Tag: 2 out of 4

Finally the talk of the summer is here. People have had 7/7/17 circled on their calendar, just waiting for the movie that everyone everywhere has wanted.

No not goddamn Spider-man. I’m talking about The Little Hours?

Oh you haven’t heard about The Little Hours? My bad! Surprisingly very little advertising, but it was directed by Jeff Baena who gave us Life After Beth. Which was decent, and also had very little advertising. Guess that is his indie theme.

Either way, the number of people you would recognize in this film is actually quite staggering, so that alone one would have warranted an advertising budget, but what do I know.

Oh, and I know every single girl in this picture too.

Picture this! A nice quaint nunnery, the medieval ages, pious and chaste women just doing their thing, trying to love Jesus.

This nunnery is run by Father Tommasso (John C. Reilly) and the head nun is Sister Marea (Molly Shannon). At this point, this nunnery might seem a bit more odd already.

Our main nuns that we are looking at are all relatively young and unsure about their lives. Sister Alessandra (Alison Brie) is just there temporarily, waiting for her father to set her up with a husband, and she does cross stitch to help make some cash for the convent. Sister Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza) is quick to temper and often misses events looking for animals that keep breaking out. Sister Genevra (Kate Micucci) wants to be a good nun, but is getting caught up in other nun-anigans and also questioning her sexuality.

And they are all mean to this one poor gardener. So eventually, he is fed up and leaves, putting the convent in a pickle. But no worries, a young chap Massetto (Dave Franco) is on the run from his kingdom, for being a little shithead, and he can take the place. He just has to pretend to be deaf and mute so he doesn’t get on the nerves of the nuns.

But he is young and cute and that causes even more issues.

Also starring Lauren Weedman, Nick Offerman, Jemima Kirke, Fred Armisen, and Adam Pally.

Yelling “Hey Fuckface!” at deaf people is the only way to know if they are really deaf.

I had no idea what to expect of this movie going into it. I wondered if it would be a serious film, with comedic actors, just to be weird. But as soon as Plaza started laying down the f-bombs, it became obvious that this was just going to be a very odd period piece film. I quickly then switched my mind to Your Highness, which was mostly improv and also quite strange.

And then something else happened. It got sexy. Not sexy like Natalie Portman in a medieval thong, but sexy erotic. Because those girls are young and curious, Franco is young and desperate, and there is a lot of sexual activity in the movie. Like, a whole lot. And the scenes aren’t super quick jokes, they kind of go on for a bit, and include sexy music.

What I am saying is, this movie sort of turns into a softcore porno. Or at least a skinamax-esque picture. And it came out of nowhere and kept happening. Add on the very naked ending bit, with lots of floppy bits, this is just a surprise from start to finish.

And most of the points come from being a surprise. I laughed a few times, but it was never a film that really captured my interest. It was also intentionally slow (and brooding?), but at least it is original. And for some people out there, this might be the type of film they have been waiting for, for a long time.

I am a big fan of the first amendment. It is technically what gives me the right to write stupid shit like some of the reviews you may have read before on this website. The Resident Evil one? Thanks first amendment!

I was excited to hear about Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press was not only now available, but readily available on Netflix. Because it is about the first amendment, lawsuits, celebrities, and most importantly, a lawsuit I sort of actually follow a little bit as it happened!

A documentary about something I know a little bit about! I mean, it wasn’t a trial I was actually a part of, in the same state I was at, or anything for real related to me. But I read articles on the internet!

Let’s just go on and say it. Fuck Gawker. Fuck all of Gawker’s affiliate sites, and I do mean all of them. Fuck Buzzfeed too. I have been doing my best to rage against the click bait media that is ruining journalism, and Gawker is sort of at the head of it, while also doing just smut articles. And that is my opinion. People aren’t buying news as much as they should, and that sucks, please support news, so click bait doesn’t work as much. But I wont click on an article if it is click bait. I will go out of my way, google the keywords, find it from a reputable source, then maybe respond to it on Facebook letting people know the info they want without the shitty tactics.

So I am biased against this story, I guess.

Holy hell, Hogan’s hand looks huge.

Hulk Hogan once had sex. It was on camera. And it was shared on the internet. Not just shared on the internet, but Gawker decided to make an article not only about the tape, but also you know, hosting part of it, and sharing it freely for people to watch as they please. And Hogan sued them, and eventually he won. It is why you can now go to Gawker and see that they are shut down. They are completely bankrupt and fucked.

But that isn’t the whole documentary. It then goes into a man who works in Silicon Valley who funded the Hogan lawyers because he had a vendetta against Gawker and wanted them to pay, and pay they did. And then a third act about a Las Vegas newspaper, who were bought by someone shady in their community, so they reported on it and bad stuff happened. That third act was complete news to me, so I was happy to see it, just not happy to hear what happened.

Which brings us back to Gawker. The documentary brings out claims abotu what happened to them, and compares them to Trump who is on his own war against media. Sure, I guess, but it still feels incredibly different. Because even if the guy who bankrolled Hogan wasn’t the best dude Gawker. Still. Was. Wrong.

They put out a sex tape of a celebrity, against his will, didn’t shut it down when asked, and got fucked for it. The internet is a fucked up and unforgiving place, but things are getting better. It used to be that celebrities were not seen as people and just torn down on a whim and just had to take it. But they are getting involved speaking out for the wrongs against them. Especially the women.

Like the women who had their privacy fucked over by the infamous The Fappening, which had a hacker gain access to dozens of celebrities phones, find the naughty ones and post them online, hurting peoples privacy. Places like Gawker did NOT publish these, but talked about them negatively. And then they also do stuff like this, and don’t see the problem.

Having people take down the press, could be a problem. But this documentary tried to say that Gawker wasn’t at fault here, and that kind of makes it hard to accept its bigger points.

Paterson is a film that came out in 2016, near the end, a limited drama, that I totally missed. A few of my friends put it on their best of the year list. And I totally missed it. I feel so ashamed.

Ashamed specifically because it played in my city in advance with the director attending to do a Q&A.

But I am mostly ashamed because Adam Driver has been in some pretty solid “indie” films over the years, you know, the ones that aren’t Star Wars. In reverse order, he was in Silence, Midnight Special, What If, Inside Llewyn Davis, and of course Frances Ha!

I should be jumping out of my shoes to see an Adam Driver film. Jumping out of them really far. Super far. Way up there. You know where.

In OUTER. SPACE.

Paterson (Adam Driver) is a bit of an odd man. One may even say he is a character worthy studying. He is named Paterson, and he happens to be born and raised in the city of Paterson, New Jersey. Hooray parents! Speaking of Paterson, there is an epic poem named Paterson, written by real life poet William Carlos Williams, also from that city.

That doesn’t seem relevant, but that is because I forgot to mention that Paterson, too, is a poet! He has a secret little poetry journal where he works on his craft. Occasionally he will tell his wife, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), one of these poems, but he is very secluded when it comes to the poems. You know, they are not ready yet.

You can’t make a lot of money as a poet, especially if no one sees your work. His actual day job is a bus driver, the master of his route, allowing him to overhear on many strangers’ conversations that can inspire his work. He talks to the same coworkers, and always stops by the same bar to talk drink and talk to the bartender, Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley).

Paterson has a very simple life. He is a quiet man, and this is about a week in his life.

Also starring William Jackson Harper, Chasten Harmon, Rizwan Manji, and Masatoshi Nagase.

Here you are slaving over poems, and your wife has shit on her face. Your home life is a wreck!

This film is definitely a character study, like I was told and warned. I was a bit afraid that the film would end in some way showing that his whole week is some strange loop that he is stuck in, because yay sci-fi. But no, it was just a week in his life. I was worried as the days went by that something terrible and drastic would happen to him. A death, a break up, a new baby, an accident, just something. But most people don’t have major events happen all the time in his life, so it is realistic in nature.

And sure, technically a major event does happen, but not one you would expect at all. A smaller tragedy, and one Paterson handles exactly as you would expect his character to after being with him over the previous 90 minutes.

Paterson is realistic. It is well acted and Paterson is clearly a character not Adam Driver just hanging out. His wife is an interesting character as well, and the side stories he overhears and interacts with are interesting blurbs about characters we will never see again. I thought the ending was a cute moment as well.

But overall, I never really fell in love with the movie. It never really drew me in. I was always an outside observer and didn’t have a lot of personal attachment to the story. Oh well Adam Driver, you had to have an okay review at some point from me.

The Last Word has a relatively pretty poster to look at. It conjures up specific colors, radio, and of course music. But at the same time, it makes me think of the SNL sketch for Schweddy Balls, poking fun of NPR level talk radio.

It also makes me think of The L Word, which is unfortunately a show I don’t have any references to outside of the knowledge is about lesbians. Which hey, maybe The Last Word is about lesbians too. After all, the cover is two women! Maybe they are lesbians!

What I am saying is, I think this movie will be two hours long, about lesbians on NPR talking about balls.

There is a very high chance I am disappointed with this level of thinking.

Harriett Lauler (Shirley MacLaine) is an old lady who knows what she wants. And she knows how to get what she wants. And she doesn’t trust a lot of people to do things correctly, so she often has to take over and do itself. That includes her own gardeners and cooks.

No one likes her. Her relationship with her daughter (Anne Heche) is nonexistent. Her relationship with her past coworkers is weak as well, despite making them and her very wealthy. But while reading an obituary of one of her old acquaintances, she is amazed at how wonderful that person seemed after death, while still being truthful.

So of course Harriett goes to the newspaper to find the obituary writer, Anne (Amanda Seyfried), to make sure she can write her obituary as well. Just like, early. To make sure it is good enough. Sane people totally do this all the time.

And with this task comes, eventually, a change to Harriett’s life for the better. It is never too late to become a decent human being.

Also starring AnnJewel Lee Dixon, Thomas Sadoski, and Philip Baker Hall.

No one expects them to rob a bank, that’s the point!

The Last Word gives us Shirley MacLaine playing a huge bitch, which on its own might be worth the price of admission. But if you only want to pay for movies that take you on emotional whirlwind and leave you breathless, then, well, you might want something more.

Because really, this is a safe and simple film. It goes into a deep topic, dealing with your own mortality and legacy at the ends of your life. But it is also a feel good film, watching this woman better her life finally and start to better the lives of those she decided to make close to her. This drags the film into really average territory.

In reality, what she does is probably really hard. But the opposition she is met with is very limited so the struggles don’t feel incredibly real. The point of the movie is to inspire those to change their lives for the better, to realize it is never too late, which is a great moral. However, this film just feels hokey with how it accomplishes those goals.

I will note, Seyfried’s speech did make me a little bit sad near the end. But not weepy, just sad. So it had a lot left to go to make me connect with it at a real emotional level.

Nerdland on initial glance looks like some late night show on Adult Swim or Comedy Central. Looking at its concept history, I am sure that at some point that was the goal as well. It definitely features people who have worked with these networks in the past, and an art style that is detailed and…well it is hard to describe. Rough around the edges? Chaotic?

Maybe even grotesque. Yeah, grotesque. That is how this film looks, and it has an adult tone. Sort of a Heavy Metal crudeness to the whole thing. So I am expecting, ass and titties, hard language, maybe even hard violence, despite a simple nice sounding title.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in Nerdland?

Well, Nerdland doesn’t look to clean, which I guess I should have expected.

John (Paul Rudd) and Elliot (Patton Oswalt) are best friends, living together in an apartment in Hollywood hoping to make it big. John is an aspiring actor, kicked out of an acting class, and taking that as a sign he had nothing to learn and was ready to star. Elliot is an aspiring screenwriter, who had a pedophile teacher who hung out with him a LOT, so he figures he is great at writing.

And they are not famous. They have side jobs that they keep losing, an apartment they cannot clean, and strong dreams of success when they both are complete sex craved losers. They think they have pseudo-girlfriends in Sally (Kate Micucci) and Linda (Riki Lindhome), but really they are just creepy and talk to them while they are at work.

After another unsuccessful attempt at reaching the big leagues and getting embarrassed, the two decide to put their fates in their own hands and get famous in a day. No matter the cost. No matter the effort. No matter the depths. And they will use their friend The Nerd King (Hannibal Buress), who runs a comic emporium, to get some help.

Also starring the voice work of Mike Judge, Charlene Yi, and Paul Scheer.

The Nerd King is not the ruler we need, but he is the ruler we deserve.

Grotesque is my word to best describe the film, but crude would be a high number two. A lot of this film seems to want to go to extremes, not for great reasons, but just because they wanted an extreme animated film. Not as bad as The Human Centipede levels, but high enough to realize that you are just going to get some fucked up shit.

And yet it all seems to make sense coming from the minds of our two losers heroes. They are typical beta males who feel friendzoned and think the world is out to get them for their intellect, not for the fact that they are complete assholes. It is almost like a character study, just taken to extremes so that maybe some similar people out there in the world and on the internet can see themselves in John and Elliot and maybe grow the fuck up.

At the same time, in their attempts to become famous, the film stalls out and becomes a bit of a drag. Watching them try a few different schemes to get famous all peter out isn’t as interesting as it seems. It does garner more interest in the end, as it starts to piece together a better narrative, but really, this film is just so extreme it is hard to derive a real message out of it.

Well, don’t be a fucker. That is one of them.

I believe I told my wife that I wanted to watch Mindhorn on Netflix for a review. Her response was something similar to “What the fuck is Mindhorn?”

And of course I gave her the netflix description of it, and she said “That sounds fucking stupid.” Yes, yes it does. And that is of course why I watched it.

Also the title is powerful. Mindhorn. Mind. Horn. Mindh. Orn.

MINDHORN.

I am now in your brain, learning your secrets.

Mindhorn is a British television show about Detective Mindhorn, played by actor Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt). He has some telepathic powers, and he solves crime. It is the hottest TV show around. It is on the cover of magazines, everyone talks about it, and it is getting a spin-off led by one of its minor characters played by Peter Eastman (Steve Coogan).

And now? It is 25 years later, Thorncroft is living in poverty, doing commercials, no one caring about Mindhorn anymore. It lasted three seasons and was cancelled and Thorncroft was a dick, so he left all his friends behind to try for something better. And shit, the spinoff lasted over 10 seasons and is what everyone cares about now.

But things will change. Because on the Isle of Man, where the series was filmed, a MURDER has occurred. By a “lunatic” Paul Melly (Russell Tovey), who will only speak to Detective Mindhorn. He thinks that Mindhorn is real and will only deal with the character. So Thorncroft is brought in, to act and help deal with the boy. But Thorncroft needs money and fame, so he will make this last as long as it needs to be to get people saying his name again.

Also starring Richard McCabe, David Schofield, Simon Farnaby, Kenneth Branagh, Jessica Barden, Andrea Riseborough, Essie Davis, and Nicholas Farrell.

If this movie was in 3D, this would be an intense, frightening scene. Because of the shots, not the weed wacker.

Mindhorn takes an interesting premise, makes it British, adds some comedy, and still doesn’t fully deliver an amazing movie.

It had amusing moments, it had interesting characters (a lot of the side characters were brimming with personality), but I feel it was also plagued with pacing issues and not being strong on the humor. It is adequately bizarre (not extremely bizarre), even a bit zany, just not incredibly humorous. That is one of my biggest issues.

As for pacing issues, at times it feels clunky. It is easy for mystery-esque movies to lead you all over the place with only tiny details mattering by the end, but this one isn’t even a real mystery. The police believe they know who the killer is right away, and when things inevitably change, we have a new obvious killer, and the majority of the film is just trying to get the proof. So not really a mystery, despite set up like one.

It makes the film just so hard to define. That isn’t a negative, given some of my favorite movies this year have hard to define genres. But when it comes out like a mystery and is instead just a slightly eccentric comedy, you just find yourself wanting a lot more in the film.

Dreamworks films never reach their full potential. Or they do, and Dreamworks films just suck, outside of the two Dreamworks franchises that I don’t even have to mention at this point.

They do not aim for universal appeal, they just want to get their cheap kid jokes and run.

I expected to outright hate Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. I have never read or looked into a book with any level of effort, but I see the sort of humor that exists. You know, poop and underwear humor. Like the whole series, all based on one sort of joke. It is a bold move, but it was a hit with kids, and honestly I am surprised it took this long for a movie.

But as I left the film, it had some level of charm, despite all the shit.

His whole body is just so round.

Before we get to the superhero, we need to talk about George (Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch). They have been best friends since Kindergarten, thanks to their similar humor styles. They pull pranks on school to get them by, and they love making comics together. George tells the story, Harold is the illustrator. Their favorite comic that they have made is Captain Underpants!

But at school, not everything is okay. The mean Mr. Krupp (Ed Helms) is the principal, and he outlaws fun for the sake of discipline, so George and Harold are a thorn in his side. But he never has proof! When he does get proof, he will be able to separate the two boys into different classes, thus killing their friendship, or something like that.

And thanks to a few other pranks their nightmare is about to come true! As a last ditch effort, they attempt to hypnotize him, and it works! There they decide to make him pretend to be Captain Underpants and wham! A superhero is born!

But can their school be run by a make believe super hero? Can they control him and protect their friendship? What about the evil Professor P (Nick Kroll) who has a weird plan to hurt children too, with the unknowing help of Melvin (Jordan Peele), a humorless nerd. Also featuring Kristen Schaal as the voice of the cafeteria worker.

Although pretty round, they have a few more edges so this isn’t just some freaky round planet. Whew.

Guess what?! Captain Underpants wasn’t extremely poopy, just somewhere poopy. For the most part, I didn’t find it really that funny. It relied on the same sort of joke over and over again. Of which the film did talk about how “toilet humor” is the lowest form, so they understood what they were doing. The exaggeration of their friendship being killed by being in different classes was a bit annoying, since they straight up hang out with each other as direct neighbors after school all the time as well.

But it was telling the story in their kid point of view, so it made sense on a level. On a different level, they are supposed to be very smart and savvy compared to the rest of the students, so when their characterizations are sometimes very childish versus mature, it is a bit confusing on what they are supposed to represent.

There are however aspects that I really enjoyed. This is a film where all the main characters are voiced by famous people. It is a stupid trend, it still doesn’t lead to more ticket sales like Robin Williams did in the early 1990s. They are paying more money for lesser voices. BUT, the characters in this film didn’t just sound like the normal actors for once. The closest two were Hart and Scahal, but everyone else I would not have been able to tell you the voice at all, so that is wonderful.

The second aspect I enjoyed was their decisions to tell the story in different ways. It is a CGI film, but we weren’t just given a completely CGI movie. It starts off with a paper comic book feel, we are given a flip book scene, various forms of day dream, but best of all, a sock puppet scene. Sock puppets! The changing formats of the film helped keep my interest and make the film a bit more sophisticated?

No, not sophisticated. Let’s just keep it as interesting.

It still caters to a lower form of humor. It still doesn’t have a lot of substance. But hey, it did try a few things I enjoyed and wasn’t a complete shit show.

When you build a website on a willingness to watch anything, you have to actually watch a lot of random shit. And it gets harder when you get behind, because then most of your reviews end up being the films that everyone is already going to watch or already know about. Not the real hidden gems or hidden turds out there.

And yet somehow, I found a new Netflix original film that wasn’t very advertised and one they are probably just trying to make and hide. A hidden title, still with their Netflix original sticker on it. Not only that, but the title is Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie. It has Netflix in the fucking title? What’s up with that? That’s weird.

This movie has so little information about it that I couldn’t even find out why they went that route. Is it just a double form of advertising? Does it take place INSIDE the Netflix head quarters? I DON’T KNOW.

But I need to know, and now, I am watching a movie not many people have noticed to exist yet. Hooray!

The fireworks are a metaphor.

Gene Handsome (Jeff Garlin) is a detective, getting old, maybe he will retire, maybe not. But he is lonely. He lives alone on his street, with one of his neighbors (Eddie Pepitone) being a PI with a younger accordion playing wife (Leah Remini) and they are eccentric. But he has new neighbors! And on the way over to introduce them and give them cookies, he finds Heather (Hailee Keanna Lautenbach), the baby sitter instead and she doesn’t trust him. That’s fair.

But then the next day, Heather is found dead and cut up on a famous actor’s lawn. Talbert Bacorn (Steven Weber) has no idea who this lady is or why his lawn, but Handsome and his partner, Fleur Scozzari (Natasha Lyonne) are on the case! With almost nothing to base it off of.

Thankfully, he can now meet his new neighbor (Christine Woods) and her daughter (Ava Acres) under a weird set of circumstances. Maybe it can lead to a less lonely life. Oh sorry, that is creepy, given the circumstances.

Also featuring Timm Sharp, William Stanford Davis, and Joe Kenda.

That bathrobe is also a metaphor.

Handsome is a hard movie to categorize. It isn’t laugh out loud funny, it is more just peculiar. My wife described it as quirky. I would also describe it as overexagerrated while also somehow down to earth.

There isn’t necessarily anything in this film that feels unreasonable. All of the plot details are fine. It is just that everyone is a bit odd, a bit out there, I don’t know if there is a single “straight character” in the movie. All of the characters seem to have their own stories and inspirations and this is just us caught up right in the middle of it.

In fact, this movie sort of feels like a pilot episode. Maybe that is why Netflix is in the title? This was a test run of a television show, or a many episodic movie series that are really easy to make and produce.

And if so, it is going to be something that someone can put on an enjoy and half pay attention to, like a lot of mystery/crime television shows. This is not a movie that you would rush out and recommend to your friends, but there is nothing inherently awful about it. It is just safe. A safe and easy movie.

Good on Garlin, who decided to write, direct, and star in this movie. A passion project for him and one that didn’t crash and burn.

What can I say as a prelude about Paris Can Wait besides…no, fuck that, I wan’t Paris now. But I am not rich, so I guess I will definitely be waiting.

The film is directed by Eleanor Coppola, yes, that Coppola. A woman more famous for being the wife of Francis Ford Coppola, and the mother of Sofia Coppola. This is a woman who has been knee deep in films for a large portion of her life, but surprisingly, this is her first time directing a non documentary. At this point of her life though, Eleanor basically has no reason not to go for it.

Paris Can Wait is a semi-autobiographical film, loosely based on a trip she went on a long time ago. Eleanor is adamant that a lot of this film is made up, but the spirit and story is true and one she has always wanted to tell in film.

And yes, that does mean Alec is playing a fictional Francis.

This is a story about Anne (Diane Lane) and Michael Lockwood (Alec Baldwin). Michael is a big time film producer or director, they are extremely wealthy, and Anne is mostly along for the ride. Their daughter is now on college, and Anne’s clothing shop had closed down recently, so she doesn’t have a lot going on in her life.

She is on a vacation with Michael, right after the Cannes film festival. They have to head to a city for a shoot crisis first, but then they will head to Paris to continue with their vacation, assuming Michael doesn’t get too distracted. But before they get on the plane, Anne says she would rather not go with him for the next leg. She has a splitting ear ache and knows she won’t get to hang out with him until Paris, so why not just meet him there?

Well, their French confidant and helper, Jacques (Arnaud Viard) apparently has to head up to Paris for some meetings and is willing to just give Anne a ride. Michael and Anne reluctantly agree. It is only about an 8 hour drive, so she should be in Paris by dinner and can just wait in their apartment for him.

And then they stop for a fancy lunch and he says they will need to make hotel reservations. Apparently Jacques is more the scenic route type of guy, wanting to show Anne all of the wonderful countryside that France has to offer. And food. Fucking food. So much food. The 8 hour trip turns into a 2 and a half day roam, with Jacques wanting to take it all slow and Anne rushing to Paris for…For what, really? Just an empty apartment and a missing husband.

One of the many stops just to eat.

2017 is the year of the animated disappointments so far, and yes, I still have not seen The LEGO Batman Movie, get over it. It might be funny, I just don’t care too much, as Batman was what I disliked the most about The LEGO Movie.

And I figured I would be skipping Rock Dog, it was an animated film released almost a whole year prior in China. You know, because they made it. And I know America isn’t number one at everything anymore, but I know we are still number one at animated CGI films. Yes, some anime notwithstanding, we do CGI cutting edge and well, so foreign films just seem behind.

And also the title, Rock Dog. Sigh. Come on animated films, be better.

I wonder which one is the rock and which one is the dog.

Way way far away, in a land called Snow Mountain (which is, guess what… a snow mountain!), there lives a young Tibetan Mastiff named Bodi (Luke Wilson). Bet you thought his name would be Rock Dog. Nah, not yet.

A long time ago, a bunch of wolves led by Linnux (Lewis Black) were driven out of their town by Bodi’s father, Khampa (J.K. Simmons). Khampa is pretty sure the wolves will eventually come back, so he is training up the local sheep and his son to protect it again once they come back. There is also some magic stuff about finding his inner fire to help defeat things, but uhh, that is weird.

Turns out Bodi just wants to rock, once he discovers what music and rock music actually is. It is all he thinks about, it is his new dream and passion, and he is a bit of savant. But his dad disapproves, so he one day just goes out on his own to prove him wrong.

After getting to the city, he heads to a place called Rock and Roll Park in order to find a band and make a big name for himself, like the legendary rocker Scattergood (Eddie Izzard). But the wolves are out, the people are mean, and Bodi might just have to make it on the music biz on his own.

Also featurign the voice work of Kenan Thompson, Mae Whitman, Jorge Garcia, Matt Dillon, and Sam Elliott.

The snow or rain or whatever is happening is indistinguishable from that yak’s beard in the background.

Rock Dog is another animated film that ushers out a line of celebrities to do their voice work instead of real voice work, because names sell. Names like Eddie Izzard. Thankfully, two of those names are J.K. Simmons and Sam Elliott, who have unique voices and add something to the film. Too bad their characters are in Snow Mountain, so only at the beginning and the end of the film, really.

The premise of Rock Dog is mostly shit. Anthropomorphized badly explained worlds are all over the place, and this does nothing to rise above a Pre-K TV program on Disney. It doesn’t feel fully fleshed out and it is a super simple story. A lot of it about a dog who just wants to play music in a world that doesn’t rewward newcomers.

But despite its lack of originality, great CGI, or anything new to offer the genres, it is still an average movie.

I mean, I am not going to go out of my way to make sure my kids see it, but if they do see it, I won’t be annoyed at their mind being poisoned by drivel. It is just a bit dull for those of us who have been there, done it, when it comes to these types of movies.