Tag: 1 out of 4

How many movies does Adam Sandler do in a year? Usually one right? Maybe two?

Well this year, he stars in three different movies. The Cobbler, Pixels, and now The Ridiculous 6. Sure he is getting older, but those private yachts aren’t going to pay for themselves. And as he does more and more films, he gains more and more friends to have to support on his army of yachts.

This film is a Netflix original movie. Last year he signed a four film deal with the company, and so it will be awhile before his films are released theatrically again.

And uhh. I guess this is Adam Sandler’s take on a western, with a name similar to those other western and samurai movies.

There are rag tag groups and there are shit groups. This group is worse than the later.

White Knife (Sandler) grew up never really knowing his father or his mother. But he is half Native America, despite looking white. And yes, her is freakishly good at using knives. Name explained, boom.

Then one day, an old guy comes to town. Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte), a famous bank robber who was notorious throughout the land. Turns out that is his real daddy. But he needs help. Members of his former gang are going to kill him, unless he pays back money that was stolen from there. The gang is now lead by Cicero (Danny Trejo), and they are ruthless. Frank lies to them about the location, so that White Knife aka Tommy can get the money and put it in the spot before the bad guys get there. Then, after saving his dad’s life, he can enjoy some of that sweet ass quality time he has been hoping for. So he will run off and do that, before he gets married to Smoking Fox (Julia Jones).

Along the way, Tommy finds out that his dad really did get around, by meeting several half brothers. There is Ramon (Rob Schneider), half Mexican with a burro. There is Lil’ Pete (Taylor Lautner), who is half retarded and well. Yeah. Herm (Jorge Garcia) is half…Mongolian or something. He speaks gibberish. There is also Chico (Terry Crews), half Black and a piano player! And finally, Danny (Luke Wilson) who is half an alcoholic and half an American traitor.

Remember when I said Sandler had friends? Yeah, a ton of them are in this movie.

Chris Parnell. Blake Shelton. Harvey Keitel. John Turturro. Jon Lovitz. Nick Swardson. Saginaw Grant. Steve Buscemi. Steve Zahn. Vanilla Ice. And Will Forte!

Lautner’s tooth gap is played by Steve Carell!

I almost forgot to mention the controversy! You know, where Native American extras walked off the set because they found the humor to be racist and demeaning. One would say that isn’t good publicity, but of course we know there is no such thing as bad PR.

In fact, Netflix can only gain from a raunchy Sandler film. No one will cancel their account because it exists, but they will get more international audiences who love the shit out of him still. Win for them, no matter how terrible a film is.

But in all honesty, this film isn’t even super terrible. No, it is really fucking…slightly below average. Sandler’s character is a bit boring, which is true for a lot of his things lately. He is just playing an every guy, who happens to be good at knives I guess. The only reason to watch the film is for the rest of the 5 brothers.

Taylor Lautner playing what amounts of Simple Jack? Fantastic. He was the best part of Grown Ups 2 and one of the best parts of this one as well. I have been know to enjoy Schneider, and I think his performance is one of his better ones lately (again, not saying a lot). Garcia and Crews felt a bit underused, especially Garcia. His character didn’t even make sense.

But really, the movie has bottom of the barrel. I only laughed occasionally, the twists were obvious, and it was just far too long. It looks like they really did try to make a good western parody, but you know. Poop jokes. Under using actors. Some racism. You know what you are getting going into the film, I suspect.

I know I know, why would someone review Chipwrecked when it is in the middle awards caliber movie time? Why something from 2011 at the end of 2015?

Well, I like to review anything I watch that came out within the last 5~ years, that way my recreational viewing isn’t completely “wasted.” And I had to watch a bunch of these movies to prepare for Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, coming out soon! I can’t go into that movie without knowing what happened in the first three movies. I’d be missing out on hours of plot!

As a quick recap, I liked the first movie enough because of the Christmas and Witch Doctor songs. Classic, not just new pop music all chipmunky. It had a bad acting love interest though. The second film was bad, it felt like an episode of a TV show and very little happened. And Zachary Levi was downright terribad. Now we have Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, which I thought was…oh wait. Yeah. Review.

Hmm. Yeah, review. Let’s get on that. This is what the people want.

The gang all here? Dave (Jason Lee) is actually in this movie and not awkwardly replaced by someone who looks like a younger Dave. That’s good. And they are going on a vacation cruise to then go to some vague foreign country for an International Music festival! Huzzah!

We have Theodore (Jesse McCartney), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), Eleanor (Amy Poehler), Jeanette (Anna Faris), Brittany (Christina Applegate), and of course Alvin Alvin Alvin (Justin Long).

But guess what, they get annoying and bad things happen. Next thing you know, they are all stuck on a kite and headed out to sea! Oh no! Not Dave, he can’t be on a kite. But he does jump in after them to save him, getting himself into a pickle as well.

Next thing you know, they are on a deserted island. Not super deserted, because the chipmunks meet Zoe (Jenny Slate), who apparently is a female version of Cast Away and has been on the island for 8-9 years. She is very clean and has a sweet hut.

Eventually a volcano will happen and some other bad things. Simon gets bit by a poisonous spider, which changes his personality to the outgoing Simone (Alan Tudyk), who yes, apparently needs a new actor to speak for him.

Also David Cross is in this one, again, because they need more boring plot lines I guess.

Not to be confused with their sexually confusing plot lines.

The third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie ends up being everything I expected. Which was very little and and bad plot.

But hey, at least some of the songs were good. They packed a bunch in the first half, because they were too busy to sing when “scary” things were occurring. The songs are the only real redemable part.

The villain was lazy and dumb, especially when they already had a volcano. Bringing back Cross was a complete waste, although he ended up having the best lines. I am stoked he isn’t in the next film.

Technically this film seems like it is more about Simon and Jeanette, which is a good change from the Alvin/Brittany show. This makes me hope that the spotlight shifts towards Theodore/Eleanor in the next film, which would make its existence at least a little bit worthwhile.

Hopefully they make it more entertaining than just some catchy song choices and an actual good plot.

What makes a Legend? Is it their walk, their background, their story, their Will Smithy-ness?

Or does it involve being a bad ass mofo mobster, enough that one day someone will make a movie about you?

Like, Whitey, he was bad ass, and Johnny Depp played him in Black Mass.

Is your Legend-ness downplayed if you have to share the spotlight with a partner? Obviously it is easier to become famous if you are a duo act, instead of a solo act. And in Legend, our criminals are real life twins. Which means we get one actor playing two people, which is probably one of my favorite things ever in movies. One of those things you just can’t do in a play.

However this picture makes it look like a bad romcom.

Ronald Kray (Tom Hardy) and Reggie Kray (Tom Hardy) are twins and gangsters and running this small town of London. Well, soon. Ronald just got released from a mental hospital, because a psychiatrist said he was sane after some arm twisting, but he is very messed up. He was some level of schizophrenic, and openly homosexual. He liked the truth. He also wore glasses, which is helpful for telling them apart early on. Reggie, no glasses, wasn’t insane, but still a gangster. He just had a good head on his shoulders, could think things through and wanted to maybe, eventually, go clean.

This story, narrated by Frances Shea (Emily Browning), tells of their rise to actually control the London underground, their falling aparts, their separate arrests, and what finally brought them down to justice. Oh, and she is totally dating Reggie, of course. Because he is the cute one.

Nipper Read (Christopher Eccleston) is the main constable trying to bring him down (and Joshua Hill is his side constable). Adam Fogerty plays their muscle, Shane Attwooll some competition, David Thewlis their business partner, and Taron Egerton one of the gay lovers of Ronald.

No, don’t cry Emily. Yes you have to kiss a killer Tom Hardy. But at least he isn’t wearing a mask.

If there is one reason I am glad to be writing this review, it is that Legend will serve as a great example for future movie reviews. For quite a few films, I have seen great acting in overall mediocre films, which is sad. But rarely do you see great acting in actually bad movies.

Hardy. Is. Excellent. Twice! The brothers are very unique individuals, they talk differently, they have different mannerisms, and one even wears glasses. I actually hard a hard time believing that Hardy was playing Twins because they started to look nothing alike in my eyes. It is such an amazing show being put on him, especially as he seamlessly argues and fights with himself. This isn’t a dumb Parent Trap situation. This is great fucking shit. I will admit I found them hard to understand 70% of the time and would have loved subtitles, but I will take that as my own fault.

The rest of the film falters, and it does so big time. It is too long, over two hours and seemingly drags. I was sitting in the theater just wondering when they would finally mess up and get caught. Hurry up and lose. The narration from Browning felt unattached from the rest of the film and mostly unnecessary. Giving it from her perspective made it feel Romance instead of a Crime/Drama. And I have to mention the music, which I basically never do in a review. The score sounded as if it was taken from a soap opera or an extremely older film. Jazz is one thing, but the music was always painfully obvious and distracting, never helping the scenes out.

This is bad that the acting from Hardy was so good but the rest of the film is meh. Most of you will watch this movie, solely for the fact that Hardy is in it. And you know what? Do that. Watch that man do his best. Watch him work. And then forget the rest.

Gorgon Reviews – Watching Shitty (Terrible) Movies So You Don’t Have To. My long standing tagline and life philosophy. But for the most part, lately, my movies have just been everything in theaters. Some shitty, some not.

This is not a strange indie film. We Are Your Friends a film that was released throughout the US, but no one saw it. Almost no one. At the time of its release, it had the third worse opening for any film with over 2000 theaters showing it. It was the worst for live action movies.

Since it came out, Jem and the Holograms somehow decided to beat its box office records.

So We Are Your Friends only got to live in notoriety for about two months. Now it is second fiddle and now it won’t even be remembered for being never seen.

It may be remembered for having the same name as a famous Justice song though.
(Sweet music video alert)

Cole (Zac Efron) wants to be a great DJ. He is a small time guy, working the local clubs. He thinks he will be big one day. He just needs the perfect first song and the perfect opportunity. He definitely understands DJing though. He knows how to work a crowd, get them moving, and make the optimal BPMs .

He has three friends, Squirrel (Alex Shaffer), Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez), and Mason (Jonny Weston).

They need cash to make their dreams come true. But also, they like to party.

And party they do. They party a lot. And get ladies and stuff. Starring Jon Bernthal as a scummy dude, Wes Bentley as a pompous dude, and Emily Ratajkowski as a woman who doesn’t just want to be there for her looks.

Putting my hands on my head is the only way I know how to dance.

Who doesn’t love Zac Efron? He has successfully turned himself around from pretty boy Disney child into a guy who does what he wants. For the most part, he wants to do risque comedies. He did That Awkward Moment and Neighbors. And he is going to be in the Baywatch movie, which will hopefully be as good as the 21 Jump Street franchise.

But this isn’t risque or really a comedy. I mean, it is supposed to be, but it feels like a terrible drama the whole time. Having attractive women, even ones that show their boobies, does not make it really risque either.

We Are Your Friends has a boring plot, the kind you can figure out within the first fifteen minutes. Any surprises are actually completely random, and most of them serve little to no purpose. The same old romance things happen in this film that happen in all shitty romance movies.

And guess what? Spoilers. He does the song by the end. He makes people dance.

Hip hip fucking hooray. Some good music as the soundtrack though, but literally it felt about 20% of the film was saved for party montages.

Insidious: Chapter 3? CHAPTER 3? This is why we can’t have nice horror movies in America. Gotta fucking franchise everything.

James Wan has even gone down this road before. He directed Saw and watched it drivel into a sorry state of a franchise. He did The Conjuring, which was great, and that followed up by a terrible Annabelle from someone else. This franchise from the first to Chapter 2, I have always found it just okay, but at least he directed the sequel. He didn’t let someone Saw the fuck out of it.

Until now. Now it is directed by his writing friend, Leigh Whannell. So Wan hasn’t completely abandoned it for the super hero films he is now directing, but it is still just another film series that doesn’t need any new material.

What made the news of this sequel even more disappointing was finding out that it was a prequel. Prequels sound great because they can answer questions directly that might have been brought up about the past. But Paranormal Activity 3 tried to do this method and all it did was waste our times and actually answer close to nothing.

Good. A new face to the franchise who won’t affect anything at all.

Hey, that new face has a name. Quinn (Stefanie Scott)! And she has an issue. Her mom died awhile ago and now she thinks her mom might be trying to contact her. She tried the normal methods of contact and nothing worked.

So she found herself on the door steps of Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye). She heard she was a powerful psychic who could talk to those in the afterlife. But an accident in Elise’s life had her retire, vowing to never do it again. But eh, the plot has to move along some how, so she does it anyways. Elise doesn’t like what she sees, so she tells Quinn to never try to contact her mom again.

And guess what? Now Quinn and Elise have a demon fucking with them. It gets worse when Quinn gets hit by a car, breaking her legs. Now she has to rely on her dad (Dermot Mulroney) and younger brother (Tate BerneyT) to take care of her. She has a bell to ring when she needs help, a nice sudden sound making device to make things extra creepy.

This film also shows where Elise meets Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Specs (Leigh Whannell), who of course you would recognize from the previous, set in the future, movies.

When jumping around the time domain, sometimes colors get all sorts of fucky.

What does one do with a drunken franchise, early in the morning? That is the only way I know how to describe Insidious, as its movies attempt to give us something deep but end up just stumbling around all the place, slurring their words, and personally thinking they are the best. The first two films ended up being weird, with a couple of random scares. In Chapter 3, we got the prequel that no one wanted. Did we need to see how Elise and her goons met? No. No we did not. Now, it also alluded that shit went wrong for her in the past, and thankfully they answered that question through dealing with demons in this film. But why not have an actually younger Elise, facing that problem head on before she retired from psychic shit? Actually change up how we see the character?

Instead this film takes place, I don’t know, a year or something before Insidious. If you were reading this as a book, it would be a confusing placement to throw in a flashback chapter for people who have been supporting (albeit important) characters.

Unfortunately, this film is also the weakest of the three in terms of plots and actual scares. It stars a family that I end up feeling nothing for, despite their hardships, because it isn’t the same characters as the first two films. There is no Chapter 4 currently planned, but the director/writer/costar said that if it was, he would probably place it after 3 in the plotline, but before the first. That would officially just turn this series into “Elise and the Boys Para-normally battling demons!” That is fine, but to me that clearly just makes 3 and 4 spin-off films, and it is kind of shit that they are just calling it Insidious.

Most of this review is just arguing semantics. That aside, I didn’t like the film, and thought it was a boring side story from an already meh series.

Ah, horror remakes. We need at least one a year right? We’ve had Carrie, Evil Dead, Fright Night, and many more. It is easy and hip and cool to do. Hell, I know it sounds like I wrote that like a sarcastic asshat, but for those three films in particular I ended up liking them or thinking they were okay enough as a remake. I didn’t hate any of them.

Then Poltergeist flashed its way onto our screens like a lightning bolt. “Not so fast, mother fucker!” it clamored through the speaker box.

I may be jumping the gun with the review, but Poltergeist decided that instead of making a nice modern update with its remake, it would instead just…take more of the same elements from the original, cut out a lot of the horror bits, and instead turn it into more of a Sci-Fi Thriller. Yeah. Fuck the original, right?

And always fuck clowns, obviously. As long as its consensual and not Vulgar.

Big day for the Bowen family! They just got a new house. And hey, it is really low because of the stagnant market. Definitely not because no one would buy it. And it doesn’t have many neighbors. Who cares. They can afford it, which is the most important thing in this economy. They don’t have much of an income right now. The dad, Eric (Sam Rockwell), insists that his wife, Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt) not have to go back to work, because they can totally get through this without that. So yeah, Eric is kind of a dick.

Either way, they have their three kids, Kendra (Saxon Sharbino), Griffin (Kyle Catlett), and Madison (Kennedi Clements), in order of oldest to youngest. Kendra is DGAF oldest sister, so you can ignore her. Madison is the one who starts saying things and talking to entities in her room alone. Griffin is the only one who believes that something weird is happening.

Either way, outside of funky static TV stuff, other electronics are also acting wonky. It turns out that this house used to be built on an Indian Burial site. That was decades ago (Oh man, is this technically a sequel!?). But weird stuff happened and people got angry, so they had to pay a settlment, I think, and agreed to move the graveyard to a different location. Well, then why the fuck are spirits still angry? Why are they somehow bring the barrier between worlds and stealing their youngest daughter?

Also featuring Jane Adams— and Jared Harris.

Maybe this is a metaphor for letting the TV be your nanny?

Poltergeist has about three scary moments in it. Maybe. Calling it a horror film almost feels ludicrious. It has a lot of other things though!

It has a lot of zero character growth. Rockwell’s character is completely cardboard. A completely unrealistic person given anything that happens in the movie, and even more sadly, he doesn’t even dance. The mom and older daughter role are almost completely unimportant.

It is all about little boy and little girl. And occasionally some adult comes around and does something, but when the girl gets sucked away (for a majority of the film I guess), it is mostly up to Catlett to keep us entertained. He does an okay job, in terms of kid stuff. But he cannot save this boring mess of a film.

That’s right. The biggest shame of this remake is not that it isn’t scary, it is the boringness of it all. It honestly feels like they went so light and fluffy with the whole thing that they wanted it to actually be a PG horror film. It was hard to get through because of how uninteresting it became after only 15 or so minutes.

Greetings Ghouls and Boys!

Yes this is a Saturday update, because when people ask me to be part of a Blog-a-thon, I generally become part of that Blog-A-Thon. The lovely folks over at Channel Superhero have decided to host 31 Days of Tales From The Crypt, with 30 or so different reviewers each tackling a different episode of the famous horror series.

And so I did what any reviewer would do. I scoured the episodes not yet taken for any actor or actress I recognized. A long stand alone episode series like that, I knew a lot of big names must have been involved before they got their break. I then put a list together and rolled a dice to determine which one I would watch.

So now, I present you my very spoiler filled review of This’ll Kill Ya, from June 27, 1992, Season 4, Episode 2.

Blue hue means the sex was good right?

George Gatlin (Dylan McDermott, yes he is the one I definitely knew) is the boss at some high tech research lab on the verge of solving big and great things. He just has to boss around Pack Brightman (Cleavon Little, oh shit the lead from Blazing Saddles) and Sophie Wagner (Sonia Braga) to get their research done.

Well, the drug they are working on is not ready for human testing. They make that clear and their annoyance that George puts his insulin on the same shelf as the drug. You silly boy. They easily get mixed up! Ha. Ha ha.

Not only is George a dick, he is also a bit rapey. In that he totally sleeps with Sophie. She doesn’t want it, but they have done it in the past so whatever.

Needless to say, they have decided to get some revenge. The next day during his insulin, oh no, they accidentally put in the drugs instead! No no! Now he will totally die later!

George finds out later that they were totally up to something and this was not an accident. Already drinking, this puts him into a rage and he totally kills Pack! This brings us to the intro, when he drags the body to the local police branch to turn him in. But it is okay. George killed him first.

TWIST. Just kidding, as you already knew. They only pretended to put the drug in him, to teach him a lesson. And they had to cure anyways. Now he just killed a guy for a small joke. Ha ha ha.

His germ phobia is not a joke though. He will only shake hands if he is wearing a baseball glove.

So I haven’t really seen any of these, but if you had to start watching the series, this should not be the one you start with. It was shit, it was obvious, and the plot wasn’t that good. Knowing two thirds of the actors didn’t even help my enjoyment. It was an over dramatic simple tale that might have worked as a short story, but is completely forgettable on the screen.

I also didn’t realize that this show was originally on HBO, but that definitely explains why I never got to watch these. Despite that, my surprise was real when I suddenly saw nipples on the TV.

So uhh. I probably won’t watch any more of these episodes, being so disappointed with my first outing. Edgy for the time, this does very little for the modern viewer.

I expected to hate Jem and Jem and the Holograms going into the screening. That is why I picked it! I make an end of the year worst movies list, and based on the trailers alone, this one seemed like it could maybe even contend for the number one spot. Those trailers were awful. I didn’t even watch the cartoon show of the same name, but I could tell it was nothing like the cartoon.

It looked like it wanted to be a made for TV movie on ABC Family, only a step above a Lifetime original film.

So yeah, the film had a lot of work in front of it before it even began, which is a shame. But hey, maybe Jon M. Chu, famed director of such film classics like, Justin Beiber: Never Say Never, Justin Bieber’s Believe, G.I. Joe: Retailiation, and some shitty Step Up movies could be its saving grace.

Don’t look at me with those disbelieving eyes.

Jerrica (Aubrey Peeples) is your average 18 year old girl. About to finish high school, living with her aunt (Molly Ringwald), sister Kimber (Stefanie Scott), and two foster sisters, Shana (Aurora Perrineau) and Aja (Hayley Kiyoko). Okay, so she isn’t normal. But they all like to sing and play music so that is something fun. To bad Jerrica is super shy and would never do anything about it.

Until, you know, she does. After getting all emotional about the fact that they may lose their home, Jerrica puts on make up, a wig, and writes a song about loneliness under the stage name Jem. Her sister tricks her and uploads the performance to the YouTubes and somehow it goes viral. It goes so viral that Erica Raymond (Juliette Lewis), CEO of a made up big record company is offering her a small contract to play a few shows. She is super interested in her mysteriousness and plans to exploit it for maximum monetary viral wealth!

The girls are fine with it, transporting them all the way to LA where they have to learn how to be “rock stars”. It is important to note that their dad (Barnaby Carpenter) died when Jerrica was around 7 or 8. He was working on building a robot called 51N3RG.Y (pronounced Synergy), and he left it unfinished due to his sudden death. She likes to carry it around and stuff.

We need more dudes in this movie, which is why we have Ryan Guzman playing their “caretaker” and watcher to make sure they don’t get into trouble while in LA, Nathan Moore as a driver/bodyguard like person, and Ryan Hansen as a cameo as a security guard.

I have been told that Woody Allen cameo’s as the keytar.

Jem and the Holograms was not the worst movie of the year. Was it bad? Certifiably in every way. But it wasn’t a full on 100% cringefest.

First of all, the movie had no idea what it wanted to be. It goes from teenage sudden stardom film, to a long scene involving the Synergy, looking like it was taken directly from Earth To Echo. The scenes with the robot become a strange Sci-Fi Mystery throughout LA. Other parts of the movie literally seem to be almost identical to Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. I of course recognize that because I actually saw that concert doc. The plot is like a bad mash up of Hannah Montana and Josie and the Pussycats. Lewis overacted and was playing a non funny Parker Posey in that film I just mentioned.

That’s not all. It awkwardly referred to the band as a rock band, but they only sang pop songs. The song that went viral had absolutely no reason to go viral, realistically it would have never happened. They should have made it a much bigger deal. The fans she gained from the song would have hated every other thing she did, because the few songs after were nothing a like and very fake feeling.

A character says he hates newer bands because they are all auto tuned crap. The response? They sing a song a capella, but it also is processed and you can tell it doesn’t sound remotely real. Literally this happens right after the complaint about that. How can they do that to us? Related, another moment during the movie in a song, they lose power and finish it again, without instruments. The awkward echo during the song is still somehow apparent, although it doesn’t make sense to be sung.

Here is a picture of an attractive male to break up my bitchin’.

One more major annoyance, this one is a SPOILER. Part of the plot to get out of the bad contract that breaks up the friends involves a will a character never knew existed. They steal the will and when it becomes apparent, without even showing it, they just mention part of it, and suddenly everyone changes what they were doing and they win the day. Not actually proving anything, just saying vague things. The bad character says something like, “You don’t even have the will, only I do!” The whole movie (and for years) it was in a safe, but for some reason she was randomly carrying the packet in her hands at that moment? Similarly, the dialogue was generally always terrible.

But it DID have some moments. Miraculously, out of no where, I found myself crying at a beautiful moment. I blame my newborn baby on that. Every time recently a film has had any sort of emotional “Father Daughter” moment, it affects me deeply. Also, there were some good songs. “Way I Was” was pretty damn good and the only thing similar to the original viral hit.

This movie is objectively bad. But, damn it, it has its moments.

Seth MacFarlane is not my favorite person. And I didn’t even think his Oscars were that bad. I just think his movies have been pretty sub par as of late. In A Million Ways To Die In The West basically every joke fell flat for me.

And then of course there was Ted. Sure, there was some amusing original material in there. But as I watched it (in theaters), I couldn’t believe how date it had already felt. The humor was almost 100% focused on current pop culture trends. They had a few 80’s pop culture jokes thrown in to balance it out, but it was way too current. I knew most of the things I found amusing I wouldn’t bat an eye at in five or six years anymore.

Needless to say, I was pretty dang worried about Ted 2. Would it just be more of the same of Ted? Yeah probably. I don’t need 90 minutes of shitty pop culture in my life.

But if it was entirely about stealing Tom Brady‘s semen, then we might have something here.

Ted 2 takes place some time after the original. The main difference is that John (Mark Wahlberg) is divorced, probably because Mila Kunis didn’t want to be in another of these movies. Now he is basically afraid of commitment to anyone. Ted (MacFarlane) is still married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth), but their relationship is strained. They might even get a divorce. So they decide to do the time honored tradition of having a kid to save their marriage.

Ted has no penis, so sex wouldn’t work. They work on sperm donations, but that fails too. So they decide to adopt. But the problem is, Ted cannot do it because apparently he isn’t classified as a person and doesn’t have person rights. This changes everything for Ted. Now he loses his job, his marriage is now nulled and can’t legally do most things! He is just an object! Oh no!

So, in a nut shell, that is the point of this film. He wants to fight the ruling in court, so he can get his life back. That is why they have a lawyer (Amanda Seyfried) who is chill and likes to smoke pot, hooray! At the same time, Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) is helping Hasbro fight Ted in court. If it is ruled he is an object, they can take him back, find out what makes him magical, and make Ted’s for everyone around the world. Weeeee.

Also! Morgan Freeman, Sam J. Jones, Patrick Warburton, John Slattery, and John Carroll Lynch.

The good news is that Ted 2 relied on less pop culture references to get by this time. Outside of quite a few recent Patriots references.

The bad is that the plot is kind of shit and not worth watching. Let me clarify, the plot idea isn’t a bad one. It could make a good court room comedy film. But they only vaguely focus on that. There are barely any scenes in the court room, really only two major ones at the beginning and end. The first court room scene only takes a handful of minutes, but the film would rather Ted and John just sit on a couch and tell jokes.

Ted 2 as a result just doesn’t have a lot to offer as a film. In recollection, I am having a hard time trying to remember any moment I found really funny. I was completely chuckleless. The writer only had a rough idea for the plot and maybe a couple jokes, but I assume the majority of these scenes were thought of independently of having a real place to put them. So in a way, Ted 2 was a lot like a Family Guy episode.

There isn’t a lot to say. Ted 2 just isn’t good. Not as bad as AMWTDITW, but not as good as its mediocre first film.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

Johnny Depp is the type of guy who is always working and trying out new bizarre characters. It gave him some early fame but lately people are getting tired of him. Mortdecai gets to be one of the worst films of the year, as people assumed it was just a mustache obsessed Johnny Depp playing Johnny Depp.

But then there was Black Mass. Based on trailers and word of mouth, we were told this would be Depp acting, playing a real character, and not the same old shit as before. Something new by technically making him play a more normal role! A sadistic mean and manipulative person, but a real guy nonetheless. No super annoying quirks, no autism, just a dude who didn’t mind killing people.

The acting was supposed to be so great that people were going to remember how great Depp could be when he gives a shit. I am sure he gives a lot of shit when doing his latest Burton film, but after awhile, it just looks like he has no more cares left in the world and he would rather just sit there and shit money. (Assuming they don’t flop, which they have been as well!)

That’s the face I make when I shit normal things. Can only imagine other objects.

Black Mass is the story of James ‘Whitey’ Bulger (Depp), America’s Most Wanted criminal for a long time. You may have heard about him for many reasons. Or maybe you watched the documentary (or read my review of), Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, which was out a year or two ago on Netflix. It went over his crimes and the trial once they eventually caught the guy (spoilers), while the film version specifically only talks about his crimes for the most part until he started to hide elsewhere in the USA.

Like most crime movies, this one also takes place in the scariest city in the USA for people who like grammar, Boston. Bulger and his gang (some members played by Rory Cochrane, Jesse Plemons, and W. Earl Brown) are criming up the streets and kicking butt. They basically control all of South Boston. But there are rivals, and there are conflicts of interest.

You know, like John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), when he returns to Boston, his home, but now a member of the FBI. He is friends with Whitey, despite the mostly common knowledge of his criminal activities. Eventually he convinces Whitey that he should become an informant, because there are other bad people out there who he can rat out to get them in trouble. Doing so, that would allow him to gain even more power on the streets, having the FBI in his back pockets. Oh hey, Whitey’s actual brother (Benedict Cumberbatch) is also part of the Massachusetts State Senate. Pretty sneaky stuff.

This becomes a win win. Whitey gains gang power, and the FBI catches a lot of bad guys. It isn’t until things get more and more violent that some people out there begin to get fidgety and want to bring in Whitey as well, because something very sketch is going down with his relationship with the FBI.

Also featuring Dakota Johnson, Julianne Nicholson, Adam Scott, Kevin Bacon, David Harbour, Peter Sarsgaard and Corey Stoll.

A gangster, an FBI agent, and a David Harbour walk into a restaurant…

I had a BlackWeek on my website, and I was most upset that Black Mass came out so much later than the other Black films. I was excited to see Depp back in greatness, although I think his role from Tusk and Yoga Hosers is actually pretty sweet.

And then I watched Black Mass and it all felt unoriginal. Just because I watched a documentary about Whitey doesn’t mean I remember a lot about him. The only thing I really remember was him being a rat and getting the other gangsters in trouble while he got away for decades. Black Mass should have been a nice companion piece to the documentary, giving us intense recreations of some of his worst work and making Whitey seem like a real person.

Even though I didn’t know about his individual crimes, the reason it felt unoriginal is just that it felt like every other gangster movie before it. Sure, plot wise it had the original true element of actually working with the FBI, because the real life plot is so silly no one accept it as something plausible in a fictional film. Stylistically, it felt the same. Elements of the film seemed to be bad recreations of Goodfellas.

Yes, the acting was there. Depp, Edgerton, Sarsgaard all did wonderful jobs. Cumberbatch sounded funny and I wanted more scenes with him because of it.

But I would hope that the film didn’t feel like the gangster films of the past and tried to make a truly unique experience for this real life story. I guess I could also be biased, because I also have recently seen Animal Kingdom (with Edgerton), and it was definitely a unique gangster film.