Tag: 2 out of 4

Whoops! I may have accidentally watched two “indie” movies on the same day. Whoops! Both of them happened to have Kate Mara in them! Maybe it was an accident, or maybe I did it on purpose.

Or maybe I did it for this face.

I actually thought that this movie had something with heavy metal and medieval knights. Turns out, Ironclad is actually a very historical based film. This is the “True” story of post Magna Carta signing England. It involves siege stuff! According to other people, most of it is is correct, including how the fights happened and the armor used. Even though I am a ancient history major, I tend to dislike medieval based history or films. They always seem so full of themselves. This kind of did that as well. It had some larger boring parts, because parts of history are boring. Also it became a bit hard to follow at certain parts, as I continued to forget where they were at that point.

Paul Giamatti plays King John. Big shoes to fill, but also means he gets to play an asshole, which is 95% of his roles anyways. Similarly James Purefoy was a great protagonist. Lots of blood and fighting in this. Kate Mara plays the Purefoy crush, which is understandable. Apparently she sings the anthem some times are NY Giants games. Her grandparents founded the Giants and the Steelers, but fuck the Steelers.

And fuck the Penguins too.

I was super tired during the first half. So I may have missed a few things. It is surprisingly well done for a smaller budget, but unless you are a fan of the times probably won’t enjoy many rewatches.

This will probably be my only political based documentary I ever review. Why? Because I can handle stuff like Justin Bieber, they are obvious at what they want to show, and don’t only tell half truths. I assume all other documentaries just tell one side. But it seems they always convince me too. I really just have to see two documentaries, one arguing each side, then maybe my fragile mind will be able to decide what is right!

But after watching Hot Coffee, of course I agree with it. Screw all these sensationalists who always talk about the McDonalds Coffee case without knowing the facts! It also had more examples, which also made me mad. I was already angry at the coffee case because it made everyone want to be a comedian. Anytime someone brings up suing because of hot coffee, I already got mad, because as a joke it got old in the first month, but still people mention it and demand laughs. Also, I have heard tort more than I want to now forever. But Torte on the other hand…

Mmmm…Torte….

If anything, it will teach me to stop just assuming without finding out info on my own. Because knowledge is power! Knowing is half the battle! And something with a shooting star!

Wow. The Perfect Host movie comes completely out of nowhere and just, wow. It is kind of a psychological thriller, kind of a dark comedy. Kind of WTF?? Definitely surprising.

“Well… uh… properly speaking, madam, we are surprised. You are taken aback. Though I do acknowledge that the sense that you intend is gaining increasing currency through its use, yes.“

The story tells of a con man (played by Clayne Crawford) who, after recently robbing a bank (kind of a straight forward con there), is looking for a place to hide out. He goes around to a bunch of rich houses, and finally finds one who will let him in. Sure, he read the mail in the box and pretended to be friends with a friend of his in Sydney. BUT LITTLE DID HE KNOW that David Hyde Pierce (NILES!!) is actually kind of a weird guy. Not a perfect host. Just a weird guy.

If I had to split this movie into 7 parts, I would say part 1 was slow, part 2 was interesting, parts 3-5 were WHOA OH MAN, part 6 was dumb, and part 7 was interesting. The last scene makes you question what is really going on. If certain people are going to change. This is all pretty vague. It is just such a weird movie that telling you what happens gives away a lot of the surprise. I heard watching the trailer spoils everything in the movie, so you better not watch it. Niles is just so fucking crazy.

The movie almost reminded me of the movie The Last Supper, which, well, no one here has probably seen.

The movie has nothing to do with this random picture.

2 out of 4.

The title (Caught in the Crossfire) and synopsis of this movie definitely tricked me into what I thought it would be about. I was expecting a more violent, crime riddled, action movie. Instead it went the crime drama route. Most of the movie also is actually told via flashback, as the two main lead detectives try to explain the events of the last few days, in their search for both a cop killer and a corrupt cop at the same time.

Caught in the Crossfire? More like, After Being Caught In The Crossfire. I dislike the tense differences between the title and how the movie told its story, is all I am trying to say.

Scratch that though. I’d be a horrible grammar nazi, as any reader would be aware.

But really. If a movie is told in flashback, then there are certain things the viewer can take for certain. The people telling the story will never die. If this is an action movie, we have to think “hey, there is a group of people. They are fighting other groups of people. Who will get out alive?” Then add in flashbacks, we know exactly who will get out alive throughout most of the story. That takes away any suspense fight scenes try to add by being dangerous and make it kind of pointless. Yes, this is not true if there is only one action hero, as he obviously will make it. But two or more? I am willing to accept someone dying. Especially if they are trying to stop a cop killer.

It was weird seeing Oz from American Pie all grizzly and mature, and you know, throwing down some bad language to “get deez gues” but he did it fairly well. 50 Cent played a drug dealer informant. That fit well for him. The other cop was played by Adam Rodriguez, who has not been in a lot (but apparently is the guy at the beginning of If You Had My Love music video).

A lot of it was cliched, and generally I was bored. But some parts were good.

Schumacher (or the destroyer of Batman (Yes, Batman can be defeated)) has made a lot of movies. From the “classics” of Lost Boys and St. Elmo’s Fire, to more “Recent” movies I enjoy, like Phone Booth and Phantom of the Opera. So why not try a new movie with him, involving half of the Scream 4 cast.

Anyways! This is slow paced movie, that has a few different plotlines. Majority seem to be upper class white kids in the New York City, with the main character being a very good drug dealer who doesn’t actually do drugs. For the first half of the beginning, it seemed like the introductions were lasting forever, but at least I paid attention to that(Read: it was interesting). After that, the middle, I was kind of bored, as it tried to weave all the stories together.

The ending was pretty good though, as I kept waiting for everything to burst. It took awhile, but when it burst, it burst hard. Acting wise, most of the people were very good and believable in their roles. I think the moral is also “Drugs are bad, mmmkay”, which is a better moral than stop being a lame upper class white kid. The narrator was Kiefer, and it was hard to not imagine him just kind of creepily standing off to the side and saying things. That’s what I imagine him doing in real life anyways.

Or writing it up as one of his memoirs.

Overall, could have been better. Based off of a probably better book. And uhhhh. People may die in this movie. It may be 50 Cent‘s fault

This title sounds gross. GROSS! Well not gross. Just sexual. Morning Glory? Seriously?

I admit, the main reason I wanted to see this romantic comedy is because Rachel McAdams is hot. Not only hot, bu also a hockey fan. Not many people get their own “Rachel McAdams Cam” at a Bruins game, especially in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Rachel plays a young wanna be executive producer in broadcasting, but is stuck in the morning news shows (aka fake news). She also is able to handle the emotion of a woman who freaks out a lot pretty well (to contrast with her roles in Sherlock Holmes and Wedding Crashers, where she is a bit calmer). Harrison Ford plays the role of “I am old and awesome, fuck you people telling me what to do! But maybe inside I actually do care, rawrrr!” and it is pretty believable. I am sad he didn’t do any crazy stunts or shoot greedo though.

This is one of the references I was going for there.

Diane Keaton plays the other anchor who has been doing morning news forever, and hates the grumpy new partner, despite his credibility that he brings.

Also Patrick Wilson and Jeff Goldblum are in the movie. One is a boyfriend, one is a hard ass boss. Can you guess who plays who? (“Fuck Jeff Goldblum“) I was hoping Goldblum would do science in the movie. For some reason.

This is one of the references I was going for there.

The ending was pretty predictable, but you have to take the good with the bad. I guess it worked overall.

At blockbuster there are tiny strips of paper to show what is coming soon, with the title and release date on them. The one for prom must have been prented incorrectly, because the background was dark, and I could only barely make out the words PROM on it, definitely not the word disney. So I assumed it would be a horror movie. It was pretty creepy. But then there was a colorful poster, with a big group of diverse kids all dressed up and no blood. And the word DISNEY. My mistake!

I definitely thought this movie would be bad based off the company and idea, but it ended up being a much more pleasant and enjoyable story than I could imagine. It also has tons of recognizable faces in it. Hank and the Rehab Dude from Breaking Bad. The main chick was in Scream 4 (She plays the “dumb blonde with big tits”(Scream 4 quote)) who dies at the beginning. There is also the ginger gay kid from Shameless. But finally, my personal favorite, THE DUDE WHO GLOWS from Sky High. Now he is all grown up and super tall. Black hair too, not gold.

Most useless super power ever? Maybe to you. But I lost my keys and it is dark.

This movie starts 3~ weeks before your typical movie prom aka best night of high school…in film. It has quite a few storylines outside of the main one which is largely predictable. Unfortunately it shows a lot of crazy/dramatic gestures from males in this high school asking females to prom. I am afraid for future generations, in case this movie becomes popular enough to fill girl’s heads with even more unreasonable expectations about a dance.

I thought most of the storylines were fine / cute / good, but the one I liked the most was with THE DUDE WHO GLOWS from Sky High (man sky high rocks). Maybe because its a been there, done that type story for me.

Movie has some stereotypes and cliches, but thankfully there is enough “different” people that you could probably find someone to relate too. Wont buy, but I did enjoy the one watch I had.

I had already seen this movie in theaters, but never in Blu-Ray or Unrated. So, sorry for anyone hoping for a one time viewing review, you get at two time viewing review. Eat it! I must say also I didn’t really get the reason for the title until many weeks later. Your Highness? Alright. A stoner flick called a greeting to a king. Hey there is smoke on the cover. Oh wait. A stoner flick and…highness….wait for it…

OHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhh. I got it now.

For some reason, I enjoyed it more the second time around. In theaters I was disappointed, thought they just half-assed the whole movie. Technically, yes it actually was half-assed though, as there may not have ever been a script (/if there was a script, they never used it). I am told that most of the movie was filmed as pretty much improvised.

Maybe I was hoping Franco was as ridiculous as McBride in this movie? I just felt like it could have done a lot better. I think this was the first big release from Natalie Portman after Black Swan, so that probably angered some people too. You know, the ones demanding she pick a genre and stick to it. Zooey Deschanel was in this movie too, and super hot. Even when she went all sex demon.

For the unrated version, I couldn’t even tell what scenes were added, except maybe a conversation between Franco/Zooey before the wedding. Maybe all that was really added in was more blood in death scenes. So, the difference between theatrical and unrated is negligible.

How To Train Your Dragon? Dumb title. Just saying. Let’s have some creativity dreamworks. Good luck making an evil baby dragon look cute also.

Oh shit.

Awww, look at that cute evil glare.

In this story we have Viking like people! Hooray! They are at war with the dragons because…uhh they are dragons and dragons are evil. Our main character (Jay Baruchel) sucks at fighting, and would rather just learn. He ends up hitting the dangerous Nightwing dragon DOWN FROM THE SKY! But no one sees him do it, and it is at night, and for whatever reason no one will go into the woods with him to get it later. Their loss. Cute dragon he finds, and he can’t kill him. But aww, its wing is broken.

Eventually he gains the dragon trust, all in secret of course. Adults don’t believe kids. While he is training with his dragon, he is also getting trained how to fight and kill dragons with the other kids. Through his dragon, he learns little secrets to subdue them without weapons, that no one else knew about. Shit, dude is a genius! He thinks that there is nothing evil about the dragons, and maybe something else is evil forcing the dragons to be “bad”. Just saying, of course. He even makes a book eventually. About how to train a dragon. Oh okay. got it now.

Lot of voice actors in this one, including Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, America Ferrera, and T.J. Miller.

Your heroes, ladies and gentlemen.

And here is what pissed me off. Family movies (or movies for kids) love to do this shit. Make adults unable to change and accept the word of a child. All the time, and use it as a main plot point. It is stupid, and bullshit, and makes me so mad.

Once they find out about his trained dragon, guess what? Everyone flips their shit. They stop from killing him because, well, if they let him go, he can lead them to the lair and kill them all. Obviously that is the best advice! Because this kid, who has surprised everyone for months over his tactics that he learned from a dragon, on how to subdue them, on how they are not bad, and on the fact that a dragon listens to him? That is all hogwash. The fact that any of them would constantly interrupt him and ignore him is the bullshittiest bullshit at that point.

Even if they were at war their whole life, their first reaction would be more confusion and panic and a willingness to listen. That on it owned ruined this from a great film to an okay one for me..

Of course everything changes by the end and people accept the dragons. Thanks to the kid character, they can all now learn how to train a dragon. The sequel being called HTTYD2 doesn’t make sense though. Oh well. I liked this more than Toy Story 3 (the movie it lost to for awards) though overall, is because unlike TS3, it shows that people can change, even if it takes some unreasonable amount of time. Guess what my biggest complaint of TS3 is? Hah.

Maybe I missed it, but I don’t think I heard the title song at all in the movie, except for the menu screen. Most of the times they make the title screen after the movie though. This could be one time where they said fuck it, who will notice not having Take Me Home Tonight in the movie Take Me Home Tonight?

So we all agree, no more Eddie Money References?”

The movie becomes entirely way too predictable, so it is pretty easy to guess everything that will happen. Doesn’t mean a bad thing, as it allows you to focus on the moment and laugh, not worrying about the future. Right?

It is interesting seeing Topher Grace being in an 80s based movie. Maybe the dude is actually a time traveling actor, and hates the present. He probably is just mad he missed out in all the fun the previous decades had to give, so he wants to relive them anyway possible. Maybe soon he will be able to graduate into the 90s, and soon catch up with present day. I am intentionally ignoring In Good Company, because I don’t like that present. That is a sad present.

I also enjoyed seeing Chris Pratt in here, from Parks and Rec. Dude is a funny guy, and he should be given a bigger role in one of these comedies. Oh well, one day maybe? Oh, and of course Anna Faris, rocking out her new fake boobs.

Oh come on. I couldn’t mention a ScaJo movie (In Good Company) and the word boobs in the same review, and not show a picture.

2 out of 4.