Tag: 2 out of 4

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.

Not even an army of Cody Hugheseses could have made a movie with as awkward a first half as this one. Okay, so most of you don’t know him. I went to high school with him, and obviousy he was awkward. He became a pseudo-succesful stand up Comic in Chapel Hill, with humor based on, you guessed it, being awkward.

Like 90% of all stand up comics.

Seriously though. The first half. It relied a lot on just a nerd in love with a hottie trying to change himself after graduation and spend one last moment with Beth Cooper. Hayden Panettiere from Heroes is the only actual star in this movie, most of the other roles played by no names or young who cares actors. (“That’s the same thing!” Shut up, voices.)

In this movie I really didn’t like her, but enjoyed the main two nerd characters. Seriously. So fucking awkward. This movie also had a lot of pretty quotable scenes. I’d give an example, but I actually forgot them. Shut up (again).

Much better than I thought it would be. I also saw She’s The Man today. Both movies had a scene involving a dude using a tampon up their nose.

“Am I everything you’ve ever masturbated to?” Okay, maybe I remember one quote.

2 out of 4.

Was I entertained? Only kinda. Most of the songs in the movie end up being bad, except of course the small parts where Anne Hathaway gets to go LaadaadaaAaahAhhh. That’s a rough estimate of how her lines go. In fact, the best songs are during the closing credits. Whats up with that? Make some of them part of the movie. Most of the birds ended up being rappers too. Will i Am didn’t need to be in this. Was interesting hearing Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords though. Didn’t realize it was him until the rap part in his song. Too bad his bird character was annoying.

“Clearly you just haven’t seen my real life bird impression.”

The plot was silly. The character, Blu (how original0, voiced by Mr. Social Network himself was a nerdy out of place bird who couldn’t Jive with the happening lifestyle of Rio. He couldn’t even fly! He didn’t like the music, and he liked having an owner. What a freak. Not even Anne Hathaway in bird form could make him change his mind. It took a wacky adventure of hijinks and looking for his owner to gain his own independence. But you could have guessed that. I don’t like the tie in with Angry Birds.

I also don’t think they accurately portrayed Carinval. They make it seem like one big parade at night and that is it. Not the multi-day all day every day affair that it is. Also costumes weren’t skimpy enough. But seeing the owner in her bird outfit for Carnival was CGI-Hawt.

SHAKE those tail feathers!

2 out of 4.

So this movie is a fictional yet real biography of the life of George W. I can say I didn’t like a lot of the pre-presidency years. That bored me. Sure he had an interesting party life, but I want to get to the nice political part of it all. The presidency! Yeahhhh! This seems to contradict with my thoughts in my last review of the Fantastic Mr. Fox. Oh well.

Bet you didn’t see this picture coming again so soon.

The story is also told out of order. Not even sure why. This can totally be a straightforward movie. Me being the type of individual who is hardly political, I also couldn’t tell you how much of this is real and how much is fake and how much is way over emphasized and blah blah.

Josh Brolin did a fantastic job. However the overall story line wasn’t as entertaining as I would have hoped. Maybe this is the kind of movie that is better 10 years later, when you don’t remember everything important that happens.

Ahhh, a movie with a colon in the title! Operation: Endgame! And that’s not a subtitle!

This movie has one of the most interesting covers ever. Seriously. Look at it.

But don’t touch.

WHAT A CAST. Look at Galifianakis! Front and center? An assassin? Those other people I recognize too! How could this fail! Including Adam Scott, of Parks and Rec, and Party Down fame, and Brandon T. Jackson, or “Mr. Booty Sweat!”

Oh yeah. It can fail by not having much Zach in it. He is in a few scenes, and they are amusing. He is also feared by the rest?, but mostly because he is weird. The death scenes in this movie are pretty great/gruesome though. No guns are in the entire office building, so they are all caused by “ordinary” office objects. Stuff is very gruesome and bloody. Unfortunately some of my favorites die too early.

What is also funny is the dialogue by the men watching the video surveillance during this entire office war. They really do a good job of bringing a more comedic element to the action comedy. The plot fails though, seriously. Ending barely mattered. It was more about fighting and laughing. So I might watch it again, might not. Could go either way.

Hmm. This is a movie I really wanted to like. Who doesn’t like Alec Baldwin, I mean, come on!

The story is the one as old as time…a divorced couple of about 10 years want to have an affair with each other. Lots and lots of old people sex. “Old people” being of course kind of a ridiculous concept here. In fact, you may even describe their relationship as…. Complicated! It was an interesting smorgasbord of actors/actresses who played their children (/children in law) including Jim from the Office and the Silas from Weeds.

Steve Martin also being the sort of antagonist was weird as well. He has always been a “jerk” but never in this light.

Only joke here is the pun on name for a soda fountain operator. Get it? Get it? Fuck you.

The best performances are of course from Baldwin and Streep, who are very convincing at their portrayals. They are great at these roles. Unfortunately just having well done acting is not the end all be all of a movie. It also has to be a bit more interesting. It is weird that when Streep is freaking out that she is sexing up Baldwin, she calls it an affair. She isn’t cheating on anyone, but Alec is. I guess she has a higher moral ground than myself.