Tag: 2 out of 4

Ooh, Noise. That would be either some vague horror movie, or another remake of The Grinch.

Obviously it is neither, but man, wouldn’t some gritty remake of The Grinch be cool? Something rated R, yet also still not a horror movie.

I’d watch it.

Quick googling says there is no such thing as a Gritty Grinch. Yet.

Instead of my bizarre idea, this movie goes one step bizarrier (Level 2 spell?). It stars mild mannered Tim Robbins. He lives and works in New York city, with his wife, Bridget Moynahan, and their young daughter. But every night the same thing happens. The noise never stops. More specifically, the car alarms, but all the excess noises are a big problem in his eyes.

It makes the baby wake up, and makes it so no one can sleep well, and also makes him limp. Err. Well because the cops never seem to do something about it, he decides to do his own punishment. First he starts slow, deflating a tire or whatever. But eventually he is full on rage mode, smashing the window open to pop the trunk, to cut the line to the battery, just to shut it off. 3 minutes is too long for an alarm to go, given that most people ignore alarms anyways and probably do more harm than good.

He becomes known as The Rectifier, a sort of vigilante punishing those who don’t turn off their alarms. He does try to use the courts to his advantage, but each time his case is thrown out. After his wife makes him leave for his obsession, he meets a Russian student, Margarita Levieva, who helps him start a simple petition to change some car alarm laws and make it fine-able which gets huge support. But the Mayor (William Hurt) and his assistant (William Baldwin) don’t like it just because it seems to support vigilantism, so they put a stop to it.

So it becomes up to Tim Robbins to find a way to get his law passed, any means possible.

Look at all that rage. Yeah, he clearly mad.

I will keep this short and sweet. This movie was weird, yes, which I like. The beginning felt pretty good but died down after about twenty or so minutes. The ending was also strong, I liked what he decided to do in order to finally get his ordinance passed. But a whole lot of the middle was kind of boring. I didn’t even like their quick country plantation visit, where he found that the noise problems still exist outside of the city.

It is a bad problem, no one likes it but everyone accepts it and his character cannot fathom why they should accept it any longer. So he decides to spend a long time trying to combat it, and it is kind of awesome in an “unexpected hero” sort of way. I was surprised this wasn’t based on some real life story of a guy who hated the alarms that much.

But man, if it was a bit better in the middle, this movie would be a lot better.

Hey, I bet by the name alone that you will think Eagle vs Shark is a super weird comedy?

Yep.

I don’t usually want people to judge the movie by its cover, but using the cover to help get yourself in the right mood has never been a bad thing.

Yep, it is going to be one of those kind of movies.

This is a movie about socially awkward people, and love. Lily (Loren Horsley) lives with her brother (Joel Tobeck), who is a cartoonist, while she works at a burger joint. They are devoid of good technology apparently, because after she takes an order from the customer, she apparently has to walk back and tell the kitchen. Fast food joints there are weird.

Either way she was picked “randomly” to have her job cut, because corporate demanded it, so she is kind of meh, and decides to try and get that cute customer who always walks in, Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) on his lunch break. After finally talking with him, he asks her to invite another girl to his “Animal” party, where everyone dresses up as their favorite animal. There is also a video game fighting tournament, which she kicks ass at. Then they awkwardly kiss and have some sex.

Hooray, now kind of dating. But Jarrod is a jerk, yet she still likes him. He convinces the brother to drive them to his parents house (pretty far away). He hates his family, but he is there for revenge, to KILL someone! A bully in middle school, who used to beat him and others up all the time. Well now after all his training (Video games) he is ready to take him on once he returns from afar.

But also his family doesn’t seem to be impressed enough by Lily, so he kind of breaks up with her, in the middle of the stay, with no way to leave.

Yep. More asshole than awkward. Either way, the rest of the trip is super weird and the eventual fight and return. And shit, that is about it.

Looks like Business Time to me.

I can’t say I am expert on New Zealand film, as this might be the only one I have seen. Definitely seen NZ tv shows, if we say Flight of the Conchords counts. But it is definitely a lot dryer and maybe sometimes subtler than other forms of humor.

And it is about 100% of this movie. Sure it has its wtf moments as well, but most of it is relied just on the awkwardness of the two individuals, in the situation they are in and trying to be politer at all times. Very proper New Zealand tactics.

This movie wasn’t any where close to amazing, but it wasn’t horrible either. At least it tried something new, where new is just…mostly nothing.

Ready for a vague ass movie review? Because you are about to get one.

Why? Because The Nines is weird. Super weird. And weird stuff happens early on that I didn’t see coming and I think it is essential to the story to not know about it ahead of time.

Literally clicking on the imdb link and looking at the cast list may be enough to make you go “Wait, what?” and give some spoilers away.

So let’s see what the hell I come up with!

EVEN THIS IS A SPOILER. Wait. No. Just a mouse trap.

The movie begins with Gary (Ryan Reynolds) being a pretty troubled dude. He is an actor, and just got into an accident. Maybe some naracotics were involved. He also had burned down his house. So now he is in another house, and under house arrest. He hears noises and thinks the house is haunted so he tries to run away, but the cops find him and put an ankle bracelet on. Not before a strange encounter with a deaf girl (Elle Fanning).

Shit! Not only that, but his publisher Margaret (Melissa McCarthy) now is moving into the mansion with him, to keep a watch and keep him from going insane. She didn’t know that there was also a neighbor Sarah (Hope Davis), who he has been talking to who is also under “house arrest” because of her baby.

But once they do meet, you can tell they don’t like each other (it isn’t subtle. They argue), and are arguing about the truth and Gary finding out. Finding out what? Why 9s keep popping up and notes about “The Nines” that he doesn’t understand? And what WILL happen when he leaves the premises of his house again?

Cue crazy shit.

For all you know, this might be in the movie, and not just a random cute koala.

Uhh. So it was a weird movie, and the plot summary I gave was only the first third. It is broken up into three parts, all pretty different from each other, yet weirdly connected. IMDB has the summary as

A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

Which is true! But also still a bit misleading. It definitely goes into a psychological/potentially spiritual direction that I didn’t see coming. And earlier on, when a chant of “Nine!” happened, it actually scared me and I was worried I was about to watch some screwed up Horror movie. Thankfully, it wasn’t really as scary after that, just weird.

While I like that it leaves it for some sort of interpretation and deeper meaning, I still think it could have been a lot better. I don’t think any of the main three cast members put on a great performance, all of it mostly just ehh. Thankfully the mystery kept me interested. I am not mad at what the ending turned out to be, but overall, I think they could have one a lot better on the story.

Ohh boy, Perfect Sense? I love movies about sense. I don’t love the notion that they like to assume that there is only five senses still, but I do like talking about them nonetheless.

But add in the possible end of the world? Well then yeah, that sounds like a double winner for me.

Who knows what they are doing underneath those masks!

Ewan McGregor is being all British and living in Glasgow, as a pretty fancy Chef. He meets a girl who is not at all impressed by him at first, Eva Green. But he is consistent, yelling from the alleys and what not. She is an epidemiologist. Someone who studies health events, disease spreads and what not.

Which gives an inside scoop as to what is happening. They randomly have some dude who lost his ability to smell completely. They are keeping him quarentened to determine if it is contagious, and doesn’t appear to be.

Yet it spreads. First people start crying uncontrollably, and once they are done, their smell is completely gone. Soon after that, their taste. Needless to say, once smell and taste are gone, people are less likely to go to a fancy restaurant. Seems pointless. Yet still, people must eat!

These are the minor complications of what is going on. It shows how people react to them throughout the world, but that isn’t the main point of the movie. It is the love between the two characters that develop. Unfortunately, and no one has any idea why, eventually after taste goes, the ability to hear falters too. Well fuck. That makes everything difficult. And even further after that, sight.

Needless to say, something effecting everyone around the world to slowly lose most of their abilities to perceive the world is kind of a bitch. People flip out, looting, and a general fear of leaving the house. What if you leave and become blind and already can’t hear? Fucked then. TV stations seem to be flashing the message of hope, that they are looking for the problem, to stay inside, etc. But does it work.

Further more, once Ewan and Eva have a big fight and leave each others lives, will they be able to find each other again before it all goes black? Or you know, will it all go back to normal?

Also featuring Connie Nielson, as Eva’s sister, and Stephen Dillane, as another cook.

But neither are worthy of a picture, when there could be a picture of Ewan sitting down instead.

Pretty crazy circumstances to build a love story around, I say. And It is AWESOME that they tried it. Well done.

But I think a lot of the delivery I overhyped, and was left wanting a bit more. The final scene? Yeah, it was good and romantic up to the gills. Which is what they really wanted to do. But I still think it was missing something.

The narrator of the movie bugged the crap out of me. She talked a lot, but not about a lot of different things. Just love, true love, etc. I got the point, and wished the movie could have just played out without all the interruptions.

Also took me awhile to figure out that some of the events were shown out of order. No need to play games with me movie. I am already dealing with sensory loss.

If you guys knew how many lesser known movies Kevin Spacey was making nowadays, you’d be shocked. Shocked!

Because everyone loves Kevin Spacey right? Even when he is in mediocre films, he is usually the best part and everyone is happy. Because yay Kevin Spacey. But why all these films that aren’t advertised? Today I watched Shrink, which came out in 2009. And well, I am sure its probably not something anyone really knows. Tomorrow I will watch Casino Jack, a 2010 movie with him. Heard of it? No. Probably not.

I am sure most would be willing to tell Kevin their darkest problems too.

Kevin Smith is a celebrity therapist in LA. Exclusive and famous clients, who all have problems. No cameos here, but Robin Williams does play an actor who is in therapy for alcoholism (but doesn’t believe he is an alcoholic, and thinks himself a sex addict instead). Unfortunately for him, his wife also recently committed suicide and he is kind of having a rough time with it. He starts drinking himself, avoiding his bed room, and hanging out with his pseudo-relative Jesus (Jesse Plemons) to get drugs and high with.

His dad was also a therapist and it is clear Kevin is having a hard time. After a failed intervention, he gets him to start therapy for a high school girl, Jemma (Keke Palmer) as Pro Bono work saying it would help. Why? Turns out her mom committed suicide too. She wants to be a filmmaker some day, but is having quite a rough time at the moment.

At the same time, he is handling a few other celebrities. Saffron Burrows is an actress, married to a narcissistic rock star husband, who makes her feel insecure about her age (joint therapy, husband the real problem). Dallas Roberts is a talent agent who is a germaphobe and has anxieties, who’s biggest client is Jack Huston, who is also addicted to drugs.

Finally, Mark Webber is his kind of related god son, who is a struggling writer who might finally get inspiration through Kevin’s clients. Also interested in romantically with the assistant to Dallas, Pell James.

Yeah, lots of plot lines going on here. Most importantly Kevin trying to handle his clients (who end up being way too connected for his liking) while also failing to take his own advice to deal with his own problems.

Jesus wears glasses.

As we learned from The Sopranos, sometimes even a Shrink might need a Shrink. Having to hear others problems for so long can drive a person mad and not feel as important. This isn’t the plot of the movie, just me free balling.

An interesting concept of a movie, but I definitely thought there was a lot of plots going on. I wasn’t sure why there was so many separate stories for awhile. They eventually became more and more connected (or they always were connected, just more and more revealed) but ehh. Still felt weird. Some of the client stories (Robin Williams / Saffron Burrows) seemed to go nowhere by the end. No where exciting at least, nor did they really end.

Everything else was neatly wrapped up in the movie though. Kevin Stacey does good. I thought each of his scenes were decent, but the flip out on TV scene didn’t feel natural at all. But yeah, wooo therapists.

I personally feel a bit British just saying the title of this movie.

Conversations With Other Women.

It feels so proper, and pretensions.

Yet at the same time, so adulterous.

While also potentially having a lot of talking.

And by that I mean tons of talking. That is all the movie is! But good dialogue is good.

Aaron Eckhart is at his sister’s wedding. He finds Helena Bonham Carter. one of the bridesmaids, and she is British!

Now is good time to note that this movie is “split screened” with a left and right side. Most of the time, each camera is focused on both of their faces. They happen to be near each other the whole movie too, so its good for their conversations.

They also have some sex that night, despite the fact that she has a husband (Ex husband) and two kids in London. He is in a lot of different relationships, random ones, even young girls. But maybe they also knew each other in this past and this is fate?

Oh hey, and Olivia Wilde has a role as drunk bridesmaid, and Thomas Lennon as weird video camera guy. And some quick flashbacks of the man and woman, played by different people in their yuoth.

What’s that? You said you wanted an example?

Well, as expected, this movie has a lot of dialogue. Like, aside from some strategic awkward silence, it is mostly a night long conversation with the two leads. Not a whole of lot of women, unless you consider Helena to be the other woman.

But was it interesting? Well kind of. But also slow.

I mean hey, give it a shot if you like banter.

I would definitely describe my feelings towards Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as..”Wait, what?”.

Never heard of this movie when it came out. Just saw that it had a really long feeling title, and that it was nominated for best picture. I also heard the term Oscar bait being tossed around, but besides that I had no idea who was in it, nor did I remember it ever being in theaters.

So yeah. Blank slate watching indeed!

Okay, so its about a kid who is ashamed of his face. Who yells a lot?

Oh, there we go, its a 9/11 movie.

Oskar (Thomas Horn) is a kid with Aspergers living in New York City. His dad (Tom Hanks) seems to be the only one who ‘gets him’. They go on scavenger hunts, looking for clues of the missing sixth Burrow of NYC, and other seemingly useless items. They are designed by his dad to get him talking to others and branching out socially.

But then the towers are hit and his dad is killed in WTC. Lot of confusion. Lot of anger and denial. Mad at his mother (Sandra Bullock) who he has never been close to. But one day, while looking in his father’s closet he accidentally knocks over a vase, inside is a key. Huh.

He goes to a locksmith to figure out to what, and the locksmith says it can be anything, hard to say. But there is one clue, the word “Black”. Clearly that is a last name for someone and maybe they have the next clue. Time to find and talk to every Black in NYC (over 200) and hopefully one day find out where the key goes to, to solve one last mystery!

Also featuring his grandmother (Zoe Caldwell) who lives next door, her mysterious guest (Max von Sydow) and he lazy doorman (John Goodman).

They missed out not making this movie in 3D.

Don’t you dare quote me on this, but I have a feeling this might be one of the cases where the book is better than the movie. Ahh! Not that I read the book. But it must be.

The overall plot and what goes on is interesting. But what bugged me more would probably be how the story was told in the movie, and other decisions a director might decide. Having every other scene be a flash back to 9/11 got old quickly, instead of giving us the full story, and dragging it out longer.

Because I definitely found the search for the missing lock interesting, both his interactions with strangers and his weird relationship with old guy neighbor who doesn’t talk at all.

The kid did a pretty good job. Had a lot of quirks with the way he talked, and seemed like more than just a kid who talked a lot, and didn’t know manners. So he was pretty awesome.

Interesting story, but a lot of scenes edited in ways clearly as “oscar bait” which just made me mad.

Fifty Dead Men Walking, while a horribly titled movie, is a real life story involving the heroics of a man, undercover and infiltrating the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 80s and 90s as a spy, and saving the lives of other men.

How many men? Apparently over fifty. Didn’t want to leave the reasoning of the name hanging for you.

You’re welcome.

How does he get in that situation though?!

Marty McGartland (Jim Sturgess) is just a street hustler in his early 20s, and living in Ireland. Pretty simple. The IRA wants to recruit him, but he doesn’t want to join them. They are a pretty violent group and he doesn’t like violence!

Instead he gets recruited by the British and agrees to infiltrate the IRA ranks and give the British nice information. Hooray! Mostly because he hates the IRA, not the British. His handler Fergus (Ben Kingsley, who looks nothing like Ben Kingsley) is the only one to know about his double agent status, which works well for protecting his family and loved ones. Like his girlfriend, Lara (Natalie Press) who greatly dislikes his involvement in the IRA (once she “finds out”).

He has to work his way up through the ranks, getting into worse and worse aspects of the IRA, despite his moral objections to committing these acts himself. But Fergus convinces him to keep on going. But what happens when the IRA find out he is a spy? Well shit. Torture.

Against all odds he is able to escape, and he realizes he will never be safe again. The end of the movie notes that he is still on the run today, and the IRA still hates him. There was an attempted assassination attempt in 1999 where he got 6 bullets, and well, still survived. But you know, cant see his family ever again. Film also has Kevin Zegers and Rose McGowan, but Ben and Jim are the main two that matter.

Okay, he kind of looks like Ben Kingsley. But not by much.

Although I thought the acting from Jim was top notch in this movie, and found him able to carry the movie on his own, I still felt extremely uninterested in a lot of the movie.

Parts were cool I give you that, but other parts, well you know. I know shit is stupid in Northern Ireland, and that the IRA is mean, but I don’t know if that was enough to firmly entrench me in the story that this movie wanted to tell. It is also one of those movies where you know how it is going to end, so aren’t surprised as much at his escape or what happens to him. That is what sucks about real life stories.

The Losers is one of those “Oh this is based on a comic? Why?” type movies. No super heroes involved, just your normal run of the mill elite black ops team, who gets set up/framed, and have to fix it. A story I might have wrote about yesterday, and very popular.

This movie came out around the same time as The A-Team though, which means you were far more likely to not ever see or hear of The Losers, as they are easily compared.

But this one has more than four people. And a woman! Eventually.

Ooh, lets try and do this the team way!
First we have Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) the leader of the group.
Then there is Roque (Idris Elba) the second in command.
Jensen ( Chris Evans) is the communications/tech guy, and a lot of the comic relief.
Pooch (Columbus Short) is the driver, and soon to be family man.
And finally, Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) their ‘long range specialist/sniper’, wears a hat, and doesn’t talk much (At all). So mysterious. So deadly.

Well the missions they take are never officially wrote down, very very covert, don’t technically exist in the government. They are in Bolivia on a search and destroy mission for a drug cartel, but find that the camp has dozens of slave children. They try to call off the attack to their handler, Max (Jason Patric) but he ignores them. So they do the reasonable thing, break into the compound, kill the drug lord, rescue the children and barely escape!

On the helicopter sent to pick them up, they decide to stay behind and save the children instead. And when it gets up to leave. BAM. Missile. It was meant to kill them instead. They know there will be huge back lash here, so they decide to fake their deaths as if they were in the helicopter, and plot their revenge against Max. Which they get four months later, when another mysterious person, Aisha (Zoe Saldana) has a plan. But can she be trusted.

Stealing hard drives, and getting to Max is the rest of the movie, and having to go through his “top notch security” (Holt McCallany). Also filled with betrayal, the Losers try and stop Max before he acquires new age weapon technology, and you know, start a new world war.

The “mind bullets/tech support” scene is one of the better scenes. Of all time. Complete with Journey!

Seriously though, you will probably enjoy that scene even without the rest of the movie. That is what comic relief character gets you. Great scenes.

It is definitely more action than comedy, not everything is laugh out loud heelarious, but the movie is not meant to be taken too seriously. The first picture of the review is just covered in campiness.

Other aspects I found boring. I enjoyed it, but on a rewatch, not as much interests me as it did before. So its definitely a one and done kind of film. Won’t blow your socks off, but can be enjoyed if you are in the right mood.

“We’re going to watch the female Bourne Identity movie.”

“Err what?”

Apparently that is how some people are referring to Haywire. Not sure why, not like she is a secret weapon or anything. I think it is more based on the realistic fighting than anything. What I’m trying to say is, I had no idea what this movie was about.

Sexy fighting maybe?

Gina Carano is just hanging out in a diner, when Channing Tatum comes in, and eventually they fight! He wants her to leave, for some reason. This looks like legitimate fighting too, not what normally happens when a woman is involved. She gets punched in the face! A random diner patron, Michael Angarano, intervenes, allowing her to break Tatum’s arm and escape. With Michael, in his car. Woot!

She goes over the last week of events. Turns out Tatum and her used to work for a private covert firm. The firm is run by Ewan McGregor (also her former boyfriend?)! They get a job from an agent in DC, Michael Douglas, to rescue and Asian guy in Barcelona, who is being held hostage. Their Spanish contact is Antonio Banderas. Don’t worry, I am not done name dropping yet.

Well, despite it being hard, they succeed! Back in the US, she gets a second secret mission, that is also meant to be easy. She just has to pose as the wife of a British agent, Michael Fassbender, in Ireland. No sweat! But during the mission she finds out that the Asian guy they saved…has been killed! And made to look like she did it. Set up by her own firm! But why?

The rest of the film is her trying to figure that out, on the run with that random stranger. A lot of scenes involve her kicking peoples asses too, so that is fun. Also her dad is played by Bill Paxton! So many famous (men) in this movie.

Gina’s claim to fame is MMA fighting and being “Crush” on the American Gladiators reboot.

In terms of fighting, I tended to like those scenes a lot. The most, compared to the rest of the scenes. Definitely important for an action movie with a lame plot. I am surprised by how many famous actors are in this movie, despite how I barely even heard about it coming out in theaters.

Obviously I thought the acting was a bit weak, especially from Gina, who…hasn’t really acted in anything before. But thankfully they have a lot of the other people do most of the talking. Scenes in her flashback were kind of weird, like randomly switching to a slow motion black and white adventure when they were in Barcelona. Disrupted the flow for me and felt cheesy.

Although the plot isn’t too interesting, it is fun to see her kick a lot of peoples asses. Especially Ewan. I have no idea why that is so rewarding.