Tag: 2 out of 4

Conan the Barbarian! Another reboot of another movie that is commonly considered an original. As always, I won’t compare this to the “original Conan“, nor will I compare it to the Conan books, (because I never do. And because I’ve never read them). All I really know is that the Conan creator was good friends with HP Lovecraft, so if we could just get a Cthulhu in the movie, that’d be perfect.

“Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn!”

The story begins with Ron Perlman, running around on a battlefield. He finds a wife. Oh shit she just gave birth. ON A BATTLEFIELD. What can this mean? They call this baby…Conan.

Then some guy comes over like, 10 years later, and is trying to collect the pieces of a mask. Each chieftain has a piece of the mask. Conan is too weak to stop the army, and the chieftain kills everyone but him, and gets the last mask piece. The mask gives ultimate power….eventually. Because for some reason, another ~10 years later, the world is still not completely shit. The guy also has to kill a pure blood thing, in order to unlock its powers. Apparently it takes a LONG time to find one of these people. Because now Conan, older and more Jason Momoa, can stop them.

Pirates. Accidentally finding the pure blood woman (Rachel Nichols), fighting, vengeance. This is the rest of the plot. Rose McGowan also plays a super creepy looking sorceress chick. Like. Way too much forehead. Was very surprising to look at. Oh yeah, there is some narration done too, of course, by Morgan Freeman.

There is a lot of blood and gore in this movie. Nudity too. You’d expect both in a movie all about killin’ and fightin’ though. The music that went with it was pretty good, and the visuals were pretty decent. The overall plot was of course super weak, and I was getting bored by the end. So much that I started listening more to the music and replacing the bass lines with words like “Fight” and “Action” to enjoy myself more. What?

There was no Cthulu, but there was a weird octopus monster thing! So that is close. Also there was a very exceptional fight scene with this sand warrior thing that kicked so much ass, it is pretty much worth it, for at least that.

And for people who really like Rose McGowan’s head.

I have a big problem with The Devil’s Double. The cover. It is atrocious and hard on the eyes. So I will fling it at you readers now!

ZA GOGGLES. ZEY DO NOTHING!

Like, whoa right? So much gold. The word double? Maybe this is about gambling. Dangerous dambling.

YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

This is based on the “True” story of Latif Yahia, a normal man just living in Iraq. Unfortunately for him, he looks a lot like Uday Hussein, son of the more famous Hussein you may remember dying from a few years ago. Both roles are played by Dominic Cooper (from Captain America! As Howard Stark!). I know what you are thinking. A guy plays two roles? Lame.

Well don’t worry, this isn’t some Disney channel Friday morning movie (Despite when I am posting this review). He plays both roles distinctively enough so that it is pretty awesome. They also have slight differences in their faces too, enough to make them seem different. And you know, mannerisms.

So Latif gets forced into being a body double, to become Uday Hussein. Live with them, take in the glory, and act like a crazy asshole. Apparently Uday is a crazy asshole in real life (well, was. Go America!). You know, lovin’ those little girls. Shooting people. Drugs. Partying. All that stuff.

Obviously Latif doesn’t want to do this. He has morals, damn it. He has a real family. So the movie is him trying to do his job so that his family back home (who thinks him dead) doesn’t get killed, while also trying to deal with the morals that come with doing bad things.

The movie is very over the top. People like to compare it to Scarface, just in terms of “Whaaaat” factor. I could kind of see it. I assume most of the movie isn’t real, except for the general story. Because this is Hollywood, not a documentary.

If they had one more double, they could take this show on the road!

Overall the story wasn’t too exceptional. However, Dominic Moore really busted out some acting chops for this movie, and it shows how much work he put into it.

Some people complain that it is entirely in English. I hate those kinds of people. If there is only one language spoken in a film, I think it BETTER be in English (if an American movie). Afterall, everyone in it can understand each other perfectly, so we should too. I assume they are speaking Arabic, but I can understand it perfectly, so it sounds normal to me. Oh yeah, Go America!

The Other Woman? Yes. This movie is the unofficial sequel to The Other Man. And by unofficial, I mean not at all related. It still deals with people cheating though, so don’t worry.

“Yay infidelity!”

Natalie Portman stars in this movie as the other woman. Yes! She meets a guy at the law firm, they get together (the guy says his marriage isn’t working anyways, but…the kid! He wants to stay together for the kid). Who was he married too? Lisa Kudrow, who can be a mean old bitch if she wants to. She really hates Portman, and it is understandable why (I mean, broke apart her marraige). The movie is very disjointed, because it is told from the present (of her living with the new kid + lawyer), but with flashbacks of first meeting him, and getting knocked up, breaking apart a marriage.

So in a real time line? Portman meets Lawyer Dude. They shellack in a hotel. She gets pregnant. He divorces Kudrow. They get joint custody of kid. Portman now lives with them and sees Kudrow a whole bunch because of the joint custody thing.

At the same time, it shows her interactions with the “not her kid” kid, and how awkward it can all be. It seems that everything goes wrong too, which Kudrow is quick to throw in her face. We also find out (early early on) that Portman produced a child with her new man, but that child died of SIDS.

The movie is about both Portman never feeling accepted into her new situation (after all Kudrow harasses her and says she is bad with children) while at the same time feeling that no one else cares about her dead child enough, and never cared at all. Portman does some outlandish things that will leave the viewer very upset, and begin to think Kudrow is right. Except, also, Kudrow is also a mean bitch.

This movie is really just about two woman who do questionable things.

You know. Like home wrecking.

So the movie is okay. It is an Indie flick. I don’t really enjoy the ending. At first you feel sympathetic for Portman (but why? She ended a marriage) but her meanness makes you question that. You will never like Kudrow’s character, because even at the end, when she does something positively, it is still very mean sounding. Must be because she is a woman of science. So overall, it is okay. I don’t think you are normally supposed to hate all the characters in a movie though, so that is a negative.

But hey. Anthony Rapp and Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under / Can’t Hardly Wait) have small roles. Nifty!

Of course when I first heard of the movie Larry Crowne, I thought of The Thomas Crown Affair and was for some reason disturbed. How dare a main character have a name that is spelled the same and spelled differently. There is no room for that in my movie world. But I haven’t ever seen the latter, just Larry Crowne now. So I guess Larry Crowne is better on that merit alone.

That other movie was a remake? I don’t believe it.

Tom Hanks plays the titular character and he just got fired from his big box store. Why? No college education, can’t advance. Well shit. There is only one solution. Sell a bunch of your valuables, switch to a Scooter, and go to a local college. Take economics, speech, computer classes to get far in the business world, and TAKE BACK THE NIGHT! He can thank Cedric the Entertainer, his lotto rich neighbor the help.

He meets people in school too. Including a scooter gang he gets to join, run by Fez. His teacher for 8am Speech, Julia Roberts, hates her life. Because she is married to Bryan Cranston, and as we know he makes meth. Well, that wasn’t addressed in the movie, but he did like them big titties.

More or less, this is a story of how a guy can start his life over. Getting that knowledge, meeting knew friends, and seducing his college teacher. What? For shame Tom Hanks. She is married.

Half of the reason people take college classes is if their teacher is cool. It is a bonus if that teacher has a good voice to listen to. I think that also explains why so many people are in George Takei‘s Economics class.

If anyone can take Tom Hanks phone away, it is George Takei.

It was an interesting movie. Kind of a feel good ish flick. Happy ending. But nothing in particular was that spectacular about the whole thing. Disappointing in that regard, cause its Tom Hanks! I need some more epic, sir.

You know, the title of the movie is way to easy to joke. It is obviously asking for it. It can’t not be intentional. Good Dick? Gahh.

“Good dick? I know nothing of it. But give me a second and I will find something “great”, baby.”

Alright, so the beginning is a bit creepy. Main dude Jason Ritter is working at a video store. Clearly living the life. A girl comes in, Marianna Palka, rents some porn and leaves. He is INFATUATED with her. He uses the computer to find where she lives to accidentally run into her and ask about coffee. He lies about why he is there (aunt in the complex) and continues to try to ask her out.

She continues to say no. This continues up to a point where he lies about his aunt’s death and for sympathy she invites him in, but even has a knife just in case.

Just in case what? Rape. Holy shit, jokes aside, but Flynn from Tangled may be right! This guy is a creeper and that girl should stab him.

Somehow eventually he pseudo moves in. The girl clearly has no interest in him or sex with anyone, and is super weird. But for some reason this guy is super patient and relentless and doesn’t understand the meaning of no.

The rest of the movie is him trying to, more or less, erode her down like a river, until she likes him too. Also to try and figure out why she is so weird.

I refuse to google “Good Dick” to find a picture of this movie.

Tom Arnold also has a small role near the end, but is a pretty good one.

If you get past all of the weird creepiness, it is an interesting story. I think it tried to be real, but just felt like the opposite. If there is anything I have learned, it is that big romantic movie gestures just get the cops called in real life. But damn it, the ending is so interesting once you find it out! Ahhh. What a dick movie.

The Beginners is supposed to be a pseudo autobiographical flick from the director. But I don’t believe it all that much. Mostly because he looks nothing like Ewan McGregor.

But if Ewan looked identical to the director, this would be a picture of the stars of the movie.

A good thing to know about this movie, for enjoyment purposes, is that it is not told in order. Not at all. Flashbacks, all that stuff. I missed that in the beginning, leading to some unnecessary confusion.

Ewan stars and narrates in the movie, that begins by stating his father (Christopher Plummer) just died. So right away the story breaks up. Four years before his fathers death, his mother died, and he also found out his father was gay.

He didn’t want to be “theoretically gay” either, but experience it, so he opened himself up to a completely new lifestyle and had a younger lover (Goran Visnjic). He dies of some stage four cancer. Half of the movie is telling of Ewan’s past, and the four last years of his dad’s life, and the other half is him coping with the aftermath and falling in love with Melanie Laurent.

Also in this movie? A cute dog! Ewan has to take him in after the death, and he really helps him cope. Or at least gives him someone to talk to. AND ITS A JACK RUSSEL TERRIER.

Actual scene from the movie. Awww.

There are other transitional moments between scenes, where Ewan talks over photos and gives nice breaks between heavier (and also lamer) moments.

It was a decent story. But sometimes the disconnectedness really got to me. The actress, Laurent, I never really liked in the movie. Ewan would have carried the whole movie, but with half of the movie him being kind of morose, it didn’t help the viewer. Plummer and Visnijc (what a last name. Crazyness) were both really good, even though Visnijc didn’t get that much screen time compared to the rest.

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson. Also, Alan Rickman is Snape, Michael Gambon is Dumbledore, well, not really. He is dead.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Woo! Last movie of the series! That means if you ignore the weird Pottermore thing, Harry Potter is done, out of our existence. Until 12-15 years from now when they reboot the series again for a new generation.

This movie takes off where Part 1 left off, as it should. Sadness about a dead Dobby. Immediately, thanks to a goblin, they decide to go to the ultra secure bank. Which one? The only one that exists, as far as the universe is concerned. It ends up going wrong, and thanks to the powers of Hermione’s cleavage (don’t click that link) they do they not splatter.

Find a Horocrux. Lose sword. A whole bunch of gold objects get duplicated? Seems like a great way to make bank (in a bank!). They tame a dragon, and escape, and then they undress again.

Guys. They are all legal now I guess. They want you to know this.

Some random scenes later and HEY THEY ARE BACK AT HOGWARTS. Another horocrux is there, but where? Oh man, Death Eaters. They have an hour to make defenses and find the object. Unfortunately during this time, it seems like all Harry is doing is taking his time to stare out of his window and talk to Luna, or slowly talk to ghosts. No real hurry in his eyes. But who has Hurry? Every other student in Hogwarts. It seems like (until the stand off is called), there are students just running. Running everywhere. They never get to where they are going, I assume. Because all you see in the background is people running places, and yeah.

“Ball? Wheres the ball? I’M LOOKING FOR A BALL WHERE IS IT!!!?” – Me imagining all the students as dogs.

So Harry finds it in the obvious place to look. He also saves the Nazi kid. Then there is a scene with fire reminiscent of the famous Mummy 2 scenes. But you know, fire, not dust.

Blah blah blah. SNAPE DIES. And apparently he was trying to help all along. To the snake. Let me tell you about the Snake. The snake is in this movie for one reason. To make 3D worth it. It seems like every scene involving the snake is it “coming at you”, more or less, which looks probably cool in 3D, but without it, just annoying as shit.

To be fair, this has been true in all the movies. A cheap ploy.

Blah blah. Standoff. Harry realizes the snake is the last horocrux. JUST KIDDING. Harry is too. Accidentally. So Harry has to die for Voldemorte to die. So he does that. After some ghost talk. But he does have a resurrection stone on him? So I guess it doesn’t matter. He still has a nice trippy scene with Dumbledore in a very white train station. But hey, he comes back into action after Neville gives a sweet speech and busts out the sword. He does it stupidly though, and does it many feet away from the snake. If he took a few more steps, we could have had a dead snake, and less dumb CGI 3D Lunging action.

During all this, Harry and balddude have their duel. Turns out a wand doens’t belong to balddude, it leaves his grip, and immediately he turns to dust. Like. What? Harry didn’t even hit him with anything, just removed his wand, and bam, dead time. Weird, since he only had that specific wand these last few movies. Must be because all the horocruxes died? I guess?

Anyways, they die, so good conquers evil. Harry presumably lives a normal life, where he has multiple children, and his second child is all nervous about going through a makeshift wall, even though he obviously did it when he went to the train station with his older brother (just how like his younger sister is doing it then) hey long sentence how are you doing.

Also in the epilogue you will see that time was not good to the nazi boy.

Overall, this movie had good special effects. Mostly. The escape from the hidden room on brooms looked like it had pretty shitty effects. Obviously just people hanging out in front of a green screen, feeling (even if it wasn’t). It also had a lot of questionable scenes for a “holy shit we are all going to die”, like Harry not running to his destinations in the castle. Or too many kids running (when they are all supposed to be either in one hiding spot or helping. Not just running). Or dumb CGI snakes. I feel like Part 1 and Part 2 had a lot of filler, which was annoying as they were both over 2 hours.

I think Part 1 and Part 2 could have easily been just one movie, but turning a last book into two movies seems to be a popular money grab.

Oh well. Maybe they will cut out the crap, and just give me one movie in the next reboot.

HEY LOOK. A movie that takes place in Durham, NC! And by takes place, I mean the setting. I don’t think it was actually filmed here at all. And storyline wise, the descriptions of Durham don’t make any sense.

In Main Street, Durham is noted as a community hurt by both the economy and jobs leaving, and you know, tobacco shit. But, they make it seem like there is ZERO economy there. The town is struggling, city government is listless with no idea how to do anything. It is also made to seem smaller than it is, and Durham is pretty damn big. Also has those dumb colleges, and is in Research Triangle and what not. Oh well.

Didn’t even mention their famous minor league baseball team!

Not many characters in the movie either, but some bigger names. Colin Firth plays a stranger from Vernon, Texas, Orlando Bloom a local cop taking law school night classes, who is trying to woo Amber Tamblyn, who was briefly in the show House. Also, there is Ellen Burstyn, now poor owner of a few warehouses that used to be use for Tobacco, and her niece Patricia Clarkson.

Firth comes to town to rent the warehouses, and even though he tries to tell Ellen what for, she doesn’t want to know. But her niece gets her suspicious, especially when she sees guards at the door. It turns out he works for an environmental corporation who deal with hazardous waste disposal. Oh shit, awkward. They are looking for a new place to also build a plant to help deal with it, which could create thousands of jobs in the area, and help Durham out of the slump.

But. You know. Hazardous waste. Is Durham ready to move on from one harmful substance to another?!

I loved the acting in the movie. Accents did not bug me, because I am not picky about that. What bugged me was the ending. With the movie being about 85 minutes or so long, it doesn’t take long. But there is a lot of set up for little to no pay out. At the length and definitely unfinished story, it just felt like a long TV pilot for a show, that could have gone further. It had two serious relationships it could continue to explore, and some family dynamics. It could have continued with the plans to bring in jobs, and environmental concerns, and the old lady trying to move on..

A LOT. But it doesn’t. Just has the “climax” scene and ends soon after. Just kind of meh.

Maybe it was a failed TV pilot released as a movie? Who knows. Google doesn’t.

All hail google! I feel like if I show their picture, they will rank me higher.

For some reason when I first saw this movie, I thought Yellow Wallpaper. Not sure why, since clearly those titles are far apart from each other. But this movie did seem familiar. Oh, Kristen Stewart is in it? Maybe that’s why. Given her incredibly talented acting resume, I should have immediately recognized it as one of her movies!

What? Hating on Kristen Stewart for the quick laugh? I wouldn’t do something like that.

The Yellow Handkerchief is more or less a story about weridos. William Hurt plays a man who has just been released from prison, and for “some reason” wants to travel to a different part of Louisiana. Kristin Stewart is a girl who feels like no one cares for her, and wants to get out of the town. Eddie Redmayne is actually a weird guy, with some weird social disorders I have to assume. Very forward, talks funny, and guess what? He has a car!

For various reasons they go on a small road trip through Louisiana, so that William can get to see his lost lover, Maria Bello, before he was in prison.

This movie has some good themes. Like acceptance! And uhh. Growing up. And uhh. Second chances. Yeah!

I was about to say three difference sentences about how each actor/actress did good in their role, but this one sentence should do that well enough.

I was also confused a few times during the movie. I couldn’t tell when it was set (the last five years), but it also made it seem like it was decades ago with the small and empty towns. Just didn’t know there was small town life like that anymore. Also, three different occasions it seemed like a woman got all upset over sex, and were about to claim rape. Despite you know, trying to have sex with the dude already. Very weird. Okay, two and a half times.

“Half a rape attempt? I can dig that.”

Pretty interesting movie, but also kinda slow. Good endings and lessons learned though. Wasn’t watered down with a lot of excessive violence or anything. Very simple.

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson. Also, Alan Rickman is Snape, Michael Gambon is Dumbledore, well, not really. He is dead.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Yay! The final year at Hogwarts! That means the final movie!

What? They split his final year into two movies? Alright well, thats dumb. But okay.

What? He isn’t going to school at all? This is just a random year of his life then. A random important year. But wheres my schoolyard shenanigans?

Like in the first movie.

Hmm. So at the beginning, they try and trick the Death Eaters and Bald Dude. Apparently when Harry turns 17 he is no longer protected by his moms corpse, and bald dude can get him! So they make a whole bunch of copies of HP, and fly off in different directions to the ginger’s house.

Hotttttttttt

Too bad it doesn’t help. His BIRD and Bug Eye dude die. Way to go Harry. Causing problems.

Blah blah blah. Wedding. Dumbledore’s will. Harry just gets a lame snitch ball. No sword. Then death eater’s screw everything up, so Harry and his friends go into hiding running.

Eventually they get the locket after sneaking into the government place with disguises. They get locket. Then they try to destroy it the rest of the movie.

Searching. Snake attack. SWORD IN A LAKE WHAT!

Then they soon get caught by the Nazi family, and end up escaping. Because, of Dobby, the House Elf, and his ability to just transport at will.

Yay Dobby!

Also some people switch up wands, but Dobby also gets owned. And the movie dies with his death.

Gahh. The bigger death than Dumbledore was Dobby? Surprise surprise.

So, as a stand alone movie. This one would be kinda pointless. They need to find like, 4 more Horocruxes or something? And they found 1? Got a cool sword though at least. Thankfully, because of the “part 1” this is not a stand alone film. And shouldn’t be judged as a different one. I wish they came out at the same time, because If you had only got to see this movie, you should feel pretty let down.

Sure, acting is fine. Emotions are felt. Music and visuals are great. But also, just have to wonder what the point is?

Because of all this, the movie just gets an average rating. It doesn’t mean anything.