Tag: 2 out of 4

Miraculously, Arbitrage is a movie that came to the theaters that I had the pleasure of never hearing about before.

Seriously. It was just a giant surprise. “What the fuck is Arbitrage?” I thought to myself, and probably what you are thinking as well. Needless to say, I was stoked. It has been a long time since I’ve seen a movie I didn’t hear about before or see a preview for. Like I used to. Damn movie theaters, always spoiling shit.

Thank you cheap theater. Thank you for giving me another one of these.

Can he play anything but a rich guy now? He looks like he has money falling out of his eyes.

Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is your standard big money man on wallstreet. He is old, white, and Republican. I assume the last part. Either way, he runs an investment company, because that just is money on money. But for some reason he wants to sell. His daughter, Brooke (Brit Marling) is a high up person as well, and she doesn’t know why he wants to sell. They are so successful!

Or are they? If they were lying about their profit margins, and actually losing money, selling would probably be a good idea. Get paid, run off, fuck the new guy. Why not?

Speaking of fucking, of course Robert is seeing someone on the side. I mean, his wife (Susan Sarandon) is old. She isn’t Julie (Laetitia Casta), a 20 something model artist.

Bow chicka. So much bow chicka, that they even go on a midnight ride in the country. Fuck responsibilities, time to live it up! Unless you get tired, and crash the car, and kill your girlfriend in the process.

Err, uhh. Well. Whoops. Time to call the only black person you know (Nate Parker), get a ride, and hide it all from the cops (Tim Roth). You know, who know you have hired her as an artist and probably having an affair.

Trying to sell your company under illegal pretenses while being investigated for a murder probably won’t lead to happy times.

Oh hey there Tim. Long time no see. Just been hanging out? Keeping to yourself mostly? Wait. You’re not still upset about Lie To Me, are you Tim? Oh come on, you know it went on too long and peaked with season 1. Damn it Tim, come back here. Act in more things! Tim! Tim stop walking away!

Murder! Money! Lies! Sex!

Sounds very HBO show like. This movie, obviously rated R (for language, mostly) gives you all that and more. Eventually. But at the start, it moves pretty darn slow.

Not only that, but it moves in the slow, obviously hiding stuff now hurry and get to the point, way.

Some of the acting was decent, and I liked the few twists that happened, but the final one seemed a bit ridiculous. Kind of ruined the ending for me.

Arbitrage (which I will now pronounce Arbit-RAGEEE) gave me a lot of things I might not have seen before, but overall, it was just another okay movie.

Holidays are now in full swing and the makers of movies are finally tired of the same old crap. Do we really need another movie about Santa or the Spirit of Christmas? Or trying to explain why a bunny celebrates with eggs? How the tooth fairy is able to gather teeth all around the world? No, the consumer is tired of all of that. We need new tales, new ideas, but preferably with characters we already know. Which is probably why Rise of the Guardians will be such a success!

Yeah, I kind of like the Tooth Fairy in this film. I would do things, horrible things.

The Guardians are a team of holiday figures and legends who have banded together to protect the children of the world! Formed by the mysterious man on the moon, it consists of North (Alec Baldwin) aka Santa Claus, Bunny (Hugh Jackman) for Easter, the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and the Sandman (who doesn’t talk).

They haven’t had any problems the last 900 or so years, with the last threat being a man named Pitch Black (Jude Law), aka the Boogeyman. But they banished him so long ago, he can’t cause any problems. After all, you aren’t even visible to humans unless they believe in you. He still has some scary powers, just harder for him to cause wide scale havoc.

Unfortunately, those last 900 years he has been in hiding, planning to take out the guardians by making the kids of the world stop believing in them, Yes, no more happiness, only fear! Mwhaha! But then there is Jack Frost (Chris Pine), forever trapped a teenager in his weird life. No one has ever really believed in him, so he is used to being ignored. Despite that, he still tried to bring fun and excitement to the world, one snowball at a time.

Adding a new entity to the battle is not what The Boogeyman had planned for, but can some snow and ice really stop the eternal darkness? To me, personally, it seems like it would help bring upon eternal darkness. Yes, I am saying snow is dumb.

Pitch Black has a very Hades vibe going on, but darker. Probably because no fire on his head.

As I have stated before in many reviews (Tooth Fairy, Hop) I can’t stand when they make a movie about holiday figures, but don’t make it work in the world they created for the film. That is, why would adults no longer believe in the Easter Bunny, if he is really the entity out painting eggs and hiding them around yards? If the parents aren’t doing it, then clearly it is something else. No reason for them to not believe in it, when there is plenty of evidence that they actually exist.

Besides that, there are some other plot holes. For some reason, the guardians lose their powers if kids don’t believe in them. Why? Not sure, since clearly Jack Frost and Pitch Black have not had problems in the power department, despite the clear lack of belief. Arbitrary penalties for nonsensical rules.

Outside of the large plot holes, I found the movie on its own to be pleasant. The animation was almost mouth watering. I loved the attention to detail on the characters and the large fight scenes between Jack Frost, Pitch Black, and The Sandman. I think all the actors did well voicing their respective characters, especially Baldwin as a sort of Russian, extreme Santa Claus.

Oh, and yetis. There are yetis in this movie. Yetis can single-handedly save a bad movie if utilized properly (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor). I am sure they will be selling stuffed versions for Christmas, so I will put it on my wishlist.

Rise has great visuals and a decent storyline, as long as you ignore the prevalent plot holes. If anything, I can say it is entertaining and a movie families will definitely enjoy.

House At The End Of The Street has had a little bit of an interesting history. It was actually filmed before Jennifer Lawrence went on to do The Hunger Games. But hey, releasing it before hand is bad for business. Why not ride the hot young actress coattails, and put it off, like, a year.

Heck, I am even fine with their marketing campaign. Shortening the title to HATES is a lot more convenient. Just annoying that it ignores the “of The” part of the title. Can’t even argue that it is unimportant articles and shit, since the “At the” is prominently features in the acronym. Oh well, making movie titles into acronyms (or vice versa!) is a lot of work.

Warning: This movie might feature a lot of miss Lawrence rolling about and running in this outfit.

Elissa (Lawrence) and her divorced mother, Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) have just moved into the house of their dreams. It is actually affordable. Why? Because the house “next door” has a secret. And by secret, I mean well known fact that a double murder occurred there. A girl, Carrie-Ann, killed both of her parents one night, and escaped off into the woods. They think she drowned, but never found her body.

She did leave her brother alive though, how nice! Ryan (Max Thieriot) mostly keeps to himself after the incident. After all, a fucking double murder happened, and he is still in the house. The town wants to buy his house and demolish it, but it is all he has left, so he refuses to sell, not caring about everyone else’s poor property values. The only person who doesn’t give him crap is a local cop (Gil Bellows).

Unfortunately for Elissa, Ryan is the only guy who actually seems decent. Tyler (Nolan Gerard Funk) is just as mean and pompous as the rest of the town, and just wants some sex. Can’t have any of that. So she tries to fix Ryan instead. Hopefully it is not weird either that it looks like his sister is still alive and living in a closet in his house. Whoops!

“Why is there a girl up in your trunk? In your trunk? In your trunk?”

On second thought, the title doesn’t really make that much sense. There is no real street here, just seems like random houses in the woods, despite it being a mostly rich like area. Even though their house is “right next” to Ryan’s, it is also as if there is still a big forest in between them. Can’t even tell how much of his house is on the same street. Plus, it seems like no one else lives close by. How could it ruin their property values?

Semantics. I was kind of bored by the movie to start. It had “Jennifer Lawrence” singing original songs at the start. Or at least that was the plan. Apparently someone else sang over her to make it sound a bit more better. That is silly.

But by the end, as it is with most horror movies, some twists began to happen and I actually liked them. It actually added some backstory and reason to the actions of the main characters, pretty surprising for a horror movie. Not enough to make it exceptional, but enough to make it kind of cool. For one viewing. Definitely wasn’t really scary either, felt a lot more like a thriller. But don’t worry, you will get to see at least two deaths.

You know what sucks? Getting pregnant. Yes, not being pregnant, but getting to that point. I can tell you I have never been pregnant, and probably never will be pregnant, so I have to assume it is a pretty hard task to accomplish.

So why not make a movie about that, and little kids popping out like plants. Why not tell us about The Odd life Of Timothy Green?

“Oh shit, its hard to hold all these morals! They are dropping everywhere!”

The movie begins with Cindy (Jennifer Garner) and Jim Green (Joel Edgerton) at an adoption agency? Apparently it involves a lot of forms and an interview to plead their case. Under prior experience they have just “Timothy” listed, so now we get a flashback movie! Kind of a bummer, because it then kind of gives away how it ends. But eh, family movie.

The actual story begins with Cindy and Jim finding out they definitely can’t get pregnant. They spent a lot of money, but it won’t happen. Probably Cindy’s fault, who knows. Instead of moving on, they decide to have one drunken night, fantasizing what their kid would have been like. Funny, good at some sort of instrument, not athletic but will score the winning goal for a big game, lover of love, etc. They put this all in a box and bury their son in the garden. What’s that? Freak rain storm? Only over their house!

Hey look, a naked muddy boy is now running around in their house. Dude also has leaves coming out of his legs. That’s more normal. And his name is Timothy Green (CJ Adams). That is their last name! He is a plant with the last name of green. ARE YOU UNDERSTANDING THIS PEOPLE? MAGIC MAN, MAGIC!

Well, after a lot of awkwardness, they decide to not call the cops and just you know, have a son. Too bad they have a giant family picnic the next day and surprise, a kid! Hey, even Jim’s disapproving father (David Morse) showed up, but mostly to terrorize the kids. Cindy has her successful sister (Rosemarie DeWitt) with her multiple successful children also showing up, being all successful and shit. What a bitch.

Either way, Timothy quickly falls head over roots in love with some Joni (Odeya Rush), a girl who is a bit alternative. But hey, friendship. Because we all know what is going to happen to Timothy soon. That is right, he loses a leaf. Interestly enough, he has as many leaves as there were papers in that box. He lost a leaf as soon as he was able to make that uncle dude laugh, and they did want him to be as funny as that uncle dude. I wonder what could happen when all of the box is fulfilled and his leaves lost?

There is also the plot line of the town pencil factory going out of business, and maybe their boss (Ron Livingston) stealing Jim’s idea to save the plant! Oh, and everyone’s favorite actor/rapper with an annoying name Common plays the soccer coach.

That is why that asshole is wearing those socks. Covering up leaves and shit. So now he is the asshole swimming in socks instead. He should fit right in.

Basically, this was your typical family movie about discovering yourself, and a magic entity in your life, albeit temporarily. Laughs are had, lessons learned, and what it means to be a good human. I think.

Despite all that, I guess it was mildly entertaining. The movie also monkey paw’d me right in the throat, and I did not see it coming. Honestly, once I saw their box of attributes each represented a leaf, I immediately knew a few scenes that would happen. But maybe they don’t happen the way you expect em too. They might even have all this build up, just to fuck with you. Totally monkey paw’d.

Holy shit. There have been 300 movie reviews on my website since I last did a Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn Part 1. I might as well link Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse too, even though they are tagged as Milestone Reviews now. In case you need to catch up, that is! Obviously this review and the others are chock full of spoilers, I am going to say everything. If you care about that shit, don’t read.

That is right, I had to time my movie watching the last month and a half to make sure I got to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 at the midnight release, and review it right away for the big 650. This is the only Twilight movie I have seen in theaters, the others I saw alone in the solace of my room, where no one can judge me. But nope. Today was Twilight day, complete with collectors cup.

Proof, least someone call me out on mendacity.

Since you all automatically care about what I care about when reading my reviews, I can give you the unfortunate news. They have been slowly squeezing Anna Kendrick out of these movies, and I can tell you now she does not have a single scene in the finale. However, in the credits, they do a “whole series” credits, and a scene with her at the wedding from part 1 was shown when they showed her name. That is all. If you need to see Anna Kendrick, march on over to the fabulous movies End Of Watch or Pitch Perfect, you will get a lot of her.

“Why aren’t you talking about me? I’m actually in this movie. Do you SEE these hands?”

Bella (Kristen Stewart)! She opened her eyes! Bitch is a vampire now! She was only dead for two days, so it wasn’t entirely weird. However she is super strong now, and craves blood. Like all newbies, she will find that shit insatiable, and if there is a bleeding human nearby she will bleed them dry. So Edward (Robert Pattinson) takes her far from civilization and her kid to hunt a deer.

Too bad she finds a human anyways. And well, on her first try? Totally stops the urge. Oh okay, well, that was one problem dealt with, kind of instantly.

What gave her the even more super strength? Well, fuck you, that’s what.

Anyways, she wants to see her kid damn it. With the entirely ridiculous name of Renesmee. But something is different. In two days she has grown a bit (and looks incredibly CGI fake for some reason. But she doesn’t noticed that). Not to mention Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is STILL hanging around despite the death thing. What the fuck Jacob, go home? Wait Bella, you wanted him around when you were dying, why you so mad?

Oh, because your daughter in fetus form wanted Jacob around? And now that he FUCKING IMPRINTED ON HER, bonding them together forever, he doesn’t want to leave either. DUDE, she is a baby! They make sure we know it doesn’t mean like, sex, but still, what? Come on Jacob. She is like, 3. Three days.

“And your next gift is wrapped up in my trousers.”

Turns out Bella is really good at Vampiring. Natural, pretty convenient for the plot movement, I do say. But what about her dad? They have to pretend she died and THEN move again, or else he might stop by and see her. All very sketch, but it has to be done, or else you know, their secret could be let lose.

Well, pouty Jacob face doesn’t like that. So he does what any good godfather (maybe? Let’s say sure, it is less creepy) would do. Give us our gratuitous shirt taking off scene and transform into a (Were)wolf in front of the dad (Billy Burke) to bring him into the fold. Aww, how sweet.

I mean, clearly that was the best option. No, he doesn’t explain vampires. Just kind of transforms and tells him to deal with it.

But then there is another problem. Remember that baby? That was formed and birthed in like four weeks? Turns out she is still growing at a fast rate. Really fast. After a few months she looks like she is six. She can also pass on memories to other people that she sees, pretty cool, kind of weird, but hey, we don’t judge shitty powers here. Speaking of shitty powers, Bella gets one too (other than self control over eating humans). She can block mental powers and other powers. Only on her self, and always, but hey, if she tries hard enough she might be able to give it to others.

Either way, while frolicking in the winter time, Irina (Maggie Grace), still upset over the wolves eating her mean lover from that first or second movie, hard to tell, sees the child and immediately thing it is an immortal child. A vampire, bitten at a young age, before they can control their shit, which can cause all the pain in the world. Take down cities in a tantrum. She would know, her mom made her sister an immortal child, and lots of heads were cut off and babies burned as a result. Serious shit. So she tells on them to the Italian vampires, and they don’t like the sound of that!

The caption two pictures ago was referring to Jacob’s penis.

Well fuck. They are serious, and hate that shit. So they plan on killing the child and those who made it. You know, eventually. The next time it snows or something, because snow fights are sexy.

But that isn’t a problem. They just have to prove that she isn’t immortal, and they will go away. Well, apparently these people are jerks and will find another excuse to kill a vampire once they make up their mind. Oh okay, well the next best solution is for them to travel the world and visit all of that one guys old friends. If they come see the child, see her grow, they will have witnesses that she is alive and growing. Kind of weird, but definitely not an immortal child. Then there can be happiness!

Happiness and potential racism.

Sure, it also looks like they have a mini army too, especially with the wolves on their side now (always down to kill the vamps, yo). But they lost some numbers, Alice (Ashley Greene), their future sight person has left and no one knows why. Oh well, if for some reason the Italians still don’t care, they are now willing to fight back. If that shit hits the fan, Jacob will just take Renesmee and run far away forever, and everyone else will die. Peachy!

Well, snow falls, so it is time for a standoff. Literally. They then talk for a long ass time. The main guy (Michael Sheen) can touch people and see their memories. So he does that, and well, seriously, they are all telling the truth. Oh well, so he kills the bitch for lying. Now he is just trying to egg on the good guys. Nothing is working though, and he really wants to kill a kid today. Dang it.

So he gives a speech on why the unknown is bad, because humans have bombs, so they should kill anyways. But wait, Alice returns (and she was only gone for two paragraphs in my retelling!). Now he can look into her memories, to see the future and prove that she won’t later be a threat.

Well. Uhh. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about the truth, he just really wants to kill a kid. So you know what that means.

Fight time, yeahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Heads. Fucking. Roll. This overtly ridiculous fight scene happens, and Jacob runs away with the child. The best way to kill a vampire seems to be beheading and burning, and boy do we see some decapitations. It’s like Oprah was giving them away. You will be shocked at who dies. So many good guys, and bad guys. Remember Dakota Fanning? She was evil or something, didn’t speak much. She got defaced hard.

Hell, the Earth ended up getting ripped open, so we could see the Magma! So many vampires were burning. With the power of teamwork and tossing a girl mid kick, they were able to beat the Italians and behead them all.

Or did they? Seriously. Big spoiler about to happen. Calm your tits and get out of here if you don’t want to know.

None of that happens. Fuck you. It was all part of Alice’s future vision. Well shit, that guy doesn’t want to die. If he can see the future and know he is going to die, certain retreat seems like a good idea, even if he can’t explain why.

“LOLOLOL JK GUYS, lets leave. For seriously.”

Yep. Not only that, but Alice found another half immortal person. Luckily enough, he only aged for about 7 years, making him look middle aged, and then he has been immortal ever since. Been alive for 150 years, and isn’t a child. Well that is super convenient. If only Jacob could live forever, because then he’d get to have a lot of weird ass wolfman, half vampire, pedophile like fucking in his future.

Annnd movie. Yes, they didn’t actually solve their biggest problems, just delayed it. But no worries, Alice saw the future. They are good to go.

They also fixed the sparkle in the sun thing. Well, they didn’t say that in the movie. But I mean, they aren’t sparkling here in the final scene of the movie. I doubt they’d forget that aspect of the vampires at the last moment. Right? Right?

And there you have it! The twilight franchise is now done, until they reboot it in a few years. Pretty exciting right?

I think I already made this twice as long as my normal big reviews, which is strange, because the stuff in this movie was only half of the book, yet had so much material. My biggest complaints in the first movies was not the bad acting, but the lack of content. I would have ended the first movie like, halfway through book two. Would have made a more logical stopping point, and I think two would have ended at the end of three. Hard to remember anymore. Especially since Eclipse felt like a filler in between them saying “Hey lets get married” and them finally getting married.

But holy fuck, I think I actually found myself interested in the actions of this movie. First off, it was funnier. Jacob provided more humor relief, and not just because of all the pedophile tendencies. The fight scenes were a lot more entertaining and graphic. Even though most of them turned out to be fake in the end, which made me SO FUCKING PISSED OFF.

WHAT, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT COP OUT? Also not to mention fixing the “Oh no, our daughter is aging super quickly, but no worries, she will stop at the great age and be amazing” part in like 2 seconds at the end. Cookie cutter that ending yo.

Despite that rage. I still overall found it more enjoyable. Maybe I am just a rambling lunatic at this point. But it was nice that they included their romance, with out 40 minutes of wedding and honeymoon awkwardness. Including more werewolf personalities. Making me actually learn more vampire names. Having stereotype characters. I was fine with most of that.

So all in all, I would say that the movie (which I am told matched the book pretty well) was actually a good ending to the series. The problem with the series is that there are still four movies before this one before you find something kind of entertaining enough to pay attention too.

Shocking to probably no one, I don’t know a lot about Bond. While growing up, my parents didn’t like it, so I never was exposed to it and didn’t care. I knew the basics, I played the GoldenEye game. I know his favorite drink…kind of, and know he is friends with letters. But that is about it. I watched my first James Bond movie ever a few weeks ago, Casino Royale. I bought Quantum of Solace a year ago, just couldn’t watch it without Casino first! But I figured with Skyfall, I better get to getting, or else you will all leave me for another site.

But yeah. JameS Bond trivia. I am the suck at it. I thought Casino Royale was decent, took too long to get to the Casino for my taste though.

Watching my second James Bond movie? Excuse me while I get all hot and bothered. And dry. Dry from the title.

Hey guys James Bond (Daniel Craig). He does Bond things. Someone tries to kill M (Judi Dench) but Bond is like, no, and kills him first. But they find out he is a hitman and was also hired by Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) to kill his then girlfriend Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko).

I am doing so bad at this plot already. But that Dominic Greene guy? He is our major baddie. But the girlfriend is not our bond girl. For that, we have Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), another MI6 agent. Calm down everyone, he can only seduce so many women at a time.

Either way shit happens, eco-terrorism, groundwater, whatever. Felix Jones (Jeffrey Wright) is back in this, and his handler (David Harbour) who I only bring up because he looks funny.

Greene is a member of Quantum, an environmentalist group. Got the name now? But they are trying to get some Oil stocks in Bolivia, weird.

If you google image searched this movie, you would think this is all that happened.

Alright, second Bond movie I’ve ever seen, and well, it was alright.

I still don’t see the major appeal. After all, the James Bond lifestyle is so ingrained in our culture now, it is hardly as impressive. I thought the speed boat chases early on were pretty cool. But man, the scenery? Could have been a lot better, the desert was very unattractive to be in for that long. And man, the title! The title doesn’t make me curious, it makes me weary. It feels like random words put together, and doesn’t actually mean anything. I don’t like that feeling.

But since I am rambling and just saying nothing, I should end this madness. Probably necessary if you want to see Skyfall, obviously. I think I liked Casino Royale more.

At this point, if you mention Robert Zemeckis around movie people you will probably see a strong positive reaction. After all, he brought directed Back To The Future, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away.

So when news came out of his new movie, Flight, one of his first R rated picture which he claims will be his darkest movie ever, it obviously had a lot of hype.

“Uhh, we seem to be turning. Yep. Gravity is a bitch.”

The hype doesn’t die with the trailer, which makes it seem pretty amazing and dramatic. A pilot, Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) is able to use his instincts to crash land a plane with very few casualties. Not only that, but the same conditions were run with different pilots in simulators, and each and every one of them crashed and burned. Whip Whitaker is a hero! However, he had some alcohol in his system, so he might be facing legal trouble. The trailer makes it seem like this is a story about a hero who is being used as a scapegoat by a big corporation, despite saving almost a hundred lives!

Turns out the trailer is very misleading. The movie earns its R rating right away by giving not only full frontal female nudity, but also cocaine use. Whip Whitaker is not only an alcoholic, but an illegal drug user and cigarette smoker to boot. He was very unfit to fly, but it was still not the cause of the eventual accident.

Instead of a false manhunt, this movie is more about doing whatever possible to protect the pilot from getting reprimanded, despite the serious problems in his life. After the crash he decides to quit drinking, bu that only lasts about a day. He feels sorry for himself and pushes away the ones he loves. This movie also features John Goodman as his dealer/best friend, Don Cheadle as his criminal attorney, Bruce Greenwood as his union representative, Nadine Velazquez as a flight attendant, and Kelly Reilly as a heroin addict he meets in the hospital.

Band aids are the classiest facial accessory you can bring to a hearing.

Outside of the misleading trailer, the rest of the movie was a big “meh” fest. There was a lot of religious talk in the film, because that is usually what happens after a large disaster. However, the entire focus of the movie is on Whip and his drinking problem. That is literally the only thing people care about (and only because of the legal trouble he faces). Once again, drinking becomes the worst thing to ever a person can do, while completely ignoring his smoking and cocaine use. A similar point was driven home with Seven Psychopaths, but at least then it was in a hilarious way.

Personally, I don’t drink at all, never have, never really plan to. Just never had an interest. I get annoyed when it seems the majority of my friends prefer to drink in every possible social setting, but hey, it’s their choice and I will fight for their right to. The movie is actually a giant walking ad for AA, which I also feel is one of the worst transgressors of Separation of Church and State in America. The 12 step programs all feature acknowledging one’s own weaknesses and putting your life in a higher power.

The film also had a problem in that the ending was entirely predictable as soon as they first went to an AA meeting halfway through the movie. I knew how the hearing would play out, and no longer cared about the him as he continued to dig himself into a hole. Denzel Washington did however act amazingly in this movie, it just wasn’t enough to justify the over two hour propaganda fest that I had to sit through.

Happy November 6th, 2012! It is Election Day in America, so I went the obvious route and picked The Campaign to review. I don’t even have a clever intro to say before I talk about the movie, so fuck it, lets just go into it.

Just gotta warm my tongue muscles first.

In the 14th District of North Carolina, life is simple. Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is running for his fifth term as congressman for the Democratic party and is unopposed. I guess people really like him. Sure he is a filthy man, and doesn’t do much, but who cares. Unfortunately, his popularity takes a drastic turn down when he leaves a very explicit sexual message for a woman he is cheating on his wife (Katherine LaNasa) with. His campaign manager (Jason Sudeikis) tries to put a positive spin on it all, but nothing really seems to work.

This spells for trouble in Capitol Hill, namely with the Motch brothers (John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd) who are working on a new plan with China and need all the support they can get. Seems like now is the best time to replace Brady with someone new, that the public will love. Unfortunately their only available contact in the area is Marty Huggins (Zach Galifiankis), the son no one talks about. Wanting to make his dad proud, he is happy to run and make his area of North Carolina better.

He just didn’t know it involved changing everything about himself, his wife (Sarah Baker) and kids, from the mysterious campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott).

But more importantly, once both men are in the race, how low will they go to discredit the other, just for a chance to help start Project: Insourcing?

Will they be able to stop all this family shit and man up?

Having lived in North Carolina, I was happy to notice a lot more subtle jokes than one would have expected. Like the 14th District of North Carolina, that doesn’t even exist! NC had 13 districts, not sure if they did that for legal reasons, or for the joke, but I will so go for the joke.

Cutting right to the chase, this movie did make me laugh. I giggled quite often. But I think the movie went the easy route with most of the jokes, and could have made a stronger movie overall, tackling bigger issues, while also keeping a lot of the jokes. The DVD for this movie came out about a week ago, all of the timing makes since. They wanted this movie because of the presidential election. Yet they didn’t really say anything important about it.

Sure, the basic message of money buying elections is probably true. Minor jokes on the Romney/Obama campaigns, and other parallels like John Edwards. But overall it just seemed to be missing a lot more.

I would suggest seeing the movie once, it will probably make you laugh. I just don’t think it will pack as big of a punch in multiple viewings.

Good news everyone. There are only 13 tagged actors for this movie, and one of them is actually a woman. Crazy, right? Obviously, The Expendables 2 is a sequel to The Expendables, which I forever have disliked because it came out the same day as Scott Pilgrim.

Insert dead horse joke.

The crew is basically the same before. Lead by Stallone, second in command Statham, but also still with Couture, Lundgren, Crews, and Li. Too bad Jet Li leaves in the beginning of the movie, to come back later. Yes, he is pointless.

But they do have a young guy, Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) who is former military sniper, and good at what he does.

Bruce Willis is mad because of events from the first film, but he is willing to forgive the team, if they go and retrieve some data from a downed plane far away. Easy enough. He is making them bring along a woman too, Maggie (Nan Yu) who definitely won’t be there as a romantic interest either.

But turns out the simple mission isn’t very simple. Shit hits the fan, and people might die. A different military group, lead by Vilain(Jean-Claude Van Damme…and yes Vilain? What?) and his lackey Hector (Scott Adkins) decides to steal the package and get away pretty cleanly. But what they stole, for their secretive reason, can actually put an end to the world as we know it.

The Expendables crew will have navigate unfamiliar territory, versus basically an army, and a pretty short clock to do it in. For those disappointed with Bruce and Arnold from the last movie, don’t worry, they do more shit. But also, Chuck Norris, because the internet loves him. Before you ask, basically, Chuck Norris was a walking Chuck Norris joke in is 2ish scenes he was in.

The triumvirate of power, right in front of your eyes folks.

I think it is acceptable enough to compare this to the first one right? Well I thought the first one was boring. It had a lot of action, but I don’t think I really understood everything going on, in between explosions and fisticuffs.

The second one? Well, I understood the plot! There is that. I also found the action scenes to be a bit better overall. I would say the first scene of the movie, a compound break in was a bit confusing due to the vehicles. The airport scene was a bit over the top, because it made no sense to have a basic flood of enemies continuously appear for them to mow down from all angles.

Interesting action movie? That is a rarity in my case. When the death happened, I actually felt upset. The final fight scene that you know exists between JCVD and Stallone was pretty epic.

But at the same time, a lot of features ended up annoying me. Having Jet Li in for one scene felt like a waste. Couture, Crews, and Lundren were all underused as well. The girl love story was a nice pointless addition, that felt forced. And basically anything involving planes, really.

So I am sure they are planning another one, which I will watch, but won’t really need to see the previous ones again.

I will admit, I tried to watch Winter’s Bone before and found myself lost have thirty minutes. But that is only because I was multi tasking it up, and didn’t really pay attention to it. Bad movie reviewer, bad! Which is why I stopped watching it.

And then, you know, kept putting it off. But hey, look, I did it. Get off my back, world.

“And after this, I will teach you how to use a bow and arrow. It could save your life!”

Yay meth! Meth, the best drug ever. Developed all across America, either in giant underground factories, or in small mountain towns where the law has no reach. Well, this ain’t Breaking Bad, so you can figure out where this takes place.

Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17yr old girl, with two younger siblings, and a mother who just ain’t there in the head. She has a daddy too, but he hasn’t been seen in a few weeks. He was arrested for cooking Meth, released on a bond, but now he has gone up and maybe R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

But that can’t be! Their family ain’t no cowards. Something else must up. But time is a runnin’ out. If he doesn’t show up for his court date, they will lose the bond, and apparently the house. Shit, they are already poor enough.

So she sets off on a mini-journey investigating the whereabouts of he pa, including her meth addicted uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes), up to the local crime boss and his army of women soldiers (Sheryl Lee).

“No, don’t volunteer yourself to go to the games for your younger siblings! Don’t do it!”

Winter’s Bone is definitely a lot better if you actually paying attention to what is going on. The thing you should probably realize is that this movie is a lot slower than other modern movies, so ADD people, stay away.

As Ree began to unravel her father’s disappearance, things got more and more weird. Unfortunately, not weird enough for my jaded self. Once she actually discovers the truth about her dad, and where he is, and how to get him back home? That part is a bit fucked up.

I also thought the acting was really well done. I just don’t think enough happened in the story for me. Part of the ending seemed like a bit of a cop out for me as well, problems got solved in a…rather easy way for my liking.

It was a pretty fine movie, just not my favorite. One I probably don’t have to see again anytime soon either.