Tag: 2 out of 4

I can’t say I ever saw the first Never Back Down movie, but I bet it sucked. I am not even sure if there is any related characters in this movie to the first. The sequel is actually directed by Michael Jai White, who is badass, and plays a great MMA fighter who has had cop trouble so instead sticks to training individuals in a secret dojo. Through different means, we have four main fighters who end up coming to train under White in order to compete in a large underground tournament, The Beatdown.

I bet Black Dynamite could win that tournament without even touching the ground.

Winner gets 10k, just needs 16 different fighters doing MMA. Some of these people in this movie are actual MMA fighters, I just couldn’t tell you who. Probably that big ass dude. Spoiler? The four people who train under MJW get to be the final four. One of the four ended up being a crazy asshat though, who also tries to get the cops to “break down” Michael Jai White. So the other 3 have to make sure he doesn’t win, but without being all, Karate Kid low kicking cheap. That is about it. Everyone has different reasons for fighting, but you can kinda guess who will win and what will happen. Acting isn’t the best, but I can at least say the film entertained me.

The ending is of course the tournament, which has the largest concentration of fights in it, but don’t worry, there are earlier fights as well. This movie also features a montage. This is supposed to be MJW’s first attempt at direction, which would would explain why everything his character does is just the most badass thing a person can do. Similarly, he may have just based it off of his own life.

Hey look, an R Rated romcom my brother said was really good. No Strings Attached refers to sex, completely. Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman want to have sex, and not worry about a relationship. That is the whole plot in a nutshell.

I should let you know that I don’t think Natalie Portman is the hottest thing ever. Not my style of chick. Kind of creeps me out. But her with Kutcher is pretty unbelievable, so I had a hard time accepting that part. Anything with Kutcher seems to automatically get a negative grade from me. I won’t even watch Killers (besides thinking it trying to copy Knight and Day and also be worse at it). Okay, I will watch Killers eventually, but man will I be biased. Kutcher cannot be a serious main male lead, and can only stick to awkward comedies I think. They keep putting him in these romantic comedies though, so I guess women find him attractive.

Not these women though.

As a movie focused entirely on sex, it had a lot of sex related humor. Jokes were pretty funny, but mostly from the supporting cast (Portman’s roommates). But by the end I was kind of bored with the movie, and didn’t really like the ending. I almost thought “the dawson” played douche doctor guy, but nope. Some other dude I have never heard of.

Cary Elwes ninja’d his way into a pseudo cameo role though. Beardface doctor. I might be rambling.

“It’s Beardfacé. Why do you people insist on calling me Beardface!?”

2 out of 4.

Sometimes the best thing to do after watching a bad movie with Matt Damon in it is to counteract with a Ben Affleck movie you have never seen.

The Company Men cover had only dudes heads on the cover, and most of them wearing suits. It was either a giant con movie, or some modern piece about the economy and how it sucks to be a rich executive. It is the latter of course, only Matt Damon can be a con man.

But they both can be angels.

This movie is about orporations, mergers, getting stocks up, downsizing, and those damn engineers. Also pesky college kids working for less taking our jawbs away. (Not really). More or less it is how the different people in the ladder deal with their now layoffs, having to find new work, and stuff. Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper are much higher level executives who also eventually find themselves jobless, so we get to deal with the early retirement of old rich people as well.

I thought at the beginning “man, I bet someone kills themselves by the end of this movie.” Yep. Of course it happened.

Kevin Costner plays the step brother who works with his hands for a living for a smaller wage who teaches Affleck how to live and love a woman. (One of those isn’t true). This is hardly relatable to anyone my age, more or less just a scary thing that could happen in the future when I personally am rich and successful. It was an okay drama, little bit predictable. Including the message that corporate work is stupid, manual labor is where it is at. (Stolen from Office Space?)

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.