Tag: 1 out of 4

There was not a lot of build up to Tammy compared to other recent McCarthy based films such as The Heat and Identity Thief. Those films got their trailers played over and over again, to increasingly annoying levels. Tammy? Nah. It had a strange teaser trailer a few months ago, decently funny, and then a regular trailer like, a month ago and that was it.

Good. It really sucks hating a movie before it comes out due to bad trailers or overplaying those trailers.

In fact, the teaser trailer of Tammy robbing the store? Pretty amusing. So there were definite hopes for this film. Especially when I found out that Melissa McCarthy co-wrote the movie with her husband / director Ben Falcone. So presumably they will flesh stuff out and not just give us the same roles she has now been type casted to.

See? She looks calm in this picture. She is never calm in any other movie.

This is a movie about a lady named Tammy (McCarthy). Tammy just lost her job for being late constantly, even if she had a good reason this time. Her car breaks down while going back home. Because she still gets back home early, she is able to see her husband (Nat Faxon) and neighbor (Toni Collette) having a fancy dinner and surprised to see her. Wooo.

So Tammy decides to leave. She wants to run away but her car is dead. Her mom (Allison Janney) says no, but her grandmother (Susan Sarandon) says yes! Pearl has over $6,000 in cash and a car, just needs someone to drive her, so why not run away with her grand daughter for awhile?

Which is also I guess your basic plot. They go on a mini adventure, where things go badly and problems occur. They get to see Pearl’s cousin, Lenore (Kathy Bates), the founder of a big pet store chain and her lesbian lover (Sandra Oh). They also meet a gentlemen interested in Pearl (Gary Cole) and his son (Mark Duplass) who Tammy awkwardly flirts with.

Outside of mentioning that her dad is played by Dan Aykroyd, I don’t think I could describe the movie anymore than I already have.

Talking about this scene is unnecessary thanks to the trailer!

When I said that was the basic plot, I guess I tried to sound sarcastic, but that is really hard to do through words on a screen. It is hard to really say how much of a plot this movie had outside of a girl and her grandmother having problems and driving. Those tiny plot points could be turned into a good film, sure, but this film might not have been in the best hands.

For the most part, McCarthy does play the exact same role. She has some nicer character moments that a lot of her other roles lack, which is nice. But as the main lead, her character doesn’t have enough for me to care. Was I supposed to feel sorry about her getting fired? No way. Even if this time it was okay, it still implied she was late a lot and probably deserved it. Same with most of the other things that happened to her.

Let’s go back to the awesome teaser trailer. You know how I didn’t bring it up? That is because that scene doesn’t happen until about two thirds of the way in the movie. Seriously. And not much is different about it from the teaser. All the lines are the same, barely any longer. A funny part so much later ruined for that reason. Looking at the trailers, this scene seems to be something early on which would make it okay. Hey, the problems start because she robs a store. Cool. Nah. That late in the movie, I kind of wonder what the point was.

Overall, the movie did have some amusing scenes, but they were few and far between for me. Pretty forgettable soon after watching it.

I really don’t think I can come up with a clever introduction to this review of Cuban Fury. Literally, no amusing anecdotes at all.

Well, maybe one. This movie is about a big guy salsa dancing. Hey. I am a big guy, and I was a big guy when I was on a Salsa Dance Team and a Ballroom Dance Team. I think I’d be able to relate to it very nicely.

I also like two of the three people on the cover. But I won’t tell you who is who.

I think I literally own that exact outfit. Actually, both outfits.

Bruce (Nick Frost) used to be a great salsa dancer. He was arguably the best of the best with his partner, rising through the ranks and proud to be a dancer. Then he quit. He was getting embarassed. People made fun of him and he quit. What a kid.

Now look at Bruce. Middle aged, working for a random company, miserable and fat.

But he is a bit interested in this person at his job, Julia (Rashida Jones). Just she is really pretty and he isn’t. He accidentally stumbles upon her at a Salsa class. SALSA. He can get back into form and do something impressive, she might like him.

Kind of very creepy, actually. But what is creepier is the other work mate, Drew (Chris O’Dowd), your standard dick, also is in to her and sabotaging Bruce and getting to hang out with her. But he is only an okay dancer.

Bruce might have the wrong ideas about why he is doing what he is doing, but with the help of his former coach (Ian McShane) and a very…intense man from a dance class (Kayvan Novak), he is able to relearn the steps he once knew. But more important, he is going to learn self confidence, trust in himself, and realize he shouldn’t be doing this to impress a woman. He should be doing it for himself.

But hey look, he still gets her in the end. I guess.

Alright alright alright. The plot line is straight out of the 80s / 90s, yes. That is terrible. It is literally about a guy who is fat and ugly (personality wise too) playing the blame game and thinking he can’t do anything right. We should be past all these types of films. So that is why, despite the initial conditions, I was happy to find that it was more about his own personal journey and gaining confidence than winning the girl. Sure, that was a driving factor, but in reality by the end he knew he had to do it for himself and no one else. Yay some sort of moral!

But outside of that, unfortunately the movie didn’t have a ton going for it. It was an okay story and some okay jokes for the most part. There was one scene in particular that caused me to rewind the movie a little bit back, just to rewatch it again because it actually ended up being hilarious and I wanted to make sure I saw it correctly. That was great. If you see it, you will know the scene.

But you know. O’Dowd was a typical jerk, a lot of the plot was a typical underdog sports movie. It just didn’t have a ton unique going for it. Sad to say.

Oh well, time to ignore this one forever.

For those of you who don’t know what a Walk Of Shame is, what, have you never seen a movie/tv show set in college?

A Walk Of Shame happens after a one night stand. Usually the sex takes place at the man’s place and then the women is left walking back to her apartment or dorm early in the morning wearing the same outfit she had on the night before. This becomes even more apparent when the outfit is a dress or something one might wear to the clubs.

I know absolutely nothing about this movie besides who it stars, but the title probably explains about half of the events in the movie.

Yep, looks like the title nailed it perfectly.

Before we get to the shame walking, we can talk about the day before. Meghan (Elizabeth Banks) is a TV Anchorwoman. She had a few misshaps in her early reporter days, becoming one of those youtube bloopers because a cat attacked her, but now she is on top. On top of a dinky station.

She is applying to work at a much bigger station looking for a new anchor, but they want someone who is squeaky clean. No scandals, no sex tapes, no awkward tweets. So of course Meghan wants it bad.

But she doesn’t get it. And her boyfriend breaks up with her. What a shitty day. So her friends (Gillian Jacobs, Sarah Wright) decide to take her out to the clubs, make her put on a “slutty” dress, to get drunk and meet men.

This is a success, she has an enjoyable night with the bartender/writer (James Marsden). But she wakes up really early. She has a voicemail from the night before. The person they chose for the job won’t work, so the big fish are coming to see her show that afternoon. If she nails it, she gets the job!

But she is slightly hungover! And her car just got towed! And her purse was in the car! And she left her phone in that apartment!

Oh golly, will Meaghan be able to make it in time without ruining her public image?

Also featuring a few other people as gang members, cops, taxi drivers, and news team helicopter pilots. But I won’t tell you who is who. Bill Burr, Ken Davitian, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Alphonso McAuley, Da’Vone McDonald, Ethan Suplee and Kevin Nealon.

These guys are all helicopter pilots.

So what is the main point of this movie? A series of unfortunate events to put a upper middle class person onto the streets, dealing with people and situations she never considered possible? Yeah, but more so is the focus on the dress. Because she is wearing the dress in the middle of the night / early morning, people assume she is a prostitute and treat her as such.

That means that Walk Of Shame has, for the most part, one joke, just told in a different way over and over again. Not only that, but every situation is because of terrible communication. Every time Meghan starts to talk, she does it in the slowest most awkward way possible (nothing like her actual character, someone paid to talk well) and decides to do whatever it takes word wise to make sure that people will not realize she isn’t a prostitute. It was pretty dang annoying after the fifth or sixth time.

Walk of Shame does some have some amusing moments in it, and even the premise isn’t too terrible. The execution however felt incredibly lazy and the ending was a bit disappointment. I mean, James Marsden isn’t supposed to get the girl. He is supposed to have a girl and that girl leave him for another.

The very end, a small speech is given about how her outfit shouldn’t determine the way people treat her, which is great, but it is really quick and I don’t think the movie really conveys the point that well.

Transformers. Michael Bay. Cash Money.

That is some of the reviews in a nutshell. I didn’t check up on what people said about Transformers: Age of Extinction ahead of time, because I knew I would probably agree with them. I figured the film might be full of inaccuracies that I would find painful, but I’d rather go in and see what I can find on my own without researching afterwards. Like the cringe worthy Washington, D.C. desert in Transformers 2.

But this is a start of a new “trilogy” because we can’t have things not in trilogies anymore. Not when they print so much money for the companies. Our lead human has an upgrade, no longer Shia LaBeouf who is doing some sort of joke on public with his awkward break downs. I mean, no Shia? That is great news on its own. This movie can’t be that bad for that reason.

It should be noted that I am not a Bay hater. In fact, his movie last year Pain & Gain I gave a 4 out of 4. But with some of the advertisement material, I can say that it looks like the Transformers franchise might be running out of gas.

Heh. Hehehe.

This film takes place let’s say, I dunno, five-ish years after the last Transformers. The Autobots are now on the run, because public opinion has somehow turned against them. Sure they fought with our military and helped us defeat people, but the government says they are bad now, so, they are bad now. After all, they fucked over Chicago completely, taking out about half the city and millions. Millions? Did I say millions? Well, just kidding. The media said (I think) 1300 died at the end of Transformers 3, which we know to be ridiculous.

Either way, Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) is a tinkerer, who invents gadgets in his garage. He is behind on all bills, but who cares, he will make it one day. His daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz), the 17 year old sex symbol for this movie, is graduating soon and they need college money. As luck would have it, Cade finds a Transformer (Prime) who they could sell to the government for lots of cash.

Needless to say, government is corrupt. The hired assassin (Titus Welliver) tries to kill them too, so they escape and a man hunt begins. This man hunt involves at least three or four different plot lines that are wrapped up in the very short 2 hour and 45 minute movie. But trying to explain them all would just take up time and energy that isn’t necessary. But Kelsey Grammer plays a high up in the CIA, Jack Reynor as Tessa’s secret Irish boyfriend, T.J. Miller as a guy who works with Cade, and Stanley Tucci as the head of a science corporation in Chicago.

Chicago? Yes. Because apparently despite its huge widespread destruction, they basically rebuilt it all up very quickly exactly the same way it was before. We only know that because we go back to Chicago and the bots fuck up a lot of it again.

We still have more characters though. More women, like Sophia Myles, a “geologist” who doesn’t do any exciting geology, and Bingbing Li, a scientists from China who allow the film to end in China so that this movie can make a lot more money over there. Which is what a lot of films are trying to do now, including Iron Man 3 which literally had extra scenes in the Chinese version to get more cash. Blah.

Let’s not forget our voice actors. We have Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), a man made Transformer Galvatron (Frank Welker), a Samurai-bot? (Ken Watanabe), some evil bad guy Lockdown (Mark Ryan), a Trenchcoat-bot (John DiMaggio), and literally a Transformer that just appears to be John Goodman (John Goodman).

Optimus Prime’s sword is voiced my Sir Swoosh-A-Lot.

Did you notice I didn’t mention a specific Transformers based entity that was heavily featured in all of the advertisements? The Dino-Bots? Yeah, they are in this movie I guess. They don’t talk, their plot lines are questionable, and they are in at the end to help fight bad guys. So, they do exist, albeit for twenty or so minutes. And to be fair, their action scenes are pretty bad ass. They are just grossly underused based on the advertisements and felt like a let down.

Speaking of annoying. More technicalities. A plot point puts them in Beijing. A big bad bot wants to blow up a bomb in the biggest city on Earth. Beijing is 2, so that is close enough. One of our characters knowing this goes on the run with the bomb. To Hong Kong. What in the fuck? First they make it seem like Hong Kong is a few hours away, and its really fucking far. But Hong Kong itself is a giant ass city with millions of people too. How is that better? There is literally thousands of miles of empty space all around China and they do the riskier thing?

This movie, like the third one, features tons of human casualties that they decide to brush aside and ignore. Early on it also does its best to ignore the Transformers completely. Like during a chase scene and a battle, they show mostly the humans running away from humans, than Prime fighting Lockdown. One of the biggest complaints of the franchise is too many humans (and too many women just around for their looks) and this film has that going on too. It is hard to understand why this keeps happening. It is of course also a giant advertisement for GM and other sponsors, such as Beats and Victoria Secret, which have moments that stand out in the worst way.

Some parts of the movie are delightful. Some of the fights are kind of cool. But the dialogue is terrible, acting is whatever, and there is just far too much going on for not enough payout in this movie.

I had multiple chances to see Think Like A Man Too early, but things kept coming up. Heck, one showtime had both Kevin Hart and Drake in attendance. I didn’t go to that one because I knew there would be a long line and require at least 7 hours of my life to see it.

But hey, at least I was able to see Think Like A Man before hand which was my biggest worry. Given the way the first film ended, and that this one has nothing to do with Steve Harvey‘s book, I imagine the biggest worry from Kevin Hart was to make a lot of money.

That’s his wild eyed, stuffing his pockets with cash, face.

The couples established from the film are all still together. Their relationships are just facing new issues all around the same time! Very convenient.

But they are now in Las Vegas. Why? For an extravagant wedding, because getting married in LV at not a quickie chapel is apparently a thing too.

Our Mama’s Boy (Terrence Jenkins) and Single Mother (Regina Hall) are getting hitched, the main reason they were picked was of course to include the nagging mother (Jenifer Lewis) in this movie as well. Their plot line, outside of getting married, is yes the mom still doesn’t like the girl and stuff will ruin their wedding.

The Non-Commiter (Jerry Ferrara) and The Girl Who Wanted A Ring (Gabrielle Union) obviously already got married, but now they are talking about having a kid, and it is scary for one of them.

The Dreamer (Michael Ealy) and the Woman Who Is Her Own Man (Taraji P. Henson) are both still in love, but their careers are taking them to different parts of the country.

And finally, the Player (Romany Malco) and the 90 Day Rule Gil (Meagan Good) are having commitment issues. And by that, the girl is afraid of his commitment, due to the number of women from his past that apparently live in Vegas.

Finally? Just kidding. Cedric (Hart) is still our narrator and freaking out over Best Man duties. We still have our happily married white guy (Gary Owen) but his wife is in this movie too (Wendi McLendon-Covey), and they don’t have many issues.

Also featuring Dennis Haysbert as smooth talking Uncle Harris to get the mom off their backs, and Adam Brody and David Walton as our Mama Boy’s old frat friends who join in the shenanigans.

Just like real life, they all wear generic colored outfits.

Overall, Think Like A Man Too is a movie that shouldn’t have been made.

For bad reasons, this movie is being compared to The Best Man Holiday. You know, both sequels in the last year, with large black ensemble casts. Although Holiday was given to use 14 years later where they had time to find a good story, and Too we had only a two year break if that.

But yeah, a lot just didn’t feel natural in this movie. Too much (all?) of the aggravation involved people not willing to speak truthfully to their loved ones. What? This is years later and they still have the same issues? I doubt these couples should be together.

Whenever it looked like something actually funny and interesting would happen (like the strip club), they ruined it and put the characters in a very unfunny place instead.

Actually, by the end, when stories were resolving, I thought some of them were cute. I thought the mama trouble plot line ended teribly, along with the job couple. The other two were fine endings, just the player past shouldn’t have been an issue at all.

Occasionally a funny moment, but overall, can easily ignore it. Here’s hoping there is no Think Like A Man Thrieve or whatever.

Looking over the musicals that were coming out in 2014, I figured that Jersey Boys would be the clear favorite for the entire year. I saw the Broadway version of the musical and it was fantastic. It had everything: music people already knew and enjoyed, exciting stage work, humor, drama, gangsters, you name it.

It is one of the easier movies to make too. Slap on some period piece appropriate clothing, get some guys who performed the musical already, and record that puppy. I was first weary when I heard that Clint Eastwood was directing it, but then I figured if the people who made the initial musical are helping, Eastwood can just focus more on getting the singers to act the drama parts better and really amp up the crime element to a higher potential.

Now, after seeing the film? Well, maybe Muppets Most Wanted will be the best “musical” of the year.

Don’t even get me started on the new Annie and Into The Woods.

The original story is based on the (at the time) three surviving members of the Four Seasons, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, and Tommy DeVito. They gave the information to the musical writers, who put on the show, with the first two having veto rights if they didn’t like what was going down. So presumably a lot of the events are actually true.

This is a story about how a few guys from Jersey were able to make it out of their home cities without joining the military or joining the mob. Just kidding, the mob is here too, with the local boss played by Christopher Walken.

It is about how Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) and his buddy Nick (Michael Lomenda) helped teach a then Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young) how to train his voice to perform like an angel. Then their eventual finding of Bob (Erich Bergen), who could write them hits, play the piano and sing as well.

The story of four guys, rising to fame, how certain songs were conceived, and how they all began to crack and break apart thanks to home pressure, mob pressure, and money pressure. And two women who Frankie apparently slept with, played by Erica Piccininni and Renee Marino.

I like my lines of men like I like my computer. Shining and playing music.

Ahhh, musicals. What better way to put that song in your step as you leave the theater and go about your day? I love them so.

However, this movie really isn’t a musical. Sure, there are songs in it, but it is definitely feels a lot more like a generic biography film of a band, that features music the band did, than a musical. Something VH1 might have quickly thrown together. Only one real element of the movie is like a standard musical at the very end. When the story is over, but they sing and dance to two songs while walking down the street before the credits role. That is where we finally get to hear one of the more famous songs by The Four Seasons. A song that takes place much sooner in the story/broadway version, but they cut it out to save it. A time where they can actually use a song to help tell the story, instead of just being the guys singing in a club, and they push it to the end.

If that isn’t proof of them trying to take the musical out of the Broadway hit, then I don’t know what is.

I am not saying Jersey Boys ended up being terrible, it just ended up terribly disappointing as to what it could have been. So many things just felt off while watching the film. The story and plot were good. The music was good. Maybe the acting was off? They at least had the original Frankie Valli from the play reprise his role for this film, just none of the other guys.

They decided to go with a shitty brown filter over the whole film, to give it an old style, 60’s look. But it felt distracting to me. I would have definitely preferred instead a really nice polished looking movie, not the fake grittiness that made me compare parts of the movie to a Lifetime special.

I feel as I am being really hard on the movie, but it is just harder to point out the amazing parts versus its flaws. In all honesty, I think this is completely Clint Eastwood’s fault as a director. He meddled far too much in the musical side, making this into a more generic feeling movie. A lot of the charm was lost in the film making process, but thankfully this story had an over abundance of charm to work with.

So there are still fantastic moments to go along with the story, and not just the musical performances. For example, Lomenda did fantastic as the role of the bassist, really made it easy for the audience to feel his frustration and get on his side.

It just. It just could have been so much more.

Hey boys and girls! Did you like Ted? Well, then you might like the next movie, A Million Ways To Die In The West!

That is what advertisements told me at least. But I only thought Ted was okay. Was entirely pop culture based humor, so it was a movie that won’t be as amusing in a few years because nothing will be relevant. Although it had a decent plot and Marky Mark, so that is fun.

But now we are going out west, back in time, and director Seth MacFarlane is actually going to star in it. Hopefully it is more than just a few dude’s hangin’ out.

Damn it, this looks like two dudes just hangin’ out!

Set in the 1800’s in Arizona, near Monument Valley (like every other western), lives our hero Albert (MacFarlane), a sheep farmer and a pussy. He doesn’t like to shoot a gun, because he never has, and thus he is bad at it. But somehow he keeps getting himself into shoot outs.

Albert starts to hate himself after his long term girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him. Now he hates life. He also is a cynic, pointing out all the things that can kill him in the west. Thus the movie title. He does all this until Anna (Charlize Theron) walks into his life. Just kidding, he continues his moping ways, but now there is this mysterious woman who can shoot better than any he knows. Maybe she can change his life and stop him from getting into gun fights.

Just kidding. He does some stuff, getting him into fights with Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), the owner of the Mustacherie, and Clinch (Liam Neeson), an outlaw and the fastest hands in the West. Oh Albert, you are so silly.

Also starring Giovanni Ribisi, as his best friend, dating a whore Sarah Silverman.

“Huh? Why would Neil Patrick Harris every run a mustache store?” – GorgView Hate Commenter

I think I would rather watch Ted in four years than see A Million Ways To Die In The West.

The humor is very Seth MacFarlane, I will give it that. You can go in expecting that, and if you enjoy that enough, you will maybe have a good time. Maybe.

To me, this comedy had huge stretches of time without a joke. Trying to maintain some western tropes, there were scenes of traveling and just looking at the scenery. But that wasn’t the downtime. Literally just long periods of the movie moving on without very many jokes. It doesn’t help that quite a few of the jokes were in the trailer, most of which giving the entire set up and punchline so none of it was left to surprise. I am most disappointed in even the TV ads giving away one 1980’s related scene, which would have been amazing if kept secret.

Not that surprise is needed for comedies, no. A good comedy can keep you laughing through many viewings. The humor that was present just for the most part wasn’t for me.

There were some okay moments. I really liked the mustache song. Sarah Silverman ended up making me chuckle on more than one occasion. So I guess I thought the small side plot was more amusing than most of the film. That happens some times.

TL;DR, for the most part, A Million Ways To Die In The West just felt like 2 hours of boredom, with an occasional chuckle. Having the main character be a relatively modern man felt a bit half-assed. And I didn’t even get into how much of a unlikable character he was. Mr. Mopey. Ever have a friend who complains about everything, as if the experiences are unique to them? Yeah…

Ah, another re-imagining. I think the last one recently was Jack the Giant Slayer, but I probably forgot a few other ones recently. This time, Maleficent, we are tackling the Sleeping Beauty tale. Instead of just telling the story a different way, we are getting it from Maleficent’s point of view.

So, at this point, the movie could go two directions. They could show us that Maleficent was really a good/misunderstood character (which is hard, being one of the more evil Disney villains ever), like what Wicked did, or they could give us a movie about a bad ass mother, who don’t take no crap off of nobody.

Do we get the awesome force of evil doing awesome things? Hell no, this is a Disney related property. You are getting a PG movie, Maleficent won’t be evil, tables will be turned. I mean. Wicked did it. Of course it is going the Wicked route.

But now there are some changes.

This film begins when Maleficent is but a young girl. She is also a fairy. Some dumb war between the fairy kingdom and human kingdom going down. She meets a human boy, finds him sweet, they frolic, he leaves to do human things and they grow old apart.

Now, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is an adult fairy, protector of the forest because she is better than the other fairies. The human kingdom is at war now with the magic land. Maleficent pisses some people off. Long story short, a metaphor that strongly resembles rape occurs, and her long lost child hood friend, is now the new King Stefan (Sharlto Copley).

So that curse thing happens, basically just like in Sleeping Beauty. But now, instead of Maleficent searching for Aurora (Elle Fanning) for sixteen years, she finds her like right away and becomes her silent guardian, protecting her from harm. Why? Not really sure.

Then a whole bunch of events happen, nothing at all like the events in Sleeping Beauty, and everyone lives happily ever after.

We have the three fairies again, but they have different names now, for some reason. They are now Thistletwit (Juno Temple), Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton), and Flittle (Lesley Manville). We also have Sam Riley as the raven boy thing and Brenton Thwaites as Prince Phillip.

Oooh, there is the Maleficent we know. Even if it is for just a short while.

Here is one difference between Wicked and Maleficent. Wicked, more or less, took the aspects of the original story, kept them all basically the same, and added in a lot of new material and made it great. Maleficent had one aspect of the original story the same (the baby girl scene), then changed everything else about Sleeping Beauty and called it a day.

If it was a “misunderstood villain” story and they actually did it in the context of the original story? Great. If they decide that she is misunderstood because someone told the story wrong? Boring and pathetic almost.

“But movie reviewer! You don’t take the source into context!” Well, that is true. Unless they bring the source material into context for me. Thankfully this movie includes in the actual film one of my least favorite things of the last few years, telling me the story I heard was wrong and this is the real way. Or that I don’t know the truth. It is one of the worst things to hear, and it just keeps happening.

Maleficent had some cool special effects. Her awesome magic powers were vague with what she could actually do. Sometimes really awesome creation magic and spells? Cool! Destruction? Yeah! But that was like, only once, all used for the trailer. Her magic became something that could do basically anything for her, unless it would have made the plot lame. The movie isn’t really dark like the trailer suggests. The middle chunk of the movie is just Maleficent standing around, peering behind bushes while the theater sleeps.

There is a lot wrong with this film, in my eyes. They took a beloved villain and made her a metaphorical rape victim. They made her really powerful, with out displaying any of this power. They made her wear a catwoman like jump suit at one point.

I think that last line really makes my points clear.

I have avoided watching One For The Money for a long time. It came out in theaters before I went to them for every movie, but out on DVD after I left Blockbuster and before I needed more DVD filler.

But there it always was, on a rental shelf looking at me, begging to be watched. And every time I nope’d into something else. So why now? Well, I hopped on Netflix, picked a random film category, and went over until I saw a movie that I hadn’t seen yet that was recent to review. And that is how One For The Money finally got me.

Finally got me, like a prostitute, might finally get free of her pimp. Err.

Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl) is poor and out of work. Oh no! She needs cash fast, so she quickly finds out from her family that her cousin Vinnie (Patrick Fischler) runs a Bail Bonds business. You know, find people who don’t show up in court, bring them in, and get some of their bond money. Bounty Hunters, if you will. She has no training, no useful detective skills, doesn’t know how to fire a gun in anyway, but hey, whatever, she needs cash.

So grabs a high profile target. A cop who used to work vice, apparently murdered someone. It will net her a ton of cash. This Joe (Jason O’Mara) was also her boyfriend in high school though, and her took her virginity then dumped her. Awkwarrrrd. At least she will have the help of this Ranger fellow (Daniel Sunjata) who teachers her some gun tips and what not.

Oh yeah, and of course the Joe claims he was framed and needs time to fix it all. Ehhhh. Why can’t making money be easy?!

We also have John Leguizamo, Sherri Shepherd, and Debbie Reynolds playing decently big roles.

Hopefully she watched enough Dexter to help her with blood splattered crime scenes.

I like RomComs, I do. Katherine Heigl makes me laugh occasional. I had a hard time finding the Com elements of this movie. In fact, it might be closer to a RomAct. Feels more actiony than comedy, and there isn’t even a lot of action. The only time I really laughed was near the ending, but that was just because of how ridiculous a few people were acting, and not from any jokes on their own.

What I am really trying to say is this movie felt incredibly boring. I yawned a lot, fighting the sleep that tried to take hold over me (in the middle of the day, not even a late at night viewing). That is definitely not a good sign.

I think part of my boredom stemmed from the fact that everything moved so fast early on that it was kind of confusing just what was going down. I feel like 5 minutes into the movie she already became a bounty hunter. Then there came to be all this conflict for catching that dude who she was mad at. Why so much conflict? Because he is attractive or something? Bull shit, just get your money and let him do his court stuff.

So the chemistry felt very off between Heigl and any other of her costars. Nothing really felt too earnest. Add that with boring, not funny, and just an awkward movie? Yeah, no wonder I avoided it.

Documentary time!

This time, it was Forks Over Knives, recommended by someone to my fiance, so of course I said I would watch it too. It is in my range, came out in 2011. Title was a bit weird, mostly because I didn’t see the need for my cutlery to battle. I prefer them to work together in harmony. Where the fuck are my spoons at??? Represent!

Alright, so the tagline of this movie on its cover is “Warning! This movie could save your life”. Good, time to be a skeptic.

I will admit the beginning of the movie was a bit more interesting. The “reason” for this documentary is because the director Lee Fulkerson wanted to be healthier than he is, so he goes on a journey of self discovery that, miraculously, a lot of people have published papers on recently at the time of his documentary.

Long story short, Veganism. Or as they called it a “plant-based diet” void of meats and dairy. So you know, Veganism. There were studies that were interesting, showing people who switched over and got healthier. Studies that reported the same findings. They spent a lot of time talking about Cancer and China, because there was a “Cancer Atlas” or something, that showed cancer abundance over the entirety of China for each type. They related this to diet somehow too.

This is like my nightmare incarnate.

The one study I found really interesting was the one about Norway during WW2. Basically, because all documentaries need to mention Hitler, the Nazis invaded Norway, and fucked them up. They took away their meat and the citizens had to start eating basically just plants. Then a lot of diseases went away like the next year, instantly, and it had a drastic downgrade. Huh. Cool.

But if that was true, I wasn’t really ready to believe it. So I went and looked it up! Science bitches! Basically, I found that it was pretty misleading. The Nazis took away a lot of things. Like cigarettes, so there was a country wide shortage, a lot less smoking. They also increased in physical activity, so people had to move a lot more, doing healthy things. Shit, blaming it all on meat is kind of awkward, no?

Getting to that study lead me to this other “review” of the movie by MD Harriet Hall over at www.sciencebasedmedicine.org. Harriet looks at every claim and study the movie mentions, notes the inefficiencies of the studies (low sample size, no controls, whatever) and where the movie people make broad claims where the studies do not themselves.

So basically, OP is a liar.

Damn it, I hate bad science movies so damn much. Obviously this documentary would be biased, all of them are, but finding out how biased is just the worst. At least they didn’t also alter or have misleading interviews like another terrible science documentary.

You know there is an issue with a documentary if they seem to claim that humans were meant to be herbivores, not omnivores. Bitch, I know what these canines in my mouth are for.

So most of the claims are incorrect. Is Veganism healthier overall? Probably in some aspects. But it seems the science really goes towards living a healthy lifestyle, eating just not a shit ton of meat and diary, but still having it in your diet. Basically, increase fruit and vegetable intact will probably be the better results here, not an elimination of animal products completely.