Tag: 3 out of 4

Day after Christmas, and you know what that means… Boxing Day! The day I don’t pretend to understand but could easily look up. I think it involves even better shopping deals and when people presumably box up their trees for the trash or the attic.

Screw that though, let’s say it is about some secret day to worship some other saint. After all, Christmas is about Saint Nick. There are presumably a whole lot of Christmas days (12? 25?) that people just seem to accept but not question when they are. So now we can say Boxing Day is for St. Vincent.

Sure, some people may say this is one of my more ridiculous openings to a review, where I am clearly just being stupid. And to that, I say, okay.

Legally obligated to show this picture whenever talking about this movie on the internet.

Vincent (Bill Murray) is old, and thus, mean and grouchy. He lives in a run down place, all dirt, nothing growing but a tree in his front yard. So when neighbors move in and their moving company somehow manage to ruin his car, fence, and tree, he is a bit displeased. Not the best way for Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) and her son Olvier (Jaeden Lieberher).

Maggie is going through a divorce. So she has to spend a lot of her time at work making extra money, so she needs someone to watch Oliver sometimes. Vincent is nearby and willing, for a price, because Vincent has gambling debts and other costs that are just racking up. He even has a wife in a nursing home who doesn’t remember him, but he still makes sure she can live in luxury while he lives in filth.

See, Vincent is swell. Even with all the drinking and gambling and care free attitude. Oh, and the pregnant prostitute/stripper (Naomi Watts) that is in his life. Another vice, I guess. But when he is isn’t sexing or getting beat up by an old Terrence Howard, he can sometimes teach Oliver to fight. You know, the important skills.

Oh hey. Chris O’Dowd plays a Catholic Priest teacher, a role I feel like he keeps getting shoe horned into.

This is the best McCarthy movie since Go from 1999, which is saying a whole lot.

I have a pretty weird relationship with Bill Murray. He once gave me a wedgie and ran away yelling “No one will believe this!” the bastard. But also I don’t have the deep appreciation of all the 80’s/90’s comedies he starred in. I like him more in his cameo roles.

But his drama roles are usually pretty top notch. Even in the pretty disappointing The Monuments Man he had one of the better parts in a shower scene (uhh…). And in this role, it felt like Murray was actually acting and not just playing an old man. He had a different persona/character about him and he did it really well.

McCarthy was also really well in this role. I didn’t hate her character in the slightest which was a nice change. I didn’t even recognize Watts at all.

The only issues I really have with this movie is how predictable the whole thing is. Nothing really deviates from an expected path and everything seems to fall into place.

So, it is a well acted and interesting movie? Just not as amazing I had hoped, but still pretty good and worth a watch or two.

3 out of 4.

1250.

Welcome to my 1250th review! This Milestone Review is actually a bit cooler than the last few. Something about a “250” is sexy. A quarter of a thousand. That means I am slightly closer to 1500!

Now I know what you are thinking. Freddy vs. Jason? That movie came out like, ten years ago? What in the actual fuck are you doing?

Well, my goal for a lot of these milestone reviews is to pick a specific sort of unique movie. A lot of the times they are well known movies that are critically panned and hated, which allows me to write to a specific audience and laugh at it with them. It also allows these “bad movies” to maybe get a fair shake, should they be great.

Unfortunately with my criteria, I feel like I basically got all the movies in my time frame. I mean, Twilight and all? After all the other movies, I kind of have to branch out more.

The reason I picked Freddy vs. Jason is because it was a pretty intense movie when it came out, putting together two horror icons who have been in pop culture for decades. And I never watched it! I only thought about it thanks to the review of the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. I realized this would be perfect for my next milestone, and I hope it combines the best elements of the two franchise with plenty of death and laughs.

I guess this scene falls under a plot element that both franchises tend to include in their repertoire.

Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is a sad evil little nightmare. His power came from fear. He was getting back at the youth of a neighborhood that killed him, because he had it coming. Well, whatever the town did, they seem to have forgot about him. If they aren’t afraid, he has no power. If he has no power, he can’t invade their dreams. If he can’t invade their dreams, he is forgotten and will live an eternity alone.

So he finds Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger). Resurrects him, pretends to be his mother (Paula Shaw), and tells him to head to Elm Street for some revenge killing. If Jason does it right, they will think it is Freddy, and he will be back to kill again!

Especially her. They should make her their main goal and focus mostly on her. Definitely definitely her.

Hey look at that. Freddy’s plans work perfectly. Right after some teen sex, Gibb (Katharine Isabelle) is taking a nice shower, and her boytoy gets stabbed a few times and folded in half in one of those bed things. Man, fucked up! Since he died in a bed and in a weird way, this gets some of the older folks talkin’. They think somehow, despite all their prep, Freddy has come back and is again, going after their kids.

The kids don’t know that yet though. They have been sheltered and hidden from the horrible past of this area. They do know that somehow, some people are getting murdered. And you know what, it isn’t just in their dreams.

Sometimes a weirdo in a hockey mask shows up.

And Jason sure does know how to make an entrance.

Shit, one dude was even in a nightmare with Freddy who was too weak at the time. He woke up and escaped, but then was just straight up murdered by Jason. Everywhere seems to be terrifying.

Outside of the vague nightmares, they wouldn’t really know about Freddy if it wasn’t for Will (Jason Ritter) and his buddy Mark (Brendan Fletcher). They were at the local Psychiatric Hospital. Aka, they were being terrorized by Freddy and the town put them there to keep it away from the untainted youth! They even had a non-FDA approved miracle drug that would suppress dreams. Huh, how handy.

Either way, Will used to date Lori (Monica Keena), our main heroine pictured above. No bad blood between them outside of the fact that she had no idea what happened. He says he saw her dad (Tom Butler) kill her mom. Oh, that’s awkward.

With two supernatural entities, everyone agrees that is the most fucked up part of this.

Wait a minute. Everyone right now has to realize that Jason and Freddy share a universe. So some of these guys have heard about Jason before, and they know that this Camp ClearWater is a haunted area that people don’t go to. They know the stories.

So who is the biggest threat? Should they focus on finding a way to get their dreams to stop, or finding a way to make Jason leave first? They figure they want to get their sleep on, so they should probably go to the Psych Hospital and get that miracle drug so they can sleep with ease.

But even more importantly is that Freddy is really fucking pissed off. Jason on numerous occasions keeps killing, but he doesn’t want that anymore. Jason has killed people in their sleep, right before Freddy can do the job. That isn’t cool man. That is totes uncool.

Yeah man. Why can’t you be chill, man?

So, thanks to the help of young Deputy Scott Stubbs (Lochlyn Munro), they are able to break into the ward! Their team is young stoner Freeman (Kyle Labine), Lori, Will, Lori’s black best friend (Kelly Rowland), and a nerd!! (Chris Marquette).

Well, Freddy decides to possess one of the kids, because now seems like a good idea. He uses the stoner, because he can get him high first.

Stoner Freeman ends up getting rid of all the drugs. Not only that, but he also is able to tranquilize Jason who is still chasing the kids everywhere they go!

That’s right. Now Freddy can fight Jason in the Dream World and finally take him down.

I know, I can’t believe the two iconic characters actually get to fight either.

Well, given it is home turf for Freddy, the nightmare realm, he really starts to fuck Jason over good. So many torture devices to show him the business. But guess what? Jason seems invincible. Nothing is hurting him.

That is because Jason isn’t afraid. It isn’t until Freddy realizes he has one fear, water, that he knows what to do. He takes Jason back to the time when he was young and he drowned at the lake.

Meanwhile, back in the real world. The kids have a plan. They are continually tranquilizing Jason to make sure he doesn’t kill them and driving him back to the camp where he normally lurks. They also tranquilized Lori to go into their dream battle.

They figure if they can bring both of the entities to the camp, Jason has a better chance of beating Freddy. If he wins, then they might leave them alone because he is home. If he loses, well, they still have a Freddy issue, but at least Jason is done.

Lori’s job is to make sure Jason doesn’t die in the dream and to bring Freddy back to the real world with them. Yay more violence!

In this scene, Kelly Rowland calls Freddy a faggot. Not really funny, just awkward 2003 moments.

Needless to say, their plan only kind of works. Eventually Freddy is in the real world too, but more of them keep dying in the process. But at least Freddy and Jason are fighting again. And maybe, just maybe they can escape if one of them wins.

I bet you want to know who wins. Well, neither win of course. They both attack each other with each other’s weapons. But Jason does decapitate Freddy! Just. Freddy still winks by the end of the movie.

That lets us get more sequels that refuse to exist, including the very rumored Freddy vs Jason vs Ash movie that would be very sexy. I don’t care how old Bruce Campbell is.

Oh and Garry Chalk is in this movie as main police chief guy. I couldn’t find a good time to talk about him.

More fight scenes than you can shake a machete at.

For review 1250, I think I picked a really good film. 1300, 1350, 1400, and 1450 might suck, but this one is a decent one and a good one to break my yearly limit for.

I actually found Freddy vs Jason to be very entertaining. It took the extremely campy and scary moments from the Nightmare franchise and combined them decently with the senseless stabby violence of Jason.

I am clearly more of a Freddy fan of the two, but I think both of them were represented in positive lights for their respected franchises. Neither side of this fictional battle should feel slighted by what occurred in this cross over.

And they didn’t even skip out on the fight scenes. They made sure the two main battles between the two were unique, long, interesting, and true to characters. It wasn’t just 2 minutes tacked on to the end. No, we got a lot of it and the build up felt natural.

Well fucking done, guys. Well fucking done.

3 out of 4.

Welcome to the final day of Musical Week! Aww, sad, yes I know. Part of the reason I picked this week for a theme was because of the two musicals coming out, yes. The other reason is because I am on my honeymoon this week, and for the most part, musicals are set in worlds where people are happy and singing and dancing. Dancing is important. If there is no dancing, then you have Les Miserables and that is a sad musical.

But dancing can also be creepy. We learned that with the Thriller music video. Horror Musical isn’t a huge category. Stage Fright from this year attempted it, but it was also definitely a comedy for going for the happy musical + slasher movie elements. The only one I can think of that got really close was Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Oh well look at that. The Devil’s Carnival is done by the same people who brought us Repo! How quaint. I can’t believe how that segue came so naturally~.

In fact, a lot of the actors from Repo! are in this one as well. It is basically an unofficial and not at all related sequel to Repo!

Satan + Dancing = Horror musical.

The stories from The Devil’s Carnival are based upon Aesop’s fables. That isn’t subtle at all, because we have Lucifer (Terrance Zdunich) reading from the book to a kid. But at the start of the film, three people die. Ms. Merrywood (Briana Evigan) dies in a shootout with the police. John (Sean Patrick Flanery) has just lost his son and is about to slit his wrists. Tamara (Jessica Lowndes) was dealing with bad boys and got killed by an angry boyfriend.

And apparently they are all now in Hell!

The Ticket Keeper (Dayton Callie) runs this Hell/Carnival, where it uses demons and devils to teach those new residents their lessons. But you know, with circus themes and shit.

With such carnival employees such as The Painted Doll (Emilie Autumn), Wick (Alexa PenaVega), The Twin (Nivek Ogre), The Scorpion (Marc Senter), Hobo Clown (Ivan L. Moody), The Magician (Bill Moseley), and The Fool (Mighty Mike Murga), who wouldn’t have a good time?

This game is actually my favorite sort of foreplay.

The Devil’s Carnival is only an hour long, but it packs a lot of material and a lot of crazy shit into that hour. Anything more would definitely be pointless. The songs were both eerie and beautiful. There wasn’t a lot of time for talking either, as the story advanced through songs for the most part.

If I had one major complaint, it is that I thought we had repetitive songs. Not tunes or musical themes, but the songs themselves were basically saying the same thing a few times. I think twice this happened, where the plot/punishment was unfolding for the characters,through a song, then someone told the same story/fable in another song right after. It felt awkward. Like, stop talking about the Scorpion and the Frog. I don’t care that much.

Overall it was a really well put together story and the ending implied a lot more is to come. And there is! More importantly, it won’t just be a rehash of the first film with new people coming to Hell and new fables. No, they have grander plans in the underworld. The next movie, The Devil’s Carnival: Alleluia! It will be a full length production and should be coming out in sometime 2015.

I can wait, totally, a good while. Saying “I Can’t Wait” would be dishonest. But a part of me is pretty excited to eventually see where this story goes.

3 out of 4.

Yay yay musicals! If you are a long time reader, you know I really like musicals. Which is why I am finally having a musical theme week. Yay Musical Week!

Into The Woods decided to be a musical coming out on Christmas Day. The last time that happened was two years prior for Les Miserables which I absolutely loved. It was also my first real attempt at watching it, outside of listening to a few songs ahead of time. I loved the shit out of Les Mis.

But going into Into The Woods, I knew a lot more about it ahead of time. I saw a performance of it from college actors, which I guess is above community theater and high school actors, but still not great professional people. And you know what? I down right hated it. It took a lot of familiar stories, intertwined them, gave us their endings, and that was the halfway point. The second half was all new material, it felt super awkward, it got darker and more metaphysical, and it dragged on an on. So yes, I thought it was too long. I thought there was only four or so unique sounding songs, everything else kind of melded together and by the end, it was as if everyone got a long slow ballad, one right after the other.

I guess you can say I was not at all looking forward to this movie. But hey, the fact that it was only a little bit more than two hours definitely helped ease it in.

One of the biggest changes is that the cow was played by a real cow. Boooo.

Classic fairy tales go into the dark woods, because the woods were the scariest parts of Germany. This was Pre-Nazis, post Lutherans, I think. So it makes sense.

Like who? Well, Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) needs to bring food to her grandmothers house, in the woods. Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) was told by his mom (Tracey Ullman) to sell their milkless cow in a nearby village, on the other side of the woods. Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) wants to go to the three day ball on the other side of the woods, but she has to get past her step family (Lucy Punch, Christine Baranski, some other chick).

And there is also the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) who cannot bare children. Turns out, a neighboring witch (Meryl Streep) put a curse on them. So now they have to go into the woods to get ingredients over the next few nights to fix that with a potion!

And surprisingly, that is most of the plot you need to know. We’ve got princes (Chris Pine, Billy Magnussen), girls with long hair (Mackenzie Mauzy), and wolves (Johnny Depp)! Shit, I bet the woods even have more secrets than the Library of Alexandria.

The biggest secret is what is real name of the baker’s wife? Can she not have an identity outside of her relationship?

So for those big fans of the musical, there were changes made of course. This is a PG movie because Disney is involved, you aren’t going to see everything you saw in the musical. Like most of Rapunzel’s story line. The second Agony song. No sex is had in this movie. And the sexy times are subdued.

But the only thing I really was sad to see missing was the Agony song reprise, because like the college school production, it was my favorite part. In the movie, it is probably even better as the two princes ham it up and I was laughing hard the entire time.

I do feel like the beginning of the was extremely quick and just kind of threw you into all of the plots far too fast. (Some of these complaints would be complaints with the actual broadway version. I am not reviewing how close they are, just how I feel watching the movie). So that was awkward. I thought I saw some sound editing mistakes, which is one of the hardest parts about a musical to make sure to get right. I also have a problem with the ending, that seems to just whimper and finish instead of an awesome musical bang.

But throughout the film it is definitely entertaining. My favorite would be Blunt (who had an excellent year). I didn’t know she had such singing chops, but she played a great character. I have heard Corden sing before, and it was okay. He was better in this movie than his other recent roles. I was also surprised with the singing voice of Chris Pine, so much that I don’t trust it. And Lilla Crawford, a little girl, had a surprisingly powerful voice as well.

Overall though, Into The Woods is a decently good time. Still has its bleak and sad moments and it may be one of the best musicals of the year, but this year was a bit weaker in that genre. At this point, I would say I enjoyed Muppets Most Wanted more, and probably Begin Again had better music. Despite that, the music has now been stuck in my head for several days, so I will most certainly get a soundtrack as soon as I can and listen to half of it over and over again.

3 out of 4.

I picked the documentary DamNation not just because it shares its name with one of the best Magic cards in history.

Nope. I did it purely because I liked the title and it was about a subject I actually didn’t have a huge knowledge set on ahead of time. I still like learning, so sometimes I use documentaries to learn more and not just confirm what I already think I know.

Clearly this one is about dams, but it took awhile into the picture before I could tell if it was pro or anti dams. That’s a good sign, because at least early on it was pretty biased just giving information on the history of dams, talking about their pros and cons and how they affect people (people who live by them, energy, jobs). But have no doubt, this is definitely a documentary set out to tell us why dams are bad for the environment and why we should start to get rid of them.

No matter where you go, damn kids and their spray cans, amirite?

It is simple: most dams aren’t as necessary as they once were a hundred or two hundred years ago. Some would argue that a lot of those made weren’t super necessary back then either, but the dam hype went throughout the US, especially the west, and that is where we are now. But a lot of our energy comes from other sources and they aren’t helpful, so they want dams to be taken down, rivers restored to their natural habitat so that nature can be enjoyed and fish and animals can reclaim their homes.

Oh yeah, they are also super against fishing hatcheries, which makes sense from many points of view. It’d be hard to argue against that.

However I found myself not necessarily agreeing with everything that they were saying. I don’t think we should get rid of all the dams and I don’t give a damn about a lot of fish. Restoring nature? That’s cool I guess. Pretty things are pretty. But rethinking dams that exist and find out which ones we can get rid of without hurting our economy and improving the landscape? Well, why the fuck not.

Another plus, this is a very well put together documentary. They talk to a lot of experts in many fields, the cameras used are very high quality, they have a lot of footage to work with in the construction and deconstruction of these dams. It was very well researched and that is what I hope the most for when I see a documentary.

Not being a nature crazed individual (I prefer the indoors), I can still go along with the points made and I am glad that I learned about a potential biological problem by picking a nicely named documentary.

3 out of 4.

Let’s face it. Trailers for the most part suck. Every once in awhile you get a Walter Mitty trailer, but those usually end up only being a first edition trailer, and later trailers ruin everything. Too much plot, too many spoilers, all of the cool shit, they can leave nothing exciting for the viewers when they finally see it on the big screen or awkwardly on their sofa on an iPad a year later.

The Boxtrolls is a big exception to that rule. I only remember two trailers for The Boxtrolls, this trailer and this second one. The former gives us a look of the many models and work that went into the movie behind the scenes, while giving us a song and showing some scenes but not ruining the plot. The second, just a song and scenes, no plot.

And I loved them both so much. After I saw the first one, I really really wanted to see this movie and assumed it would be one of the best animated films of the year. The second trailer only helped secure that notion in my head. And it was brought to us by Coraline / ParaNorman team (the latter, I guess, I didn’t really love, shh).

So, I was totes excited to see this movie, especially because I really didn’t know any damn thing about it. Ahhh, bliss.

I guess I also knew that it starred some of my cousins from up north. You know. Those cousins.

Here. Let me ruin my experience by telling you a little bit about the movie. Just a little bit.

In the town of Cheesebridge, we have humans, and we have Boxtrolls. Boxtrolls are troll like creatures, who wear boxes as armor/clothing. Their name is based on what is on their box. They like to build and tinker, stealing trash from the humans. The humans are lead by those who wear white hats, the elite, those who love the cheese.

Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley) wants to be a white hat, he only has a red hat. Who cares if he is allergic to cheese. He wants dat prestige, and will do anything to get it. Even if it means starting a fear mongering campaign against the Boxtrolls, declaring he will capture and kill them all, ridding the town of the pests, and saving the day, earning the white hat.

Yeah. You go Archibald! Unless he is lying, like saying a box was killed by them, when instead, the Boxtrolls saved the boy and raised him on their own. We shall call him Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright), because that is his box name. Raised by Fish (Dee Bradley Baker) and Shoe (Steve Blum), Eggs doesn’t really know if he is a human or a Boxtroll when he gets older and starts feeling things down there. If he is a human, he is a Boxtroll of a human, and if he is a Boxtroll, then he is a human of a Boxtroll. That reference might be too vague for some of you. I don’t care.

Also featuring Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade and Tracy Morgan as Archibald henchmen, Simon Pegg as an inventor, Jared Harris as the head White Hat, and Elle Fanning as a girl who has a punch in the face look the entire movie.

She is made of clay, she can totally help the way her face looks.

Early on in the film, The Boxtrolls had me a little bit uninterested. Sure, the stop motion was really rockin’ hard, but I thought the plot wasn’t moving fast enough and didn’t really enjoy any of the characters. But it surely got better, and somehow the animation even got better. This is by far the best animated film I have ever seen with stop motion, and I am sure it is not just because when I saw Coraline, my 3D glasses sucked. I really need to rewatch Coraline.

Either way, even in one tiny chase scene at a ball, I was wowed at how amazing it all looked knowing what they had to do to make it look amazing. Speaking of the attention to detail, I loved the existential crises that the henchmen were having about good vs evil and how they seemed to acknowledge they were in a movie at times. Had my laughing pretty hard.

The story got better and it ended with a tremendous bang. I wish this was an original story and not based on some book so I could give it even more praise for coming up with these tale out of nowhere. Those guys are good, with the stop motion and clay. I hope they keep giving us high quality work such as this.

I don’t think this is the animated flick of the year, I think at least 3 are better, but it is surely up there and you cannot go wrong with watching this in theater or at home. Very entertaining and a movie I could watch many times and not get sick of it. Yay! I don’t feel betrayed by the trailer!

3 out of 4.

Daniel Radcliff is one of those actors that you just can’t help but watch what they do. Forever will he be Harry Potter, technically a former child star, but can he be successful as an adult in random movies? We know he was successful in Broadway. He was decently successful in What If.

But what about Satan? It seems like the perfect transition really, given the witchcraft scares of Potter and other wizard folks. First they worship Satan, then they become devils in movies.

Either way, Daniel probably actually did make a deal with Mephistopheles to make all those pounds and pounds of Pounds.

If the United Kingdom adopted the Euro, famous British men wouldn’t have to worry about growing horns.

Everything is shitty for the life of Iggy Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe). He had a long time girlfriend, Merrin (Juno Temple). Well, she was killed. And everyone now thinks that Iggy did it! It was tragic too. Merrin went to church every week. She was a good person and no one hated her. But now the only people that believe Iggy are his brother (Joe Anderson) and friend/lawyer (Max Minghella).

I mean, his parents (James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan) believe him, but do they really? And Merrin’s dad (David Morse) is fully convinced of his wrong doing, threatening to kill him himself.

Oh, and he grew horns on his head. That’s interesting. Especially when they seem to change the way people perceive him, just not in the way that you’d think horns would change someone.

This isn’t click baiting to get you to watch the movie, this is just not spoiling what happens. Also with Kelli Garner and Heather Graham.

This is a scene you can find in about a third of every romance based movie.

First of all, let’s give it up for Daniel Radcliff’s American accent. I forgot he was actually a Brit in this movie! If this was his first role, I would have never assumed he was a dirty Queen-lover.

Related. I wish I could fake a British accent.

Anyways, Horns is probably, by far, one of the weirder movies of the year. And coming from me and who I am, that is definitely a compliment. Based on a book I didn’t read, book people didn’t like it as much, which is no surprise. The horns actually happen super early in the movie, but in order to keep the weirdness and uniqueness of the horns, I kept most of it a surprise for the viewers. I don’t know how much the trailer spoiled, but let’s just say it is worth finding out on your own.

It got even weirder by the end, some plot twists I could see coming, and some I could not. Some of the acting from some characters are a bit weak, but I thought Radcliffe and Temple were on point enough to keep the movie interesting. A lot of her plot and acting was of course told through back stories, but still entertaining.

Either way, Horns is at least unique and that is one of the things people seem to clamor for the movies coming out these days. It isn’t a remake or a sequel. Sure its based on a book, but basically every movie ever is based on a book, so get over it.

3 out of 4.

I am not going to get into the same old tirade of how I randomly picked this movie on a whim on Netflix. Mostly because I just gave you all that information in one sentence. Boom. Roasted.

No. Instead I want to talk about how surprising it is that I never heard about this movie Stretch, given its mostly big list of famous actors. This shouldn’t be some straight to DVD shitflick you find in the nonexistent $3 Wal-Mart DVD bins.

Well, Stretch was supposed to come out in March of this year, full on theatrical release, trailers, everything. But Universal Pictures decided to fuck that release date and kind of not want to do it anymore. So the director was able to look for other people to release it and nothing happened. So it wen’t back to Universal who decided to release it in “creative ways”. So early October it hit iTunes and Amazon, mid October it hit VOD services, and then onto Netflix, where of course, I first stumbled upon it, in order to give you this review.

I am not putting a gun to your head to see it, I just wanted to review it, jeez.

Let’s talk about Stretch (Patrick Wilson). He is a limo driver and yes that is his official name. Stretch wants to be an actor, why else would he live in LA? But life is going bad, and he blames it all on Candace (Brooklyn Decker) for breaking his heart after a year of dating. They met on a car crash, sure, he was still a limo driver then. Apparently she wanted more. He just wanted to gamble and do cocaine. But he is better now. He is going to turn his life around. Or else!

Because he also still owes gambling debts, and the piper is calling. He needs $6,000 by tonight, but life doesn’t just ever really hand him opportunities. He can’t even get acting gigs, after all.

Maybe if he just does his job really really really well, like Karl (Ed Helms) did. The best limo driver ever. Maybe he can get some high powered actors who will tip like crazy?

Well, luck is about to be on his side. An eccentric rich person! He just has to comply with all his demands, while his entire life is crumbling around him. Joy.

But who plays the eccentric rich person? Who?! Well, maybe it is one of these people: James Badge Dale, David Hasselhoff, Randy Couture, Chris Pine, Jason Mantzoukas, Norman Reedus, or Ray Liotta. Or maybe it is a woman, like Jessica Alba. Women can be eccentric to you know!

(Yes, all of those people are in this movie).

We will never be able to see a COCK like this on the big screen.

Holy poop in a limo (not a spoiler). Stretch was far more entertaining and interesting than I gave it credit for. I mean, straight to Netflix movie? Who gives a crap! Stretch is full of intense scenes, funny moments, darkly funny moments, and kind of action heavy. A lot went into this movie and I found it really hard to look away.

And the best part is, because it is so widely available right off the bat, I can recommend it to people. Stretch might finally be my next Flypaper. Flypaper was a completely unknown movie, with some people I recognized in it, that I figured would suck. And hey, I liked it a lot. It is my favorite reason for watching probably bad movies. It is all about finding those that rise above their cover and actually present something worthwhile to watch, hopefully multiple times.

Maybe it is a bit disconcerting that I can now only think of two titles that really fit the build, but eh, fuck you for thinking about numbers that I brought up.

Stretch was highly entertaining and way more unique despite what may seem from its premise. Patrick Wilson carried the movie through his narration and humorous acting. Sure, parts of the ending you can see come from miles away, and that leads to some weaker moments. But I think this limo ride is totally worth it.

3 out of 4.

Time to tackle a big fish.

Roger Ebert. A lot of people like the guy. Like, a super lot of them. Especially people who like movies. Especially people who consider themselves to be movie reviewers or critics. And then there is me, Geophysicist by day, and movie watcher by night. And I can say I never really cared one way or another.

When Ebert died, a lot of people I knew in real life wanted to talk to me about it and make sure I knew and what I thought about it. I thought that it sucked that someone died of course, but it didn’t affect me in any negative way.

For those that don’t know, before Ebert, movie reviewers were basically interchangeable. But he came in with a fancy vocabulary, an ability to write a review quickly, and a way to connect it with the every man that he became a big deal, even winning a Pulitzer Prize. He is probably the sole reason movie reviewers/critics exist as they do today. Whether that is a good thing is debatable of course.

And of course, this documentary, Life Itself, titled after his book, tells the story of his life and career and was filming during his final months alive.

He turned into a poltergeist when watching movies, apparently.

You can’t talk about Roger Ebert without talking about Gene Siskel. For over 20 years, these two Chicago men got to go on television and argue and talk the new movies in theaters that week, and the crowds loved it. No one could compare to those two and those two opinions became the only opinions that seemed to matter.

But we also get to hear about Ebert’s career in college, his first journalism jobs, and what he did after the TV show. He was also an early adopter of really liking social media/internet it seems, and wanted all of his life’s work online for anyone to read. Which is why his name is a website, and they have people posting reviews to carry on his legacy there.

And of course, we also get his family life, his children, his wife, and the final months of his life, the surgeries, and the setbacks.

Now for someone who didn’t really care about the man, I found myself surprised when his death occurred that I was tearing up a little bit. That’s some quality film making. The narrator is reading excerpts from his autobiography throughout the film, so it is really easy to feel like I knew the man by the end of the movie. Roger Ebert was a fascinating individual, and well, it sucks that he is gone.

3 out of 4.

Despite Halloween being a thing weeks ago, horror movies are still coming out and existing. I gave horror movies a whole week! What gives?

Apparently I have to see horror movies outside of October too, which is dumb. Wouldn’t it be nice if every month had a genre theme? December would be my favorite month, because it clearly would belong to Musicals. June would be animated musicals.

That is all nonsense. I am now going to talk about The Babadook, an indie movie outside of Australia with a budget that all went towards making the creature. That’s right, it’s a creature movie.

And a movie involving books. How scary!

This is a simple story about a mother and her child. You see, Amelia (Essie Davis) is a single mother, because en route to the hospital to give birth they got into a car accident and the husband didn’t make it. Kind of a bad thing to happen on a day of life.

So life has been rough. She works at a nursing home, which pays enough for them to get by, although they aren’t rolling in the dough. And her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), he is a weird one. My guess is some sort of autism, but they never really say anything. He is definitely a loner, likes to yell, has behavioral problems in school. He pretends he sees monsters and wants to fight them, so he builds crude imaginative weapons to fight the invisible ghouls.

Well, Amelia likes to read to her son before bed. And today he wants to hear “Mister Babadook,” a pop-up book she doesn’t remember getting for him. Well, it is really odd and eerie, talking of a boogie man that once you know of its existence, will never lead, and it freaks the boy out.

And guess what the book unleashes. Guess. Come on. Guess. You probably couldn’t even tell.

Also with Barbara West and Daniel Henshall. They are important to the story. I guess.

Yeah, this picture alone just looks like autism to me.

This is not your typical current horror movie. It doesn’t really feature jump scares, it features a unique new creature, and it is pretty frightening at times. Aka, what you want in a horror movie!

Many different aspects of this film are unsettling, including just how Amelia/Samuel look throughout the film. Clearly the kid is creepy, with those big popping eyes and pale skin. The mom does a great job too, always slightly disheveled, conveying the emotions of someone who just can’t take it anymore. Someone who thinks they are literally going insane.

It was eerie and great. And hell, The Babadook didn’t even look that silly. It had a clear lower budget feel to it, but based on the animated from the books, from the boogieman stories and from nightmares in general, the style really worked for me. Even the creepy noises and voice he made seemed great.

The Babadook is on video on demand, and you most likely won’t see it in theaters anytime soon. But if you want a relatively unique and decent horror, this is one of the better recent ones to check. The theaters/Hollywood have been failing us over October, so this might be your best bet.

3 out of 4.