Tag: 2 out of 4

Why the hell is Channing Tatum in so many Romance based movies?

A guy who’s face that screams out “Big dumb strong man” doesn’t seem to be romance movie material. Or at least once every awhile. But damn. I feel like that is 2/3 of his movies.

In The Vow, not only is he the main male lead, he is kind of the only romantic character in the movie. So weird.

You can tell, because there are no pictures of anyone else out in the rain.

The movie begins with Tatum and Rachel McAdams, driving at night with lots of snow. Aw, they are married. How sweet. Rachel has to leave, so she unbuckles, but before getting out of that car, she gets her kiss on. And then a truck slams into the back of their car, and she goes out the window.

What the heck!

Yeah it sucks. Then she gets into a coma, and well, some amnesia happens. She forgets the last few years of her life, but not everything. Definitely everything involving her husband. What does she remember?

Going to law school, being close to her parents (Sam Neill and Jessica Lange), and being engaged to someone else. What?! Her old fiance, Scott Speedman, whom she left to move to the city and find her own way.

Tatum has a hard enough time providing evidence that she ever even loved him (in the form of a voice mail and their wedding video (and their vows!)). He is all weird and different, and she doesn’t like the idea of living with a stranger. She also finds it odd that he doesn’t seem to know her family well. What if he is just an intense stalker and going to kill her?

What she doesn’t know is why she ever left her home, her rich life style, law school, and fiance, to move to the city, become a sculptor, and you know, fall in love with Tatum and stuff. None of her family feel like bringing it up either, not even her sister , Jessica McNamee, who is also about to get married.

Will she ever remember her past? Or will she be all, whatever.

There is an amnesia clause in vows, right?

So, somehow this ended up being a decent romance movie. I’d imagine losing someone you loved (and who loved you back) would suck, especially if it was via amnesia. Especially if she used to be an entirely different person, who also was kind of a bitch. Understandably, at least. No one likes not knowing anyone around them.

This is based off of a real couple, and even given a factoid based off what happened at the end. The ending to the movie? Well, I thought it was kind of a let down. I guess they wanted to go away from a more obvious turn of events so we wouldn’t guess what happens. But still. Eh.

But the beginning, starting with the accident, and flash backs to when they met and their marriage? That was all very cute. But Tatum’s character is a total dumbass, who does a few things that are quite horrible in the movie, and that was also annoying to watch.

And then again? Some other things were not. Sooo….Yeah.

Wooo, sequels!

A Game Of Shadows is the sequel to the very successful first Sherlock Holmes movie that came out two years prior. I remember the day it was released to theaters, they announced they would already o a sequel, unbeknowingst to Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. at the time, making them both cancel projects. Did you know that RDJ was supposed to be in Cowboys & Aliens originally? Me neither.

As far as I am concerned, from the trailers, this is the only thing that happened in the movie.

This time, the movie is narrated by Watson (Jude Law), as he appears to be typing up a story. What kind of story? Well one that begins with Holmes stalking Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) down the street. He sees that she is delivering a package, and has goons following her. Whoops, those are her bodyguards. Holmes is still narrowly able to catch up to her before she delivers the nice package, a bomb. Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) is up to some shenanigans, has been for some time, and Holmes tends to always put a stop to him.

Some things happen, including the fact that Watson is getting married tomorrow, to the same Mary (Kelly Reilly), and Holmes forgot about the Stag party. He invites his older and equally annoying brother Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry), and they go out to a bar and gambling den (void of any of Watson’s friends). Mostly to see a gypsy Simza (Noomi Rapace) who Adler also had a letter to deliver to. Oh look, another assassination attempt.

Turns out that her brother is working for Moriarty as well, and they have no idea why. This leads them to Paris to try and stop another assassination attempt, then Germany and Switzerland. The battle of wits is played out between Holmes and the Professor, all the while other big spoilers happen, and a very unexpected honeymoon disaster.

Holmes was Mary the whole time! No wonder he hated the idea of marriage!

Woo, [rushed out] sequels!

They even said it themselves. Or at least when I hear “fast tracking” a sequel I think of them doing it as fast as possible, spending less time on the script and other areas in order to release it fast enough to ride off the popularity of the first. I mean, it makes sense, but usually means a movie isn’t as good as its predecessor (not that it matters, because the sequel will still make bank).

I did find parts of the movie entertaining, but it wasn’t the same as the first in all aspects. I thought the elements of thriller and mystery were lessened greatly, which took away part of the experience. Sure, I didn’t know what was going on, but not because of the mystery, mostly due to the confusing unraveling of the plot throughout.

It made sense during the beginning, but most of it seemed kind of unrelated, a problem I usually have with stories that span “all across Europe.”. Usually not enough time I feel is spent at the new location to accurately get the appropriate emotions I should get form each scene, and then we are whisked away to a new location.

Although not a bad movie by any means, I just felt that it lacked a lot of what I liked from the first.

Honestly, I feel like half of my movie reviews involve me admitting something that I previously didn’t know. It may come as a surprise to you, but my musical knowledge isn’t focused in the hip hop/rap movement/wars of the early 90s.

Believe it. The first Tupac song I heard was Changes? Maybe? Its music video seemed like a screensaver slide show, and came out years after he “died”, so not sure. Similarly, the first Notorious B.I.G. song I heard was that Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems song, and then I’ll Be Missing You. All made popular after death, and not really his stuff.

Clearly, I have been missing out. But yay for the chance to learn some things!

I am well aware though that Tupac isn’t dead, but the Ivory Coast goal keeper.

Did you know Notorious B.I.G. had a son? It’s true. And his son, Christopher Wallace, plays his dad in this movie. His dad when he was 10-12 year range at the beginning. That is both awesome and weird at the same time. He was also the kid in Everything Must Go.

Either way, he was also born Christopher Wallace, to a single mother (Angela Bassett) who tried to raise her boy right. Morals, Christian, you know, all of that. But he likes to rap. He starts of dealing drugs, lots of crack, and when his girlfriend is pregnant, he has to raise the stakes for his crack dealing. But also, still rap battles.

He also meets (who will later become) Lil’ Kim (Naturi Naughton) at this time, who’s real purpose in this movie is to be naked a lot. So he is cheating on his girl, and drug dealing, causing him to get kicked out of house. Eventually he is caught with drugs and guns, and put in jail for awhile until bail happens, and he vows to turn his life around. He makes his first big hit, and get signed by Sean Combs (Derek Luke) as long as he gives up the crime. But the album still takes awhile to happen…

He eventually starts his album when Puff Daddy makes his own company, and meets Faith Evans (Antonique Smith), a singer, and marries her. You know, ignoring his old gf/kid, and Lil’ Kim. Can you see this is setting up to be bad? He also meets and befriends Tupac! (Anthony Mackie), but when he gets shot (and doesn’t die) he blames Biggie, P. Diddy, and the label. They start to feud with the tracks and records. East Coast / West Coast. Very bad things.

You know how this ends. Tupac dies, Biggie feels like he is to blame for it (no shit kind of), and tries to quit rapping. Still being bad with all three of his women. Eventually shot and killed himself. Then everyone listens to Hypnotize for the rest of time!

Bad Boy Records really just wants peace.

Guess what! I’ve learned something today. And that shit can get complicated when you add in drugs, weapons, and dirty hos.

I’m looking at you Lil’ Kim. But then again, she is a real person, and apparently hated her portrayal in the movie. I wonder why.

I thought parts of the movie were entirely cheesy. Despite a supposed biography, it just felt, weird at times. The narrator changed too, mostly Notorious throughout, until the end when it was his mom talking about his legacy.

But it was also interesting at the same time. Again, I really didn’t know most of the songs, but I recognized Hypnotize every time they played it (four? Maybe I am counting the menu too). So hey, want to know about Biggie Smalls? Watch the movie. Don’t? Ignore it. Easy.

What’s this? The Ghost Writer is actually based off of a book called The Ghost by Robert Harris, some British dude?

What is more surprising is that I actually knew about the book before the movie, and own the book. Me! Reading! Hah!

Only reason I have the book is because the author currently has 2/3 of a fictional trilogy of Cicero going on and it kicked ass. So I bought more of his books. Tried to read a different one and kept getting bored. Whoops. Political stuff and I don’t get along too well.

To books! They are the future.

Ewan McGregor is hired to finish the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) a fake former prime minister of Britain. His character name gets to be The Ghost! Because he is a ghost writer. It is supposed to be an Autobiography but, you know, it will be mostly be someone else writing it from his notes. This is going to be a sure hit, and lots of money.

Especially since Adam Lang might be prosecuted for war crimes, by illegally detaining possible terrorists and giving them to the CIA for torturing. Yikes. A lot of people don’t like that.

It should also be noted that Ewan is the second Ghost writer brought in because the last one who was doing it drowned. Which kind of sucks. This involves getting to stay in their resort house, all gated and protected, with the assistant Kim Cattrall, and Lang’s wife, Olivia Williams, to make sure he doen’t do too much bad stuff. But Ewan begins to find weird clues, including a phone number that calls the man who is bringing charges against Lang! Ewan also checks the GPS of the former writers car, and decide to visit the last place he visited. Huh, its a Pulitzer prize winner who has been dealing with the CIA since the 70s (Tom Wilkinson).

Is it possible that the former prime minister might have been a CIA agent this whole time?

He might be! Depends on how charismatic he is.

From what I can tell, this was a well directed and acted political thriller.

Unfortunately, I are dumb with politics, as I already mentioned. I knew this was also a fictional jab at Tony Blair and his friendliness with the US, and that maybe people are mad at him.

But I don’t know. I don’t know anything about Tony Blair or what the UK did during 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Seriously. So I’d say that if you know about all this stuff, this might be a better movie for you. If you don’t know a damn thing, it might be confusing.

I read a plot outline on wikipedia as I watched to make sure I was not missing thing as it was happening (which I was). Just general things I didn’t understand and made the film more confusing to me. Sometimes a guy just needs things spelled out. Hah.

After reading what I had just watched, turn out it was kind of interesting. But because of just being about things I have no knowledge in, it made the film just a movie.

I forgot Extract had so many people in it. Oh man.

I had never heard of this movie before randomly walking by it. But hey, a giant picture of Jason Bateman‘s head on the cover, you take notice.

But then you see that it is a movie by Mike Judge and you watch that shit as soon as you can.

Especially when you find out a major character has some crazy facial hair.

Jason Bateman plays the owner and and founder of a flavor extract company. Clearly the amount of jobs left to have for movies is running dry. Either way, he is kind of successful and living it up. But he isn’t having sex with his wife, Kristen Wiig anymore. Which overall sucks I guess.

But not as much as losing a testicle! Which happens to a worker Clifton Collins Jr., who always felt underappreciated, and well, lost a nut on the job. He doesn’t even want to sue because he likes the company too much. But. He. Lost. A. Nut. Enter Mila Kunis, a con-artist, who doesn’t mind using her body to get that monies (not like a prostitute, but kind of). She gets a job in the factory, steals some stuff, and convinces him to sue for damages using the ambulance chasing lawyer, Gene Simmons.

She also tries to get it on with Bateman, but he doesn’t want to cheat on his wife. His bartending friend, Ben Affleck, tries to convince him to hire a prostitute to seduce his wife, so if she cheats on him, he can cheat on her. He also gets a bit drugged, so agrees and they hire Dustin Milligan.

Pretty fucked up yeah. But Mila is a good con artist in this movie. Eventually everything is found out, and appropriate actions are taken. Just kidding. David Koechner is also in thi movie as a rather annoying and talkative neighbor.

And by the end, someone may die, like all good movies.

Affleck gets to play a hipster Jesus as well.

I think this movie is very polarizing. Either you love it or hate it. So of course I say fuck that, and give it a 2. But I totally get it.

I liked the originality of it. I liked some aspects.

But at the same time there was very disappointing parts. Seemed to be missing something that I am used to having from Mike Judge. And it is hard to put a finger on it.

Usually that would be a 1 rating, but I somehow also enjoyed the ending. But still. Not the quality I’d expect overall? Very weird feelings with this movie.

So give it a shot, or not. Whatever

Turns out that Then She Found Me, a movie I had never heard of and found in a cheap bin and bought for the actors involved, is the first movie directed by /The/ Helen Hunt.

But she is also the main character too. Obviously she can’t completely escape the starlight, just yet.

“Quit staring at me with those dead eyes, you church bitch!” I think thats the quote there. Might be confusing it with something else.

Helen Hunt is getting married! Yay! She is in her late 30s, but is finally getting hitched to Matthew Broderick, a fellow elementary school teacher. She has no idea who her biological parents are and was adopted herself into a Jewish household, so for all intensive purposes, she is Jewish. She also really wants a baby before its too late, and really really doesn’t want to adopt herself.

Well ten months later, she is still not pregnant and it is looking rather grim. So Broderick does what every insecure man does and leaves her, not wanting that life. He also just quits his job, thinking it’d be weird teaching a class right next to hers. Ya think? So she goes to live with her brother (Ben Shenkman) where she also gets some strange news. Her mother (Bette Midler) has found her and wants to meet. (I am 85% sure that is the reason of the title!).

Turns out she is a local celebrity who does a talk show early in the day that Hunt has never heard of. Midler want to reconnect with her lost daughter and make up for all the years lost, despite the fact that she is now an almost forty year old woman. Who, if you forgot, is going biological clock crazy and really wanting that kid. It also so happens that she meets Colin Firth, a single dad with two kid, who is not socially awkward, but britishly honest, I guess.

Oh, and when Broderick broke up with her, she had sex with him before he left, and guess what. Got pregnant. But now she wants nothing to do with Matthew who left over that very reason, and might be in love with Colin. Dramaaa.

Colin also has a filthy fucking mouth in this movie.

More stuff happens, but that is end of the movie spoilers. I assure you it has to do with love and babies though. And maybe even her mother!

The movie is clearly very dramatic, and at points I loved it, and other points I hated it. Generally that fluctuated with whether or not Colin Firth was on the screen. His character was awesome, and the mom was annoyingly not. The dialogue also went back and forth between awesome and horrible, this time across all actors.

Despite partially interesting plot, it also gave me you know, boring plot. I guess that was the major problem with this movie. Back and forth between interesting and boring. Probably just like real life. Too real if you ask me.

Definitely another movie I bought, just on the cover.

Sunshine Cleaning shows two women, carrying…the title of the movie, behind some caution tape.

Oooh, how mysterious. And possibly illegal? Here’s hoping for some dead bodies.

Oooh, definitely going to have some dead bodies.

Amy Adams is a single mother working as a maid in a cleaning service. But hey, at least she has a job. Her sister, Emily Blunt, is a slacker and fails at a lot of things she does.

Only real job is that she gets to occasionally babysit Amy’s son (Jason Spevack), while Amy goes to her “class”. And by class, we of course mean having sex with her former high school sweetheart, Steve Zahn. He is a cop and married with kids, but hey, affairs are fun. And he will totally probably leave his wife for her someday, right?

Yeahhh…

Well thanks to her inside connection, she hears that crime scene cleaning can be a pretty nice business, monetarily speaking. She is going to need new money for her kids private schooling, since he has a lot of behavioral problems at public and is getting kicked. But until then, the grandpa, Alan Arkin, will be able to look after him and teach him real world smarts.

Enlisting her sister as an employee, and figuring out the right paper work, they open up Sunshine Cleaning! You know, to clean up dead people blood and stuff. They also get the help of Clifton Collins Jr., a one armed man with a cleaning supplies shop. The film however makes the main characters recollect a lot on their own mothers suicide, and go on their own miniature journeys to self discovery.

Emily Blunt also starts a lesbian relationship with Mary Lynn Rajskub…because she saw her in a picture at one of the houses they were cleaning. Yeah, definitely weird.

Needless to say their methods improved throughout the movie.

This film was definitely a lot more dramatic and sobering than I had thought. With such a colorful and sunny cover, it all kinds of come out of no where. There are some amusing moments, mostly between the grandfather and the son. Well, the grandfather and everyone really. Alan Arkin is the hidden star of this film, and is a nice surprise to watch.

I personally didn’t like a lot of the moments with Emily Blunt’s character, not because she is a screw up, but just…weird slow motion falling and sad time parts. There was this weird montage moment in the middle that just felt way overly dramatic and kind of stupid. In my mind at least.

The ending was a good one though, and most of the characters ended up pretty well. Some plot lines I don’t think they answered as well as they should have though.

Definitely another movie I bought just because of who is on the cover.

Henry Poole Is Here sounds pretty much like a meaningless title to me. I guess this Henry Poole character is some sort of new neighbor, who moves into a suburban neighborhood and parties it up, causing his neighbors ire. Maybe.

By the end maybe he will learn to not be an asshole. Maybe.

Well I was wrong. Shit is a drama, and it is serious at that.

I was dead on with the asshole commentary though.

Predicting movies is hard. I rarely turn out to be right if I have never heard of it before.

Maybe calling Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) an asshole is bad. Mostly because he is going to die. Alright, we all are, but he has a terminal illness. He decides to wait out the rest of his days by moving back to his old hometown, and getting a small house in a suburban neighborhood, where he can waste away his days with pizza and liquor. Pretty much retirement. And waiting to die.

His neighbor, an old hispanic woman (Adriana Barraza) sees a face on his outer wall in his backyard, from mold or something and claim it to be a face of Jesus. She even tries to get the priest (George Lopez!?) to make it a holy site, but he doesn’t seem any proof of it. Not until that shit starts having blood appear. And maybe healing people?

One neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell) separated from her husband, and for about a year her daughter has not spoke. But after seeing the face she has begun to speak. A miracle! No…not really. But another girl, Patience (Rachel Seiferth), an annoying cashier at the market, can see when she visits and touches the wall. She had thick glasses before. Another ehhh moment.

But eventually all of this builds up into anger. More and more people are visiting it and bothering him at his house. He meets someone he likes, but he is going to die soon. So he destroys the wall with a sledgehammer.

Then some other things happen.

Oh hey, Cheryl Hines is also in this movie as a Realtor.

When you are going to die soon, you take every opportunity to spray neighbors with a hose.

But then I hated the ending.

This is a movie that is kind of about religion and Christianity, but also about believing in believing. Despite the large faith issues associated with it, I was very into the movie for most of it. The drama was slow at times, but I thought appropriately paced for this guys point of view.

But the ending? It killed me. The last few minutes. Just seems to go against his character completely, and felt like a cop out for the directors. Everything fell into place too neatly, and I just didn’t care anymore.

A bad ending can ruin pretty much everything. But I thought the acting was pretty well done in the movie. Definitely a lot different than I expected. And once I found out it was religious (very early on) I am surprised it kept me as interested as it did.

I can’t say I know much about The Muppets. Pretty sure I watched more of the Muppet Babies cartoon than any actual muppet movie or show. And by pretty sure I mean 100% positive. I have seen many episodes of that cartoon, and no episodes of the old Muppets show or any Muppet movie before. Just wasn’t raised on them, my bad.

So needless to say the only preconceived notions I had on this movie was that A) a lot of people loved it and B) the title was dumb/vague.

I like that dog one myself.

In this world, I guess Muppets are just real things. I couldn’t tell if all things that were Muppets like were known as Muppets, or if only this select group of /things/ were known as the Muppets. A third option is that they are more or less identical to real people, and the people who were part of the show The Muppets are the Muppets. I think that is the real answer? Kind of weird though.

The story is about a “Guy” named Walter, who clearly is a muppet. Or at least a weird looking human. He is best friends with Jason Segel‘s character, and they are roommates for like, forever. Jason has been dating his girlfriend for 10 years, Amy Adams, and on their anniversary they are going to the magical land of Los Angeles. She also happens to be a school teacher, and I was weirded out when it was her and NOT Alyson Hannigan.

They invite Walter along too, because he is lonely, and wants to see the Muppet studios. He is obsessed with that show. Like, really obsessed. That is all he talks about. Kind of makes sense why not many friends. So of course all he wants to do is see the studio. Amy Adams main goal is to finally have alone time with her boyfriend and maybe get a proposal finally. But shit goes wrong. Turns out an “evil” man (Chris Cooper) is about to but the old studio, because there is oil underneath it. And in the original contract, they have until some time next week to buy it again for $10 million.

Walter flips a shit, and wants to try and stop him. So he finds and convinces Kermit to “Get the band back together” and that people “Still care” about them, and hopefully try and save their studio. So they get all the Muppets they can and work on getting a telethon the day before to hopefully raise enough money, with a lot of musical acts, and host Jack Black!

Also, eventually Jason stops being such a jackass, and realizes he is dating Amy Freaking Adams and does the right thing. Don’t worry.

Tons of cameos of famous people playing themselves or other weird roles, including Rashida Jones, Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman, Kristen Schaal, Donald Glover, and Emily Blunt.

Look at this noob. He is too fanboyish to be a real Muppet.

Honestly, I thought the plot was pretty weak. The ending didn’t seem to make much sense to me. Heart warming, sure, but nonsensical. I don’t want to spoil it, but feel free to ask me if you saw the movie, haha.

BUT. I did like a lot of the jokes. When they were getting all the muppets, and needed to do it in a montage? That was great. And map travel. I also enjoyed a lot of the music. The songs involving Amy Adams and Jason Segel were my favorite, but the Muppet only songs during their telethon were pretty entertaining as well. Especially the barber shop quartet.

But out of all that, it just means I might be more willing to buy* the CD, and not really care about watching the movie again. It was decent, probably a lot better for those that you know, grew up with the muppets though.

Two things I assumed from the tv ads for Contraband when I first saw them in January.

One: With Mark Wahlberg, how does this look like anything but The Italian Job 2?

Two: With a name like Contraband, why does it only remind me of something like Armored?

What’s that? I haven’t reviewed Armored yet? Then never mind. But still. The trailers made it look like some heist movie, similar to point 1. More so just a smuggling movie, and very little stealing going on.

That is real counterfeit money right there.

Mark Wahlberg doesn’t do crime anymore guys. He is clean. But…when his relative gets in some shit with a local thug, he has to do another run. Smuggling is a dangerous situation. If the US Customs office checks the items you have to dump it and usually the sides are okay. But this crazy asshole, Giovanni Ribisi, doesn’t play games like that. He wants the money or the cocaine within two weeks or else his family will pay. Marky Mark doesn’t like that when he is married to Kate Beckinsale, so he agrees to go get the money.

But first, he leaves his friend and former illegal trafficker buddy Ben Foster, to watch over his wife and family.

So he has to get a crew back together, and get on a ship to Panama, captained by germaphobe J.K. Simmons. They mess up some stuff to get themselves time, to try and transport counterfeit money. But thanks to a lack of trust at home and other shit going down, they also have to help another heist happen and possibly take on cocaine and some other merchandise too. But if the customs gets involved again, can they risk dumping the cargo a second time while their loved ones are at home alone?

Never trust a thug who also looks like a rapist.

Ben Fosters character may not be as buddy buddy as you had assumed. But I doubt you assumed that. Look at him. LOOK AT HIM. He is never a straight shooting guy. Not even in X-Men The Last Stand.

I overall found it decently entertaining. About halfway through it I thought I was almost done with the movie though, didn’t expect to have “That much more” “plot” left to it. Mostly a lot of deception. Normally bad people get killed, but in this movies case, they all pretty much get arrested in separate ways.

I don’t like how unrealistic certain things were, such as Kate’s character. She got hit in the head so damn often, and its like nothing phased her. Must have a plate there. I definitely thought certain characters should have been dead, but “somehow” they weren’t and just unconscious or some bullshit.

I will give props to Giovanni Ribisi. Normally thugs are all tough guy, smack you around. But he is small and weaselly, and gave a different element to his fear mongering. I enjoyed that part the most.