Tag: 2 out of 4

I would consider myself a journeyman on the internet. I like being on the internet. It is like a home IN my home.

But in some people’s homes, they use the internet to make the internet bigger. Big internet users make money by putting themselves inside the internet. Personally, I put some stuff on the internet, like these websites, but not a video of me moving and talking. That is too intense. I want to just keep making my like, $30 a year on this website. That is my level of commitment.

For some of these people, they pull in six figures a year, but also work every day to do it. Inspiring actors, comedians, and even chefs, have taken to making their own web TV shows and mac software to entertain literally dozens upon dozens of individuals every day.

And this documentary, Please Subscribe: A Documentary About YouTubers talks to a lot of them, including these shows people: My Drunk Kitchen, Livelavalive, Seannaners, Wheezy Waiter, Daily Grace, Mystery Guitarman, Will to DC and Dan Brown.

Basically I have heard of one of these things/people ahead of time (My Drunk Kitchen), maybe two (Mystery Guitarman). None of these other people, so I guess I learned a lot?

Like Chicago is a scary place to go to find actors.

A few of these people got more spotlight than others. Like this Livelavalive fellow, who apparently used his YouTube show to help break free from his extreme OCD shut in self. Some of these individuals do weekly shows, some 7 days a week. Most of them edit their own videos, do all of their own production and are a complete one person show. Not all of them, but whatever.

I found Dan Brown to be the most interesting story. He was an early YouTube success, but he kept trying new things and apparently he pissed people off by under performing, and then people didn’t give a shit anymore. YouTube is fickle, so it requires a lot of work.

A lot of these people were pretty similar though and I was kind of disappointed by how many of them were just weird daily talk about their lives people. I want people who do cool things. Where the fuck is my Epic Meal Time?

I didn’t even feel like linking to their pages. If you want to find out about them, go crazy. This is just an okay documentary about random people on YouTube. I wanted to see actual dollar amounts as to what they made, so we can see if their effort is actually worth it. A nice cute story, but an indifferent one at the end of the day.

Judge not lest ye be judged.

That is a quote I think, from some book or movie. Hard to remember these days. Maybe Lyndon B. Johnson said it? Either way, whoever said it must have really hated Judges.

Because Judges judge people. But who judges the Judges? Well, usually, the people in a trial I guess. They will assume he is a good or bad judge based on the outcome of their trial, both technically judging the Judge’s judgement.

Why yes, typing this all has been fun, but really has nothing to do with The Judge movie, outside of the obvious symbolism and role reversal the name offers.

Speaking of symbolism…

Indiana is home to a lot of nothing. Which is why Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr.) had to leave it en route to becoming a hugely successful lawyer, going to the closest big metropolis (Chicago) to get his law on. He isn’t a defender of the people or anything like that. Nah, he can help guilty men walk. He is that good. Sure he had a troubled past, and that past involves hating his family at home, but now he is a decent human being! Almost.

Well, then his mom died. He liked his mom too. So now Hank has to head back home, where his family lives. You know, like his brothers Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio), who had his future taken away from him, and Dale (Jeremy Strong), who isn’t all there in the head. And of course his dad, Judge Palmer (Robert Duvall) who hates his son. For reasons.

But troubled times can lead to troubled driving, which is what the Judge soon finds out. Getting into a minor accident, turns out he may have hit someone. Someone he has a history with. And that someone died. Shit. Now the Judge of this small community is being charged with murder. If only he knew any great lawyers, that he didn’t currently hate. Gahhh.

Also starring Billy Bob Thornton, Dax Shepard, Vera Farmiga, Leighton Meester, and Emma Tremblay (as his daughter).

Spoilers: He might end up picking his son! Eventually.

I don’t want to describe The Judge as predictable, even though, kind of, it is. It predicted a lot of the film based on a tiny tv spot or two I had seen, and I was surprised how much of it I guessed right before the movie started.

I don’t want to say The Judge felt too long, even though, kind of, it was. The ending felt like it dragged, as it wanted to finish all of the plot lines it started and didn’t leave anything to chance. My mind compares it to Gone Girl, not based on quality or theme, but just because they are the last two movies I saw in theaters and both about the same length. Gone Girl flew by, The Judge dragged.

The acting in it was actually great, I thought all the leads did nicely. Billy Bob Thornton felt a bit underused on the grand scheme of things, but maybe I just want more of him thanks to his recent role on Fargo.

I laughed through a lot of amusing parts, but this film is definitely far more of a drama. And to me, it played it relatively safe and didn’t strive for anything truly awesome. So I am a bit disappointed. We had a lot of talent in this movie and if the story was just a bit tad better and shorter, it would have been amazing.

The only famous Robert D missing is Robert De Niro, so I assume that also had something to do with it.

What is there to say about the Koch brothers that I already assume everyone already knows?

What? You haven’t heard about them? Have you not watched Season 1 of The Newsroom? I’m not saying I take all of my facts from a fictionalized news station, but the show is more or less about real events and when I heard about them, I was really surprised.

So I did some of my own research (internet research!) and found it to be mostly true. Rich dudes who created the Tea Party movement which is seen as a grassroots campaign, when it is actually nothing like a grass roots campaign at all.

Awesome, does that mean this documentary is going to talk about the tea party movement and how it is basically just the whim of these two gentlemen who have ulterior motives? Kind of. Mostly. You are also unfortunately going to get a lot more.

Shit, this guy has got everything he needs to survive in the wild now.

The biggest problem with this documentary is it feels like it has a lack of focus. It takes awhile to really get into what the purpose of it is. It starts with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision. It helped allow corporations to donate more money to government campaigns. Yayyy~ (sarcasm).

Just like that, the Tea Party Movement basically began, funded by several groups, most of which were owned by the Koch brothers who were the primary money givers as well. It notes of course that two of the judges who helped the corporations gain these powers had biases that directly affected the outcome of the case through their past. Impartiality is for chumps though.

This is where the documentary starts to get hazy. Turns out the majority of it is focusing on the problems in Wisconsin. The new Governor (a tea party member) who immediately set out to destroy the unions, which were the biggest monetary backers to the Democratic Party. There was a ton of bad things going on there, including representatives fleeing the country, secret bill signings, and of course, a recall election against the governor in which a lot of money was being thrown around.

This documentary seems to touch on a lot of different issues and it seems to be lost because of that. Like a little kid trying to tell a story and jumbling it all up. Does it have good information? Heck yes. I remember being very confused during the Wisconsin shenanigans, and now I would place myself at “only slightly confused” now.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this is that the documentary was supposed to be shown on PBS originally. Why wasn’t it? Because of the rich sponsors of PBS apparently exerting too much pressure on the network. Ain’t that about a bitch.

Oooh, a movie with a mythology theme.

For those not in the know, Janus was a Roman God who had two faces, one to look in the past and one to look in the future and January was named after Janus. This is just a simplification of that reference, because who would go see a movie called The Two Faces of Janus? Actually, who would go see a movie called The Two Faces of January? On its own, it is very nonsensical.

Oh yeah, the people who see everything. They’d be interested. Maybe the people who like the cast.

Or just people who appreciate a nice Greek or Roman Mythology reference. I know we here at Gorgon Reviews always think they are snazzy.

Indubitably, I would declare it down right dapper.

The Two Faces of January is set in the 1960s in Greece. A bit odd, given that Janus is an entirely Roman god with no Greek equivalent, but hey, I don’t make movies, I just judge them.

Chester (Viggo Mortensen) and Colette MacFarland (Kirsten Dunst) are enjoying the scenery, living a life of luxury touring around Europe.

While there, they meet Rydal (Oscar Isaac), an American tour guide who is also visiting. He knows Greek, so why not make some cash on the side. He is drawn to Colette, because clearly she should have nothing to do with that Chester fellow.

But things go from regular stranger awkward to abnormal stranger awkward when Chester kills a man. To be fair, the man was in his house and threatening to kill him first. Apparently Chester did some money scamming and ran with his girl to Europe. Well, some rich people have powerful friends and they found him. And Rydal saw him with the body.

Now they need to go in hiding and they are forced to get help with Rydal, to get new passports, to get out of the country, and to hopefully get away free. But Rydal doesn’t want money, he just wants Colette.

Jealousy tends to add necessary tension to a murder cover up.

When I first tried to watch this movie on Video on Demand, I saw the first minute and was really excited. Maybe a con movie. Oscar Isaac. Greek stuff. Let’s do it. But I had to wait awhile and came back to it. The movie did not live up to my expectations of entertaining me in any grand level.

There isn’t a big cast, so a lot of weight is held on their three shoulders, all of them bringing something different to the table. And they were fine.

Just. Argh. The story. I got so bored with it. So little seemed to happen despite the story always moving forward. It became mostly about jealousy and a pseudo love triangle getting formed. It wanted to explore the lengths people would go to in order to not get sent to jail. After all, anyone can rat out the other and it is all based on hearsay. Mutually assured destruction.

But I just couldn’t get into it. I wanted to like the movie a lot more, but to me it was just okay.

If you are like me, after hearing about this movie you might be confused. This seems to be a movie that is based on true events, an inspirational and hope filled tale about people going through extraordinary circumstances. And then later, coming to the land of opportunity to live great lives, but then meeting more bad circumstances, and by golly, overcoming them as well.

So why in the fuck is this called The Good Lie? The trailers don’t really do a good job of explaining any of that title. They just show us a lot of Reese Witherspoon interacting with Africans, making it seem like it is mostly just a tale about other cultures coming to America and having a zany time.

But this movie is about The Lost Boys of Sudan. That is serious shit.

What is this movie about?

Well, I think it is a joke. The trailer is a lie. The makers think it is a good lie, but I beg to differ.

Oh wait. Maybe it is about religion?

Let’s get things right first. This movie is not about Ms Witherspoon. It is about the shit going down in Sudan.

Sudan had its civil war. Many villages were destroyed, families killed and people driven from their home. Kids and others walked all the way to the border and then to Kenya, with death everywhere all around. In Kenya, they would be able to find Refugee camps, where they found shelter, food, and a place to exist, however meager it can be. And hey, the refugees would be eventually found homes elsewhere.

Like America! And after 13 years of living in Kenya, Mamere (Arnold Oceng), Jeremiah (Ger Duany), Paul (Emmanuel Jal) and Abital (Kuoth Wiel) are going to Kansas City, America!

But once they get off the plane, they realize a mix up. Abital cannot go with them, because for whatever reason, these fully adult individuals cannot all just go have an apartment and get a job right away and start their education. No. Women must have a host family. So why can her three brothers live in an apartment alone and her not with them? Because it would be “improper”.

So. They get sent to Kansas City. She gets sent to Boston. Program is super suspended and backed up after 9/11, so friends and others they know get stuck in Kenya. And they can’t get their sister. Argh! Boo! Hiss.

Some other people in this film include Reese Witherspoon, who works for an agency to find people jobs, and Corey Stoll as her boss. Also Sarah Baker and Femi Oguns.

This is the only picture I could find that didn’t entire focus on Witherspoon or them as kid.

The Good Lie ends up being one of those movies that doesn’t actually know what story it wants to focus on. I broke it up into three parts: The boys escaping Sudan, the boys in America adapting + wanting to get their sister back, and the third mysterious part that in no way is talked about in the trailer and is where the title comes from.

The three men playing the refugees were excellent in this movie and the reason I give it such high remarks. The few Americans feel pretty pointless, personally. I like that the actors are all also actually from Sudan, some of them former refugees, some child soldiers.That adds some credit to their roles and their characters experience in America, as they probably already went through that. The little boys who play them as kids also did a fine job.

I guess you could say I am mostly upset about the advertising for this film. It rubs Reese in our face and she has a pretty small role. I am also upset about how predictable the entire film is. You can figure out what will happen after any moment of drama and it goes an incredibly safe route.

An okay movie that doesn’t go the full lengths to tell a great story.

When I first saw the pictures from the film Frank, it seemed eerily familiar and I didn’t know why. Most notably, in a fast moment in the film Filth, the main character was watching television and a scene showed a man wearing the iconic head. It freaked me out. Were the two films cross promoting? Was Frank a bigger movie than I could have ever known?

Well, no. Apparently Frank, although fictionalized in this movie, is based on a real person.

Frank Sidebottom was his name, and Chris Sievey was the man behind the mask. He was in some bands in Britain for a long time and Frank Sidebottom was his “Comic persona” and recognizable around the world. Which is probably why it looked familar. I didn’t know that I knew that it was a real thing. I must had just seen a person in the mask before, maybe haunting me in my youth. Who is to say.

It is inspired by several musicians, including Chris, but none of this on its own is a bio of these gentle rockers. No. This is its own entity.

And lo, his name is Frank.

Jon Burroughs (Domhnall Gleeson) would consider himself to be a sensitive man. He lives alone, works a job, has a twitter, and in general would consider himself a decent person. He tries to write music, can play guitar and keyboard, but it is all pretty shitty.

As luck would have it, he happens to be walking down the road when a naked man runs into the ocean trying to end himself. He is a keyboardist for a band. Their “manager” Don (Scoot McNairy) asks if he can play the keyboard, and since he can, he is totally in the band, The Soronprfbs, no practice needed.

He does okay on stage, but he is flabbergasted to find that their lead singer, Frank (Michael Fassbender) is wearing a giant head mask. What. Frank never takes it off. People don’t talk about it too. They just go with it.

Next thing Jon knows, he is in the band and they are on a retreat to a cabin to work on their next album and they won’t be leaving there until that thing is polished and done. He now has to live with the other band members (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Francois Civil, Carla Azar) and they are as eccentric as Frank, in different ways.

And you know. Frank has a fucking giant head on his head. That is important.

But then again, that bitch is wearing a cape.

At times, Frank was very realistic and charming. The cast seemed to have great chemistry with each other and everyone felt relatively unique. I laughed a few times and found parts very amusing.

But at the same time, I didn’t feel like I got enough out of it. The final third of the film felt very different from the first two thirds. That is because change starts to occur, but I just couldn’t get into it as much.

I will say I hated the music, but I think I was supposed too. (I have now used but 3 times in the last 4 sentences. Well, now 4 of the last 5) It was very experimental/indie/weird. Not pleasant sounds, but sounds nonetheless.

I think I just expected a lot more given someone like Fassbenders involvement. I wanted them to go harder on the psychological aspect of it all and hated when they ended up doing with the Jon character. However, I do like the head mask. I kind of want to have one. Is it too late to be Frank Sidebottom for Halloween?

Shit. I should have saved this movie for actual Christmas. Jeez. What is wrong with me? I blew it, clearly.

Happy Christmas is an indie movie, so of course it makes sense to come out on July 25th, which I guess is the “Christmas In July” day, but I don’t get that concept at all.

Either way, we are going to have a movie about Christmas now, damn it. I don’t care what holidays are nearby.

But I hope the baby is the main character. Like Santa. Santa is a baby right?

Jenny (Anna Kendrick) is just a girl, standing in front of her brother, asking for a home. She is having some troubles in her life, but she just needs a break from it all. Thankfully Kevin (Mark Webber) has room in his house for her to crash. His wife, Kelly (Melanie Lynskey) is a novelist, but right now she is taking a break to be a stay at home mom because they have a baby! Yay babies!

And yay Jenny in their house. That means automatic free babysitter. Kind of hard to accept free rent without helping out.

But just one night in, Jenny gets blackout drunk and embarrasses her good friend (Lena Dunham), requiring the help of her brother late at night to get her. Some reliable baby sitter, huh?

Well, these old coogies can’t seem to accept her young hip ways and she finds herself constantly disappointing them, despite trying her best. And hey! She wants to help Kelly get back on the writing thing.

But seriously. Can she just not fuck up once? Maybe by Christmas? Or will she just be fucking the babysitter? (Joe Swanberg)

She ate all of those pretzel bites the night before. What. A. Night.

Quintessential indie film. Some comedic moments, a lot more dramatic ones, everything really close to reality, very few actors, and overall, just okay.

I mean, there are truly fantastic indie movies out there. This year we were able to get Obvious Child and Locke. After watching this film I was left wondering “Is that it?”

I guess with their lower budget they just want to tell a simple story, but a lot of times I am not left wanting more just because it was such a great story and I am super invested in the characters. It is more me wondering why any of it even mattered?

Oooh, a group of people learned to accept each other by the end. And there was awkward moments. (Awkward moments are key to indie movies).

As I already said, Happy Christmas was okay, but borderline on boring and disliked. So a low 2, if you will. You can tell my indifference, as I couldn’t even write 500 words about this one.

The documentary Fed Up was something I heard about many months ago when it was roaming the film fest circuit. Outside of having its own interesting topic, the significant other really wanted to see it too.

I try to only do one food documentary in a given month (because it is a very popular genre for whatever reason, like my last one Forks Over Knives) and this one is indeed again about health. But it has a very specific goal.

Obesity and diabetes in America. Okay. I guess that is what a lot of those are about too.

This one is brought to us (narration and produced) by Katie Couric who she has self claimed made a life out of reporting on these issues. Which issues? Well, clearly I am just filling this top half with filler until I start talking about them, so I might as well show you the picture now and get it over with.

The title is a pun. Pun’s make the documentary world go round.

So what is bad. Processed foods? I’ve heard that before. Meat? Nah, meat is normal. So what is it?! Sugars. Namely the high amounts of sugar in products like soda, processed foods and fast food restaurants.

It isn’t as simple as that though. The documentary first attacks the theory of carbs in vs carbs out and that all carbs are created equal. It also argues against a lack of physical activity with a lot of case studies.

In fact, using science, it helps explain just what these refined excessive sugars that appear in most processed foods contain versus the daily recommended amount. It explains how when the industry started to cut out the fat, they increased the sugar content to keep the taste, completely nullifying any gain.

And it introduced us to the lobby groups that have pushed to squelch the sugar information from getting out and the few government programs that have tried to note the excessive sugar type’s harmful effects.

It isn’t just a big witch hunt and they don’t say all sugar is bad don’t worry. Just certain types in certain environments and bad practices these people use that could have caused an obesity epidemic.

I found the documentary fascinating to watch really interested in what it was showing.

I just didn’t like all the tactics it used. It did some bullshitty stuff. For instance, when they were interviewing a “bad person” they showed an unedited part of the interview. So we saw him start to badly answer a question and then go for a do over. That is supposed to show that he is a liar or something. Because everyone else always talks to clear. That is cheap and bad.

It also featured a lot of extravagant animations to get the point through, some of which were pretty extreme. It definitely wasn’t dignified.

In other news, great topic and information, but bullshit fluff and bad documentary tactics dropped it down a peg for me.

Zombie Romance. It is totally a thing now. After all, we got Life After Beth and Warm Bodies (Warm Bodies). That means a trend is brewing, only about 50-60 years after the Vampire Romance trend kicked off [Completely guessing on that number. Research is for losers].

So it should come as to no surprise that a movie called The Coed and the Zombie Stoner even exists. Before you ask, no, it is not technically a The Asylum movie. They bring us the C grade films like Asian School Girls and Sharknado. This is its own entity (but The Asylum is selling it on their website, so who knows their involvement).

This is clearly some sort of sex comedy horror B-Movie.

Science and books are fun!

Chrissy (Catherine Annette) has a problem. She is super smart and has a high GPA, but for whatever reason, to maintain her scholarship she had to be in a sorority. She doesn’t fit in with these girls, she doesn’t like to hang out with people, but they accepted her as long as she had a fraternity boyfriend.

Well, P.J. (Ben Whalen) dumped her because she talks too much and isn’t a skank. This means she might get kicked out of the sorority by Bambi (Jamie Noel), the queen bitch, if she doesn’t find a man in 24 hours. She could get one of the geeks, but they are gross. While working late in a lab one night, she is surprised to find Rigo (Grant O’Connell), a zombie! He is not decayed or old, but apparently he was a student back int he 80s. He accidentally took the professors zombie machine for a dorm shower, turning him into a zombie. Because he was such a pothead, the marijuana kept him young and strong. Somehow.

Well, he is really charming and not a bad guy at all, so she would rather date him to save her own career. Soon they become a power couple on campus which only creates jealousy from Bambi and PJ. So they vow to break them up any way they can, even if it leads to a zombie apocalypse.

Also starring Andrew Clements as her stoner brother (I really think it was brother) and Dora Pereli and Lena Young as other sorority girls because of the genre.

They got him in ZBE. Get it? GET IT?

Say what you will about the genre in question, there is a market for these types of films out there and they shouldn’t be ignored. That is a lie. Most of them should definitely be ignored. They feel like they have a $5 budget, have suggestive scenes and bad plots just to steal horny teenager’s money.

The Coed and the Stoner Zombie is not one of those movies. This one tries to make a good version of the sex comedy low budget genre and excells at the goals the genre puts out.

Did I laugh? A few times. Was the plot interesting? Well, it was certainly ridiculous, but I liked the twists and turns by the end despite the levels of ridiculousness. And yes, there were a lot of weed jokes, frat/sorority jokes, and naked people.

So yeah. It was okay. For the most part these types of movies are extremely boring and shitty and this one is able to rise (slightly) above them. Which is more than I ever expected.

Belle is one of those indie movies that makes a lot of noise early in the year, yet usually gets ignored when it comes time to award season.

Not saying this film is deserved awards or anything, that is just when it was released. A nice indie number that is indeed not about Beauty and the Beast, but instead, racism in the victorian era. Ah yes, the Victorian era, where women wore corsets and giant dresses all the time, and men wore…I guess mostly regular clothes. And wigs!

But this work of fiction, based on books, is also pseudo historically accurate. Namely the character Lord Mansfield was actually Chief Justice of England during the time of the movie and presided over several cases that are relevant to the plot. Sweet. But the rest is just guesstimated fluff. I love fluff!

Despite the picture, this is also not a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

Dido Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) was born in the West Indies and she is a mulatto. Her mother was a local, but her father was of the English Royal Navy (Matthew Goode) and he has decided to claim her and take her to England. Because he is at sea all the damn time, he places her in the care of his uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife (Emily Watson), even though she is BLACK and they are distinguished members of society.

But they get over it, kind of, and raise her as an aristocrat with her cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon). However, she is still slightly shunned by society and not able to play all the reindeer games. Like when it comes time for suitors, she is told she cannot interact with the other gentleman as none of them would find her desirable.

Also at the same time, Lord Mansfield is ruling on a case involving a ship who threw slaves overboard out of necessity to survive, running low on supplies. They echoed it as similar to throwing cargo overboard and want to collect the insurance on their haul. His ruling on this and the events surrounding it could change Britain forever and some people think that having Dido around might influence his decision.

We also have Sam Reid as a young freedom feeling lawyer, Tom Felton and James Norton as brother suitors of varying tastes, and Miranda Richardson and Penelope Wilton as…other people.

I guess I would conclude Belle is a good movie, just one that is pretty darn predictable. Oh sorry, I am concluding before I describe.

Yes, Belle is well acted and I felt good by the end. But a lot of the movie just felt like Victorian filler in the middle. The plot is literally finding suitors for a few ladies. Is this a Jane Austen novel in secret?

Which is my main complaint. Not that predictability is a necessarily a bad thing, but if I kind of know what to expect the entire movie and it follows the path pretty straightforwardly, what is the point? It should have a lot of stuff going on for it in the middle to really make up for that fact.

And it has a few unique events to be sure. Well acted, as I already said. Outfits are nice, message is nice. But I kind of just expected something more. The film itself was incredibly safe.