha is a very forgettable experience, both in terms of story and who is even involved in the project.