Tag: 1 out of 4

The Collection is the sequel to The Collector, a film I can’t say too many people saw. If you are too busy to read that review, it was decent. Guy goes into house to rob it, while another guy (The Collector), is setting up a giant booby trap filled house, to catch strays and torture people with. Bad place, bad time.

I liked the general idea of it, but thought it could have been less torture porn-esque. I am most excited that this film took three years to come out later. I kind of get pissed off at the horror franchises that want to release a movie every year (usually in October). This has the potential to keep up the thriller/survival aspects, with a big game of cat and mouse!

While also exponentially increasing the body count!

Set a few months after the first, we learn now that The Collector is actually a serial murderer, who will go to a place, kill a lot, and take one person at the end, thus the collecting aspect. Which is what happened at the end of the first film! Arkin (Josh Stewart) was captured, and fate left unknown. Unknown until he somehow managed to escape! Oh yes, when the Collector fucked up hundreds of people at a night club, Arkin escaped, but another girl, Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick) was taken in his place. Oh well, as long as he is free.

Just kidding. Turns out Elena is a rich girl, and her father (Christopher McDonald) really wants her back. So he hired a team of mercenaries (including Lee Tergesen and Shannon Kane) to go and capture Arkin, to attempt to find The Collector’s lair, to get his daughter back at all costs.

His lair? Yep. So of course it will be more booby trapped than ever before, not to mention all his past collections might be around too. Did I mention higher body count?

Gets captured, escapes, gets capture. How much does it suck to be that guy?

In a sentence, The Collection takes everything we loved about The Collector and poops on it. That is what I thought at least. We learn that this Collector fellow is a big deal and has been doing it for awhile. Seeing the amount of people in collection later in the film helps prove that point, but it is still an outrageous number for there not to be some national man hunt out for him. Seriously, especially if it is just one city, there would be door to door searches. But eh, most people assume they won’t get killed or collected (and tortured) I guess?

I will say I liked the ending. The post conclusion ending. I was worried it would end the same way as the first, big firey explosion, can’t find his body, oh no, and someone gets grabbed. No, we get a form of revenge and closure. Closure?! Yes, closure. There can’t possibly be another movie to follow up this one.

Either way, the lair itself I thought was just lame. I didn’t like the traps, the deaths, the plot, any of it. I might have given it a 0, if it wasn’t for the last 60 seconds.

Yep, a good ending is at least 25% of the grade! But the rest is skippable. What a bad horror movie.

The Host is the first book turned movie story from Stephenie Meyer that does not feature vampires in it! Hooray! But how different will that story actually be?

I mean, this one is about aliens. And romance. I guess that fits the supernatural teen romance genre still, which is good for her audience. But this book was made in 2008 with no other novels behind it. It can’t turn into the next big romance teen drama for people to hate on (which is why I am not doing this for a milestone review). Hell, who knows if it even has romance in it?

Shit. But more importantly, why is the year added to the hashtag?

In this world/future, there was a secret war. An alien race had invaded, a race of parasites, that enter into the human body and then live out their lives. They act just like humans, just have that weird ass eye thing happening. Either way, they are non violent aliens, they have many planets. They just want to take over their hosts lives, improve on them, then move on to a new planet, that is all. How neat.

Sure, the Host’s spirit kind of dies. But whatever. Fuck those guys.

Well, there is only a few humans left in hidden communities and they want to fight back. Like Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) who is looking after her brother, Jamie (Chandler Canterbury) and falling in love with a new guy, Jared (Max Irons). But on their way to the new hide out (let by her Uncle Jeb (William Hurt)), she totally gets captured and made a host. Sucks to suck.

Well, her spirit doesn’t get back! She fights back, convinces the alien to not give up the location of the survivors to The Seeker (Diane Kruger), and go on the run! Yeah!

Well, when she gets to the compound, no one trusts her, obviously, but hey, eventually she finds love. Love that is different than Jared, a different guy, who loves the alien version of Melanie. Well thats nice.

Boyd Holbrook is Kyle, the new lover, and Jake Abel is Ian, and he hates all of this shit.

Just wait for it. If this turns into a big deal, girls will start getting contacts like this.

The best place to start is with the most famous actor here. William Hurt? Strange. Well, Jeb was cool. Southern big guy with a beard and gun. Can’t go wrong. Also a bit crazy.

Saoirse Ronan is kind of famous. I have only seen her before in Hanna, and well, Hanna actually sucked. Don’t believe the hype. Well, her acting was only “decent” in this film I guess. But when half of the movie is your facial expressions as you talk to the voice in your brain, you need to be more than decent.

Fuck all that noise though. There is VERY little that happens in this movie. There is about 2 action scenes, because the alien race is non violent. The Seeker just happens to be a bit crazy. It is almost entirely the love triangle created by two personalities in one body.

The alien wanted to make a big sacrifice at the end, but her plan didn’t make any sense. A surprise to no one, things work out well for everyone, and there is hope for the future.

Just like there is hope for a sequel. Which is being planned despite no book. You know what that means?

Well, I don’t. Can’t really have more love triangles. Wait, a sequel might be the human kind taking back their planet. Maybe…war? Maybe action? Maybe excitement. I don’t care, lets get the sequel rolling.

The Call, The Call. What can I really say about this movie that the 2.5 minute trailer didn’t already say for me? Shit. I have talked about bad trailers before, but this one is high on the totem pole. Listen people. If a trailer tells everything that happens in your movie, there is no need to watch the movie. Why have 118 more minutes of filler?

Fuck you The Call trailer. It is why I put off watching it for so long, just because I felt like I already watched it.

Well, maybe The Call will be bigger than the trailer itself, and more exciting?

The hair is certainly bigger.

Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) works at an LA Call Center, and it is one of the busiest. Which is why everyone there gets futuristic looking desks and command centers I guess. Either way, it can be stressful, and she gets a call from a scared teenage girl. Someone is breaking into the house! But thanks to her information, she is able to successfully hide the girl before authorities can arrive and the guy leaves. But the phone gets disconnected, she mistakenly redials, and the girl answers. Oh surprise, she is still there. Way to give away her position Jordan!

Needless to say, abduction happens, and Jordan feels like shit.

Six months later, she is teaching now, afraid of her job. But hey look, another girl got kidnapped. Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin). She is in the back of a car going somewhere. I wonder if its the same dude (Michael Eklund). No that couldn’t be.

Well surely her communication powers and street smarts are going to save this girl this time, even if it involves going off on her own to find him herself. Great strategy. Also featuring Morris Chestnut as her cop boyfriend, and David Otunga as other cop.

I think of this scene as a rebirthing.

It turns out the suspense in the film wasn’t half bad. In fact, maybe even enjoyable. If any of it would have surprised me in the slightest. Good old trailer, even spoiling the gasoline seen. Heck, the only thing that the trailer made me wonder is why the hell is Michael Imperioli in this film? You may remember him from the one season of Detroit 1-8-7 or six seasons of The Sopranos. He has one scene flashed in the trailer, despite being a relatively major character to the story. Fuck these trailer makers so hard.

Unfortunately, the ending of this movie absolutely ruins it for me. Here we have this guy, who clearly has some deep seeded mental illness and psychological issues about his past. He needs help. He has done some bad things. But when the good guys have the chance to do the right thing, they of course don’t. They go for revenge. Not a normal revenge, a super bad torture revenge. Fuck that. You are the good guys. Their idea is horrible in that A) it isn’t guaranteed to work, and B) their alibi is completely bat shit stupid. I thought it would be okay if the ending wasn’t so dumb.

But really, the thrills are okay. It might be a lot better if you don’t know more than I told you going in. Just. Fuck that ending.

Huh, a Dreamworks movie about cavemen. That is what The Croods is about. Get it? They are simpletons, they are ‘crude’. I get it.

So now we all know that Dreamworks is still in business! Not enough failures, I see.

But give it enough time…

Cave men live in caves! Caves are safe (if not dark), because they protect from all sides, especially if you have a nice door rock. New things are bad, because new things can kill. Just ask all the other families who used to live nearby. Nope, just ignore that shit, and get your food, then go back to the gave.

Eep (Emma Stone) is going through your typical teenage girl emotional roller coaster. She hates the cave, wants her own space, but can’t leave. Grug (Nick Cage), her father, has basically forbidden it. Must. Stay. Together.

But she has a younger dumber brother, Thunk (Clark Duke), a baby sister, her mother, Ugga (Catherine Keener), and grandmother (Cloris Leachman)!

Unfortunately, food is getting scarce. Not only that, but Eep sees the sun, in the middle of the night. Fire? What is going on! Oh look, a new boy, Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who controls the miniature sun. Hell yeah. In fact, he might even have a brain. Maybe he has some ideas in there and other inventions. Well, there is his weird sloth named Belt (Chris Sanders).

Too bad he is talking about the end of the world. Seas of lava. Mountains breaking down. I wonder if that has anything to do with Pangaea breaking apart? You know, an event 200,000 years ago, and cave men were like, 20k. Oh well. I guess this will be as scientifically accurate as Ice Age 4.

I can see why they want each other. They are the only two in their age group.

Ughh. Ooogah ugh. That isn’t cave man noises, it is just me being discouraged. Basically, The Croods is about one thing and one thing only. Pretty color and cavemen joke. The plot isn’t ever really explained or talked about much. They just know they have to move, “or else”, trying to find a new cave or whatever. Learning about the world. When Grug finally accepts Guy, it is from a pathetic sob story that comes out no where. They talk about how everything can kill them, yet they survive basically every thing possible.

I think every character falls from huge heights and just tumbles and is fine, despite them being afraid of height for that reason. There i really no consistency with anything in this film. I know that it isn’t accurate, none of the animals or geology makes sense, so it is clearly another world. Basically, it is just traveling plus weird new pants/animals/colors to just go crazy with CGI. That is all it is.

Other inconsistencies bug me too. Like when they hunt in the early movie, they are running like crazy anime characters, dust clouds, even the grandma! But when they actually journey, it is a slow crawl. Alright, sure, run for your lives, but not too hard. This isn’t an inconsistency, but I hated the voice acting in this movie. Great cave people. Oh, they sound like Nick Cage and Emma Stone. Another factor taking me out of the movie, I don’t believe the characters at all because their voices don’t match.

This better not fucking sequel.

If you missed it, my site wasn’t updated for about a week. I had to go on a big trip into the New Mexico desert, and had no one else working on it, so updates didn’t happen. What did happen was I was left without movies for a good 10 days. I was freaking out. My dreams all involved movies. I was in them, looking for them, or just watching them. Strange, but addictions do strange things.

Either way. The last movie I saw before this adventure was The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, and I am saddened to say that I didn’t think about it at all over these 10 days.

The incredible hair, on the other hand…

Burt (Steve Carell) grew up bullied and unloved. Sad times for Burt. But his mom got him a birthday present of a magic kit, by the great and wonderful Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin)! Great, now no one will think he is lame when he knows magic!

Just kidding of course. The only person who cares is Anton (Steve Buscemi) who also has no friends, and they put on an act together, with lots of ideas for future tricks.

Now, 20 years later, they are still a hot Vegas act, with their story of magic and friendship. But their show hasn’t changed in 10 years. They aren’t really friends anymore, and they are generally unlikable my many people who know them, like their dozens of assistant girls. Their boss (James Gandolfini) is looking to shut them down for being so stagnant. There are better magicians out there now, crazy street magicians, who just do completely ridiculous “illusions” to surprise and aww their audiences. Like Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) the mind raper!

Can they restore their friendship, redefine their magic act, and end up on top again? Who knows. But will Olivia Wilde help them? Probably.

Alright everyone. Mr. Jim here is 51. I wonder if they CGI’d his body? Or. Maybe. Magic?

Huh, Jay Mohr had a cameo in this and he made me laugh. Uncomfortable comedic magician. He was one of my favorite characters despite only having one real great scene. That sucks.

Jim Carrey had an interesting role, but his character came off as more annoying than mysterious. Most of the tricks he had to do were just bizarre versus interesting (“That’s the point!” well yeah, but it got annoying. Annoying is never good). Steve Carell is just a very unlikeable character as well, which is okay, but it makes it hard to root for him really ever in the movie, or care if he succeeds or not. I did like Steve Buscemi’s character, he just needed a bigger role overall though.

Honestly, I think it was an average movie until the end. The final stunt, the last act, it just didn’t do it for me at all. Way too over the top (and stupid? That is a strong opinion, I will calm down) to really find acceptable as the end of this movie.

I guess if I want a good movie about magicians, I should stick to the dramas. Maybe Penn will make one later?

It looks like The Last Exorcism went the route of Blair Witch Project. Let me explain.

Blair Witch Project of course redefined horror, viral marketing, and basically introduced us to the found footage genre of film. The Last Exorcism didn’t do any of that, it was just another documentary based film. However (even if you never realized it), Blair Witch Project had a sequel, the Book Of Shadows and it was a “normal film” without the shaky cam feature.

Basically, this was a long winded way of saying that The Last Exorcism Part II also has switched filming techniques to the more standard technique. Just because “Book Of Shadows” was basically shunned and forgotten about with time, doesn’t mean that TLEp2 will also be shitty.

Oh fuck me. What the hell is this poster?

This takes place hours after the first film, with Nell (Ashley Bell) being pretty dang freaky and possessed, running around other peoples homes. Don’t worry, they fix her up real nice. She gets sent off to a group home for troubled girls, after a nice psychological breakdown and she is fixed into realizing that possessions aren’t real and no one is out to get her.

Just kidding.

In fact, now that she is in the heart of New Orleans, everything is a lot weirder, especially when she starts seeing visions of her dad and other villagers, including nightmares of her past acts. But she wants to be normal! Not the crazy girl from the cult! She wants a boyfriend (Spencer Treat Clark), real friends (Julia Garner), and not a demon trying to seduce her into a killing fire making machine!

Too bad fate is a bitch. David Jensen, who looks far too much like Edward James Olmos, plays the helpful group home caretaker, and tries to keep her on the path away from all this religious mumbo-jumbo.

I guess this is that new alternative massage and exorcism technique.

I apologize for the lack of detail in the plot description. Unfortunately, the first movie ends with a twist, and I don’t want to spoil that movie just to explain this one better! Who am I to give away one twist ending to help you figure out the sequel? This movie gives you a brief recap of the first movie events at the start, but does a pretty poor job of it.

When you compare part II to part I, part II is just a mess. Gone is any sort of subtlety, as from beginning to the end, it is entirely full of jump scares and hallucinations. In fact, a scene in the first film where Nell jumps at the camera and screams (a literal jump scare) is spliced into this film at least four times, thanks to Nell’s nightmares. It is weird that in her dreams she is imagining herself wild from someone else’s point of view, yeah?

This movie was so bad that by the end, I thought they were going to actually forget to include an exorcism. The exorcism in question was extremely different than your average movie exorcism, so there is a unique plus.  Unfortunately, most of the film is based on the plot from the last 10 minutes of the previous film, which in itself was confusing and left you with questions. Did this film answer the questions? Not at all! They basically ignored them and brought up even more confusing plot lines.

While the end of part I was rushed and confusing, the ending of this film is actually laughable and definitely bad. It almost felt Carrie-esque, but with no sense of fear involved. I was shaking my head the entire last few minutes, ready to get out of this mess of a film.

Documentaries, schmokumentaries.

But hey, Netflix has them, and sometimes they should be watched. Should Waiting For Superman be watched? We. Shall. See.

Ah. Hitlerman. Just who we wanted.
Wait. Superman? Like the regular boring one? Fineeeee.

Fun fact, this movie is about the failing American Public School System.

I watched it during the middle of the day, while I was prepping a lecture at a public university. I have found out that I am the problem with the American Public School System, and I apologize profusely.

Wait wait wait. This is talking about Elementary Schools, Middle Schools, High Schools. Never mind, I take back my apology.

Basically, tenure is a thing now in high schools, that teachers get basically right away from unions. Leads to bad teacher, hard to get rid of bad teachers, and schools that don’t care. Some amazing schools exist, but the only way to get into them (to make them fair) is a random lottery, versus money. So uhh, that sucks. Kids get sad, and we need to know about it.

Actual picture from documentary, generic stock photo, or something I took 8 years ago?

Well, this is one of those awareness documentaries. They let you know that something sucks, show it to you over and over again, and then that is it. Tell me to continue the cause? What? I ain’t got time for any causes.

The last 30 minutes (roughly) is watching many different lottery processes, and watching a majority of the kids look sad and cry and stuff. This isn’t regular guilting, this is extreme guilting. Whatever, its a fine message. I just hate that it doesn’t do anything about it. Awareness is not a worthwhile enough reason to do something. Shit, I think I got a little bit more out of the subject from Won’t Back Down than I did from this.

I am a bit disappointed in you, random CGI/animated movies. Why the obsession with famous people to voice your characters? If they are actually voice acting, you shouldn’t understand their normal acting voice. But alas, we must fill them up with as many big names as possible, because hey, its cheaper when its just voice acting, so why not?

I am just disappointed that I have to tag so many dang people in this movie. Shit, most of my plot is introducing the characters.

Basically, before I watch Escape From Planet Earth I just hope it is a lot closer to Escape from L.A. than Mars Needs Moms. But I guess I think that for most movies.

Finally, it looks like someone is thinking of the children.

In this movie universe, we have aliens! All different sorts, all speaking English, and all on planets of only one type. Earth is so weird. Not to mention deadly. When ever Aliens go there, they tend to never return. Seems like a big damper on the Earth thing, but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Like if you are Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser), Occupation: Hero. He saves shit, didn’t you see above? He saved those babies! That somehow got on that planet with things that eat babies! Well, Scorch gets a mission to Earth, hearing of a distress signal. So he goes over, but because of having a fight with his “nerd” brother Gary (Rob Corddry), he gets captured and everyone flips his shit. His news reporting lover (Sofia Vergara) is shocked. Yes, I just wanted to throw that tag in now.

Either way, because his son is a little dickhead, and his wife Kira (Sarah Jessica Parker) is nagging about how thinking is overrated, he decides to not think, and just go and rescue his brother. Bitches, man.

Needless to say, something fishy is up. General Shanker (William Shatner) ends up capturing him too.
Puts him to work, with some other smart aliens (George Lopez, Craig Robinson, Jane Lynch). No big deal, just building the biggest weapon in the universe to “Destroy asteroids” with. Hey, he said if they build it, they can go home. Pretty great!

Hopefully everything works out at the end, and they can…Escape From Planet Earth. Fingers crossed for these poor, brave aliens. Ricky Gervais is also “James Bing” a smart computer (not even subtle guys), and Jessica Alba as the head of head of mission control?

Well, these ones don’t look enslaved. I guess that is good!

Quick! Quick! Listen to this song. Maybe listen to it three times. Remix one of them a little bit. That is what the soundtrack felt like, as I could only hear this song and some woman song smack dab in the middle. They are the only two songs played during the credits too, which claimed many more songs happened in the movie, but I definitely didn’t hear them.

“Alright, so I guess it is cheesy and childish then?” You betcha. Like a lot. Like, the jokes are people falling down or running into things.

Hey, I laughed a few times. There were some subtle jokes, or things being yelled off screen, but that was about the extent of the humor.

Instead we have a mostly “lower level” comedy, without much of anything for adults to find enjoyable when they watch with the kids. Of the other aliens, the only one that I found not annoying was the Slug, and he didn’t really get much character development besides “gross, sticky!”. The main arguments of the characters involved whether or not someone was fired or quit (when it was clearly quit. Especially since I doubt the other individual even could fire him if he wanted). The plot twists (if we call them that) were obvious about 10 minutes into the movie. The child is stupid and has bad ideas.

Heck, the film basically deglorifies intelligence. Everyone was mad at the main guy for trying to think things through before acting? Fuck that, life isn’t a race people. Thinking of course helps save the day, but they are too busy nerd joking to care.

Yet despite all this, still not as bad as Mars Needs Moms.

Identity Thief came out the same day as Side Effects in theaters, yet they went the opposite route when it came to advertisements. Side Effects had barely any, and Identity Thief drowned the market with with TV spots and promos.

That’s right. So many ads, I am surprised I have enough energy to tread water still.

Run as fast as you’d like, but you cannot escape the ad train.

Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) is your normal Colorado living individual with a funny name. He is also a bit naive and a bit of a pushover, which is why no one is surprised when he gets his identity stolen by a “Diana” (Melissa McCarthy) in Winter Park, Florida!

Thanks to all of her shit, he now finds himself with a criminal record, failing to show up to a court date, and several thousands dollars of credit card debt. Hooray! It doesn’t help that he just started a new law firm with his buddy (John Cho) and when people Google his name, they only see pages of bad. The detective on his case (Morris Chestnut) can only help him if he can get Diana on his own to come back to Colorado and admit to her crimes. Clearly not too hard!

Amanda Peet plays his wife, Jon Favreau a jerk boss, T.I. and Genesis Rodriguez are hitmen after Diana, Robert Patrick a bail bondsman, and Eric Stonestreet as a rich Texan.

A rich and sexy Texan, of course.

The problem with a lot of advertisements is that each one is going to be different. The problem with that? I think only two or so scenes really felt surprising or new to me. I’ve seen the jokes, the gags, the violence, and the entire plot in their ads. I feel like that probably lessened the experience.

But lets talk about the plot. Identity theft on its own is relatively simple idea, and I am pretty sure hasn’t been done in this way before as a comedy. But the writers decided to make this movie anything but simple! She is a con artist, who was a foster child, who has made problems worse by bad dealings with local gangs, and being drunk in public. That means they are running from multiple groups while hating each others company and constantly lying about their intentions.

I think there is a fine line between annoying side character and misunderstood side character. What made Planes, Trains, and Automobiles so much better than Due Date is by humanizing the weird character and not just making them an asshole. Although they attempt to humanize Diana, I don’t think it works at all, and just see her as miserable person the whole movie.

The humor itself isn’t too well thought out. I laughed during a few scenes only, but I will note the theater as a whole seemed to laugh throughout.

Overall, I just feel bad for Jason Bateman. He kicked ass in Dodgeball and Arrested Development, but he has been on a slow decline since then.

Ah, Valentine’s Day.

Does anything mean love and sadness more than Mr. Nicholas Sparks? Shit, he has written 14 books since 2000, and probably half of them have turned into feature films. He is just writing money at this point, and probably making sure his stories can be turned into film.

In honor of that, let’s talk about The Lucky One, shall we?

Strangely enough, I am fine with him playing a soldier. Go figure.

In the War (you know which war I mean), there are people who end up dying. Dying for any number of reasons. Friendly fire. Enemy fire. Bad conditions. Who knows! But with that same train of thought, people survive for just as random reasons. Marching a step too slow. Disobeying orders. Or finding something on the ground, putting it in the pocket, and having that get shot instead.

Private Logan Thibault (Zac Efron) (No, I don’t think he is a private but they didn’t tell me) is returning home from his third Iraq tour thanks to that very thing. He found a picture of a random woman in a small frame, and it saved his life. Heck, after it saved him, it also gave him extra luck in surviving other deadly things. He really loves this random woman, but has no idea who she is, but he wants to thank her. When he gets home, he is too busy getting his PTSD on to do any real work, so he sets off around the country to find that missing woman.

And he finds her! Of course! Beth (Taylor Schilling) works at a dog obedience house with her mother (Blythe Danner) while both raising her son. She used to have a brother, but you know, he died in the war. Awkward.

So of course he gets down there, and quickly tells her that she saved his life and he wants to thank her. Right? Hells to the no. He panics, and says he is there for the job opening. Oh okay yeah, work and live in a completely different state to eventually tell her your secret. That’s not weird at all. Many movies before have told us that keeping big secrets like this always ends up positively.

Also featuring Jay R. Ferguson as a town sheriff and father of her child. Weird.

“I want you here in front of me, always, and forever…to continue to stop bullets flying in my direction.”

How does this rank in the Sparks spectrum? Well, it ain’t no Notebook. But it is better than The Last Song. But it is about another guy in the army, Dear John did that like, two movies ago. Why army again? Not to mention the entirety of most of the plot is about his inability to tell her why he traveled all this way, instead of a long journey finding the woman who saved his life.

Seriously, if it focused more on finding the woman, this movie would have been a lot better. But I guess it wouldn’t be Romancey enough if she wasn’t there most of the movie? I guess. Romance made this movie worse. I demand someone make a similar movie, focusing on the journey and finding the woman, and then it ends awkwardly as he pulls up to her doorstep or something. That is what I want.

This just doesn’t seem like romance at all to me. Type of thing is so creepy, even I can see that it is creepy.