Tag: 1 out of 4

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson.

In the next movies, somehow Hermoine gets more attractive and Harry somehow gets uglier.

If only there was a picture I could find to show that point.

Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire

Finally! A movie that has everything I could want. Edward Cullen.

Much more taller and cooler than Harry Potter.

Finally, this movie helps us realize that more than one person is awesome in this school. Cedric is older, cooler, better with the ladies, and most likely to be wizarding president, or something like that. In fact, he is chosen to represent the school at some tournament versus other foreign stereotypical wizard schools. There is more than one!? Shit. More important stuff.

There is a new teacher to replace the last three, and he is creepy with a weird eye. Snape is still a jerk. Gandalf is still gay. But you know what? This movie is highly entertaining. It is great when a movie sticks to a tournament structure and actually goes through all the stages of the tournament, with no funny business. Minus Harry sneaking is way in. That jerk.

ALSO. That ugly bald guy is finally in the movie. He is some weird house far away from the rest of the action, but hey, he is still being an asshole. In fact, he kills Cedric! No one else sees it happen, but Harry. So no one believes it. But shit, that has to suck, having that dead body on his conscious. I hope Harry doesn’t have anything else like that happen to him.

Foreshadowing.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

This is the last movie to feature lame British people at the beginning. This time that replacement teacher is an older, grown up pink lady who works for the man.

She just screams oppression.

Also what happens in this movie? Well Sirius dies. And that is about it.

Dumbledore gets kicked out of Hogwarts in the movie, but don’t worry, by the end he is back. They start up a club to learn to fight (which helps make Dumbledore get kicked out, due to poor name choices) and that is good. But they still can’t beat Voldemorts people yet. And uhh. Yeah. This movie is like a really slow montage, that doesn’t equate to immediate victory.

But yeah. If this movie was a season of Buffy, to me it would be season 1. Just mostly felt like filler. I pretty much hated this movie. I didn’t see the point.

Compared to the book, sure whatever, a lot happens. But in the movie? Ehhh..Nothing important.

I thought the only other important thing would be that people know that Voldemort is back, but six sweeps that bad boy under the rug.

At least we still have big eyes. Who is the live action version of Mr. DeMartino.

These films we see a more mature cast, easier to look at, if Harry didn’t have such ugly hair. We get a better explanation of the Wizarding world, both in its government and its “more than one school ness”. Similarly, these movies amp up the stakes. PG-13, no longer that G stuff. Just imagine if this series gained a rating per film? 5 would be quite a different experience, and who knows about the last few.

The comparison between 4 and 5 for me is just crazy. I love four, I hate five. Apparently this is not what most people thing? But most people might just compare it to the books, hell if I know.

Ugh.

I thought this movie, Push, would be a pretty simple action movie. Something about telekinetic people, maybe some government testing, and all this running around in Hong Kong. Cool stuff. Unfortunatly, it was beyond simple. Not in the good way. This was a complicated movie to understand, for just something about people with powers. I know Chris Evans loves playing people with powers, but come on man, you gotta learn to say no.

Despite the fame and fortune it may bring you.

This movie starts out simple. Dude is young, his dad tells him to hide, and to help a girl who gives him flowers in the future. Then he dies. Boom opening credits.

Then a girls voice begins talking and explaining a lot of back story. I even heard the word Nazi during it, so you know it is serious.

Later girl, Dakota Fanning, finds Evans and starts telling him the future. Turns out she is a “Watcher” and can predict the future, kinda. He is a “Mover” meaning he can telepathically move shit / control the air around him. Alright, fine, two types of people with dumb names for their powers got it.

They have to find a case worth a lot of money she says, and also it involves some other girl, Camilla Belle, who is a “Pusher” who can telepathically push memories/directions into other people’s heads. Alright. Three types of powers. Got it. Dumb name still. But cool. Also, USA is testing a new drug on people to enhance these powers, but it killed most people, except her.

And then landslide of confusion. There are a lot of different powers in this movie, and they often don’t explain them right away. Then you hear someone talking about a “Stitcher”, then a “Shadow”, then a “Wiper”, then a “Sniff”. You are like, holy shit, what the fuck is going on. If you memorize the terms of all of them before the movie, you’d be good to go, so here is a list. WTF, am I right? I can’t just learn all of this stuff in a slowly quick paced action movie. I don’t know anyone who could.

Besides that confusion, this movie has about as many holes as a piece of Pumice.

This could be the first rock picture on Gorgon Reviews.

So, confusing nomenclature, causing zero assurance of what anyone can do (and how all these people came to exist anyways). Plot holes, so you don’t understand how events in the movie even happen. These two sentences do not bode well for a good movie experience. Bind those up with an ending where we are supposed to accept out of no where that somehow Chris Evans’ character became the smartest man in existence, and it just rates very low.

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson. There are some other people, but who cares after the main three. The goal of the series was to have all the actors play the same role for all 7 (At the time, but now 8 ) movies! Lets see how that worked out.

It doesn’t.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

This first movie is very very simple. It has to get you caught up on the backstory (or origin), who the bad guys are, how the world works, etc. So you can consider this movie to be like the first movie of a superhero series, if it makes it easier. Like all good superheros, Harry Potter also lost his parents at an early age. While most superheroes still find themselves in a good situation, loving family, Harry gets the short end of the stick and has to live in an abusive house. The people in the house are the only real non magic users we learn about in this series, so I kinda just have to assume all British people are like that.

Logic!

Blah blah. Big scary hairy guy tells him he is special. Steals him to a witch school (where no Muggles are allowed. Hmm. Seems kind of racist. Flaw in the series? I’m not saying Muggles and Wizards are different races. But the people in the movie do. Really, to compare it to superheroes, they are like Mutants. Since two non-mutants can still make a mutant baby.

At mutant orphan school, he is picked on by Alan Rickman, is talked about behind is back, and learns to do magic. Like normal middle/high school. Some gay old man takes a special interest in him, and the rest is history.

Oh yeah. And some guy with another dude on his head tries to kill him through a series of weird games and three headed dogs to get to a stone that lets people live forever. That part was just weird though.

Really, this just looks like some sort of artsy statue.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Year 2! Life at home still sucks. School doesn’t. Turns out homeboy can talk to Snakes. That’d be amazing to me, you know, if these same people weren’t also flying around, shooting off spells and shit.

Some famous book guy replaces guy with two heads who tried to kill Harry as a teacher, and he also is inept at the job. Also, people are dying. Giant Basilisk in sewers? Oh no, evil dude who is dead kinda went to school here, had a diary (hah…) and tricked Harry! Don’t worry. The diary dies by the end, and all the kids are no longer stone.

What is going on here? Is he looking away so he doesn’t become stone? Why doesn’t the basilisk just bite him?

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Year 3! Home sucks, school doesn’t. Another new teacher, also inept, also suspicious. This one involves wearwolves though!

Oh. And shit. Dangerous criminals escaped from Prison. That sucks. More magic learning, more hall sneaking, more no good doing. Also, time travel. They got everything under the sun pretty much in this movie. Even that Dumbledore guy seemed confused by it all. HEY WAIT.

THAT’S A DIFFERENT ACTOR! SHENANIGANS!

Thankfully the actor change wasn’t this significant.

Richards Harris died before the third of eight movies! All of their plans, ruined! Guess they shouldn’t have picked such an old actor for such a long project. Oh well, enter Michael Gambon.

I can’t even remember if Voldermort is in this movie. I know it has animal rights stuff. But I think this one just has his lackies.

Oh yeah, and the escaped convict is Gary Oldman, not actually a murderer, and Harry’s godfather. So his last remaining “family” even though that word is a big stretch still.

Why so serious, Black? This works because Oldman is in the Batman movies too.

So, I know they wanted authentic purposes. But I find the kids in the first movie to now just be creepy, based on their age. The first movie, when compared to the others kind of moves at a lot slower pace. Afterall, its the origin movie. With everything getting explained, it might bore future watchings. The second movie I usually just call a continuation of the first. Still a bunch of little kids. Still a bunch of explaining.

The third movie I think is the first to take on its own complete story and tell it well. It is interesting, and all of the components are interesting too, not confusing. Confusing is an easy adjective to give to movies dealing with any form of time travel too, so that is a great thing to pull off.

Obviously I remember the least from the second movie so it must not have had much of lasting impression on me, right?

Restitution. I have hard time spelling that word sometimes. Not at all relevant to the movie, just figured I’d let you know.

This is a weird low budget movie.

Featuring all of the stars of yesterday! Mena Suvari, of American Beauty, and Tom Arnold, of Tom Arnold.

Is it just me, or does he always look confused nowadays?

The main character however is played by Mark Bierlein, who I am ashamed to give the IMDB for. But the dude is a writer, actor, and producer. He was an actor in this movie and Street Boss. He was a producer in this movie and Street Boss. He was also a producer, in this movie and Street Boss. At least he does what he loves, I guess?

At least his movies seem to be set in Michigan.

This movie was super low budget. Blood looked bad, and I cringed when I heard the potted plant crashing noise. Just a dumb sound effect. As for the story. Eh. Dude gets framed for murders at the beginning of the movie. A year later some other dude comes to investigate it for a book. Turns out lot of people in the town are in on the conspiracy, and more people die because of his search.

His neighbor is Tom Arnold. The other dude’s lover is Mena Suvari. And yeah.

I hated the ending. There was a lot of unexpected action scenes at the end, which felt stupid as well. The explanation for everything, I thought was dumb. But for reasons I can’t explain without spoilers. Most of the movie was slow too.

They were going for this big “Whoa! Twist!” stuff near the end, but really, just felt dumb. I will note that an actor in this movie is named Jimmy Doom. How awesome is that name?

He played the role of “Hillbilly”.

So I came upon this title by accident. I was on Jeremy Sisto‘s imdb page (who is kicking ass on Suburgatory), and saw the title. I immediately went “OH MAN MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!” I was assuming it was some pseudo sequel thing to what every existentialist worth his lone self would know about, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Yes, the movie based upon the play of the same name, both fantastic.

I already feel like this is a mouthful.

This movie has not much at all to do with that movie/play. They do makes some references to the work, but its not at all related (Yet Tom Stoppard apparently told them to go for it). The play/movie is a personal favorite of mine, full of some great quotable gems, so that was a shame.

“We’re actors! We’re the opposite of people!”

So anyways, this movie takes place in modern NYC. Jake Hoffman is forced to be the director of the play, in a theater owned by John Ventimiglia. Everyone else involved is a vampire. They want to do the play that they made up, which is the name of the movie. All the director really wants to do is win back his ex girlfriend, Devon Aoki, from none other than Ralph Macchio! Sisto is barely in the movie, as a cop guy.

Eventually they realize that their version of the play is actually a true story, with a real Hamlet, and involving real vampire’s during Shakespeare’s time. John V goes around performing the play, turning the actors into vampires and audience members around the world. Similarly, the real Hamlet is out there trying to stop him. The only thing that can stop him is the Holy Grail.

Does this sound ridiculous? Because it is.

It is hard to figure out what is going on most of the movie. They had different play sequences throughout, and it was supposed to be all interweaved and surprising, but it just felt clunky and confusing. For all I know this could be some super meta type of movie that I just don’t get, but I don’t want to get it either. The acting was bad and cheesy, and well, just bad overall. It probably would have been better if I just watched the original movie again.

“We can do rapiers… or rape… or both!”

Hooray! The long awaited sequel to Cars is Cars 2! And by long awaited, I mean both never expected in 2006 and also, since a couple days ago, when I reviewed Cars.

I say this in an exaggerated way obviously, but Cars 2 is nothing like Cars. Sure, both of them are still in some creepy ass world with only cars (and other transportation vehicles) being their own entities that are alive, but Cars is better than Cars 2. Cars is about slowing down, appreciating the finer things in life, and finding true happiness.

Cars 2 is just some big James Bond Spoof.

But unfortunately, when I think Cars + James Bond, I think KITT from Knight Rider. This was KITT-less.

Owen Wilson and his bad voicing habits are barely in this movie. This movie is all about Mater, the Tow Truck, voiced by Larry The Cable Guy. Yes. They changed leads and put the comic relief in the first film as the main character. Yes. This is as bad as it sounds.

The actual beginning of the movie I assumed was a “movie” in this car land. It was just nothing like the first film, with Michael Caine playing the James Bond like car, spying on an oil rig? Or something? But this film is “deeper” than that. It involves Lightning going on a world grand prix, and racing against a french car (voiced excellently by John Tuturro) sponsored by an alternative fuel source dude, voiced by Eddie Izzard. This is of course the only way Izzard can play someone who isn’t evil. Because if he had to show his face in a movie, you know he always is the evil dude. Yay voicing!

But yeah. There is some big conspiracy happening. This takes up most of the movie, and of course Mater ends up being mistaken for an American spy. Thanks to Bruce Campbell, who’s few minutes is the best in the movie, because he is Bruce Campbell.

“Voice a car? Boom boom boom. Sorry, I’m fighting deadites here. Can the car just be backfiring? Boom boom boomstick.”

It is stupid that this movie got a G rating, with all of its “violence”. But who knows what goes on in those rating meetings. The reason for all the bad cars is laughable too. They are a bunch of “lemons”, or cars that break down a bunch. Yes. I’d hope you read my first review, but in this world, cars are created and forced to live certain rules. You’d be pissed off too if you were made with defections and forced to just, live that life out while other cars never break down. You can only handle being stuck on the side of the road so many times before you’d snap too.

So, likers of the first Cars movie would probably call this one worse. I am going to actually find a shark and throw it over the shark, to represent my point more. This movie is just a cash-grab for merchandise. But at least they called Bruce Campbell.

Hey now. Cars is pretty old. 2006? Yes, it goes way outside of my range of movies I normally review. But because Cars 2 comes out soon and I am reviewing it, I figure I might as well throw up the first one as well (since I just saw it). Also because it is old, I can do a more satirical review of it. Boom boom.

To start, this movie is about cars. The main character, voiced by Owen Wilson, is a race car. Yes, in this car-world, there are no humans. All the cars are alive. If they crash, they can get repaired. But that is about it. No where in this movie is there a dead car. They also have lots of roads and towns where they sell car things.
The movie goes back and forth with gas. It seems to both me something to drink when they are thirsty, and like actual gas, they just need it to run. Hmmm.

What is also weird about this world is that cars on their own pretty much make a NASCAR like event. Which, if you compare everything they do to humans (which I will), is kind of weird. It’d be like having 3 hour races for humans, where they’d just keep running, and taking food/drink beaks. Massages probably in the pit stop.

Owen Wilson is terrrrrrribad in this movie. So bad.

But he is so hot right now.

He has about two emotions, which I am realizing is true with his real movies. He always seems to speak in a calm relaxed way. Even his anxious or afraid voice he just seems to not be aware of the severity of the situation, just coasting by everything. And that is how the car talked. Despite being lost in California or somewhere, and in jail, and working hard labor in a town, he just never seems to really be too upset. In the ending of the movie, when he makes his race, and all of his new friends show up to be his pit crew, he says something like “Hey, you guys came.”

Now read that in the most laid back way possible. That is how it was said. Like, he seemed almost indifferent. He was just stating a fact, wasn’t happy or excited. Just eh.

But let us get to the most important point of the movie. This movie teaches kids something very very bad.

What you will do for the rest of your life is determined when you are born. (I would also like to note that they never go into cars being born. There is no car factory that they speak of, where, I assume, either machines or cars make more cars. Can you imagine a baby making factory for humans? Kind of creepy. Kind of Matrix-y). Now at these car factories, if they make you a tank, guess what, you will be fighting in wars I assume. If they make you into a cop car, you are sure as heck going to be a cop when you are older.

If you are a race car, you are probably going to do races. You can even gain money and get more upgrades and be a better race car (one with lights. He doesn’t have any in the movie, because, race cars don’t do things beside race and there are lights in the arena). But wait! The girl car gave up her life to help the town! Yes. A more well off car can decide to not live up to its potential and do what you wan’t, but just like real life, someone who was born (or CREATED) as a lesser or specific vehicle can only do that. All the pit crews are fork lifts. Fork lifts can only do pit crew like things. It becomes even more fucked up if you remember they were created. Someone decided to give life to an individual, specifically with specialized abilities to limit their life and force them down a specific path.

What the fuck.

Outside of the car factories there may as well be this guy just standing there.

“You’re all doooomed. Doomed I say. Doooomed. You’re allll doooomed.”

Its an okay movie, with bad messages for the youth. I’d rather live in a world (well, one with Humans) where I can make my own destiny thank you very much.

Hooray Hooray Hooray! This is the 150th movie review on the site. This seems like a special occasion (more special than 100th Review) so I will include way too many pictures as a way of celebrating.

Twilight is a “vampire” themed Romance Drama thing (some people may call it a “Chick Flick” even) based off some book of the same name. So anything that the book tells me that the movie does not tell me I don’t know. Like I don’t know if Kristen Stewart is actually supposed to be so freakishly pale (which characters in the movie allude too. So probably).

If you glare long enough, you might be able to make out her face.

Cedric Diggory plays the main vampire role, and is super gross. Dude almost threw up when he first saw Bella. Not to mention his foster brothers/sisters, also all creepy and dating each other. Leaves him all alone. Girls want him, like Anna Kendrick, but he is too cool for them. They aren’t pale enough.

He also likes those Asian types.

Anyways, despite Cedric telling Bella that he is super predatoring her, and that she can’t help but fall under his charm, she still thinks she loves him. That is ridiculous.

“You are under an aura spell so I can kill you. But I wont.” “Fuck that, this is LOVE!”

After the long drawn out opening, after they all of the sudden love each other, the rest of the movie feels like it is just him slowly explaining to her what being a vampire in this world is like. They pick some place Oregon cause it is dreary as fuck, cloudy and rainy, so not much direct sunlight to make them shine. Also, I think about 4/5 of this movie takes place in the woods. They always run out to the damn woods. It got pretty annoying, cause the woods are cloudy/dreary too. No pretty scenery is in this movie at all.

Also, for some reason the clouds/fog make sexy shapes.

The ending felt super rushed. But before that. BASEBALL? WHAT? That was one of the strangest scenes ever in a movie. “Hey its thunderstorming so we can play baseball, if we time our swings with the thunder booms and do ridiculous super human strength stuff”. No one seemed to ever miss, making pitching stupid. Also I don’t think anyone scored a point.

WHAT? Baseball?!

After baseball, the ending began. Everything was super rushed. I just said that. All of the sudden, snarly mcsnarl vampire loner wanted to get Bella, and she had to run, because he wouldn’t stop. So they drive to Phoenix. And then confront him. Weird fight later. Bella almost dies. Cedric saves her. Go to prom. Dance. The end.

Yay prom.

NO ITS NOT REALLY THE END. Some random girl spied on them dancing? Also, I have no idea why Cedric hated Taylor Lautner so much. Maybe its because he isn’t really an Indian? Lautner seemed to hate him back though. They never explain why in this movie, which is just silly. What is there more movies coming? It probably has to do with his hair.

No wonder “Team Jacob” chants didn’t start with this movie.

Overall the movie was as cheesy as I thought it would be. I don’t see how anyone could “fall” for the Cedric Diggory character. Kristen Stewart was annoying as a longer. Whats up Anna Kendrick. Taylor Lautner creeped me out. Then more drawn out parts. Yeah.

People are just going to see this review and think of me as a mean old curmudgeon.

Assuming you don’t already assume that.

But I was very disappointed with the new Winnie The Pooh movie.

Blah blah blah, kids will love it, super G, whatever. I hope no kids are reading this website anyways. Just in case they are, there is some bad fucking language in some of the reviews, so they should probably stay away from those.

My problems are as such. First, not counting the credits, this movie is pretty much exactly 60 minutes long. Why a person would rather watch this than a much more interesting hour long show on HBO or Showtime, I wouldn’t know. But just in terms of length (and content) it really just felt like a long episode of a TV show. Not a movie.

The animation itself also felt like it was identical to the original older movies/shows. I know why they did that, the same way they made this movie. To prey entirely on nostalgia for older people, and to introduce it to younger people to try and get more money. If nostalgia is the only reason you would like something new, or being very young, that cannot be a good enough reason for it to be good. I read a few other reviews of this, and most of them mention the nostalgic feeling.

Finally, this doesn’t really offer anything new. This is still based off of the original book series by A. A. Milne. In fact, some of the plots are stories that have already been done in movies (such as the Search For Christopher Robin).

I did enjoy the song about the Bakson, but that was because the animation was done in a creative way. John Cleese did an excellent job as narrator too. While there was some interesting moments in terms of interactions with the book pages and the characters, most of the humor comes from the normal lack of understanding on the part of Pooh.

In conclusion, if a well established series is going to release a movie after a period of downtime, it should a) Have something improved upon the earlier series, such as graphics (not saying boom boom 3D, but there is better 2D animation capabilities), b) Not just rehash all the earlier plots, and c) Be of “movie” quality, not just a longer cartoon tv show.

Tigger, please.

1 out of 4.

I guess the first and most obvious thing to note about this movie is it is called Faces in the Crowd, not to be confused with A Face in the Crowd.

This movie, which IMDB calls a Horror-Thriller despite being more of a Thriller-Drama (unnecessary semantics are unnecessary), stars Milla Jovovich and many other people who I haven’t really seen before. Thankfully, who they are is not an important aspect of this movie.

Milla is just a kindergarten or something teacher, having a corporate boy friend, going to the clubs with her friends, living free. But she accidentally witnesses another girl getting stabbed and murdered (and then raped). Talk about a way to ruin your night!

“Alright, murdered then raped? Sorry. That is too much for me.”

Turns out that is what some local serial killer has been doing. She runs, he attacks, she falls off a bridge and hits her head. Wake up later, FREAK OUT! Apparently she comes down with something called Prosopagnosia, or face blindness? Sounds completely made up in the movie. She has trouble recognizing faces. I assume the movie went for the most extreme way of her having this condition. In her class room, all the girls look alike, as do all the boys. When she loses site of a persons face, like looking away and looking back, it looks different to her. A lot of faces just keep changing, including her own.

At first it is hard to notice. Overall, it is just super annoying for the viewers. So, the movie is mostly her being paranoid that the killer will come after her still, in case she does remember how to recognize him. The ending is reminiscent of the classic clone fight scenario. You know. When two people are identical and fighting, and you have to shoot one of them. But you may mess up!

Seriously. This isn’t spoilers. The movie has jerk boyfriends/friends, and a lot of Milla freaking out. I never really care about any other character in the movie. Just wanted the stupid concept movie to be over.

Now Progeria is a P based disease I would love a thriller movie about.