Tag: 3 out of 4

When I heard of this movie, I thought “Hey, that sounds like a stupid movie. An Island with crazy and murderous people? Like an Asylum? That doesn’t make sense. Especially if it was in the past. We (As Americans) wouldn’t use our taxes to keep this facility running. We would so just kill them”.

Or at least just lobotomize them and slowly introduce them back to society.

Which is why I never watched it until now. I can’t remember, but I think Shutter Island is the name of the island, not a camera reference.

But I did like it more than I thought I would. After watching it once, I would assume that the second viewing is better than the first, knowing how everything will turn out. I cannot speak for a 3rd or more viewing however. Maybe just one more viewing, but other than that I don’t know. After that would be the M. Night Shamamalanana effect, kind of making it eh.

I actually correctly guessed the ending too, but not as detailed as it ended up being. I expected it in a much more cheesy fashion, going for the quick “oh shit” and that was it, but thankfully it was a lot more developed. I am not actually sure if Leonardo is a good actor, or just good at playing not in the present actors. Titanic. Man in the Iron Mask. Gangs of New York. This movie. All non present. He could just be a period piece dude. (Ignoring Inception and The Departed).

Also I didn’t realize it was Mark Ruffalo until the very end. Good he makes another appearance, where he does not unleash his hulk rage out on the crazy people aggressors.

Ruffalo STARE!!

3 out of 4.

I bought this movie because the cover made me laugh. Mattttt Damonnn just looks ridiculous.

Look at it, in all its glory.

And it seems hilarious. Didn’t read the back, no idea on what it was about, just his ridiculous ridiculous face. I think not knowing anything about it a much more enjoyable experience.

The movie tells of Matttt Damonnn, working for a company, which happens to be doing some illegal shenanigans. Nothing that important, just that his company has been involved with price fixing. He decides to tell the FBI. He didn’t think it would turn out to be such a big deal. He thought he could let them know, and be done with it. Nope. They needed proof. This causes him to become one of the most cooperative informants they have ever had. He is SUPER awkward though throughout it. And it is great.

Unfortunately some of the details he gives them are not adding up. Bunch this up with the fact that he is a weird guy, sometimes forgetting meetings, and avoiding people. Is there more shit going on? Maybe. His wife is played by Melanie Lynskey and the FBI agents are Scott Bakula and Joel McHale.

Mattttttttt Damonnnnnnnn

You keep asking yourself “WHY are you doing that???” Without trying to spoil anything, the movie gets pretty deep with its subject material. You just can’t stop watching the train wreck, thinking it can’t be real. You also never really know exactly what is going on.

It was good to be on that ride. What made it even more funny was Damon’s random thoughts throughout the movie, said through voice over. Generally these thoughts had nothing to do with the current scene, and it could make you miss important information. But the only thing you could do was nod along and think, “Huh. Why IS that?” It is also based on a true story (or at least the books about the true story), which I didn’t know until the end. Shocked I tell ya.

I should say ridiculous again.

Sometimes the quality of a disk can really determine how much you enjoy a movie. This would be my case for Cedar Rapids. About 50 minutes into it (out of 86) it was fine, but I might have missed about 5 minutes of material in the last half hour, which is a lot. Lot of skipping, so stuff gets all jumbled. This isn’t really the fault of Ed Helms or John C. Reilly, just my own disk. Onwards!

And sally faawwwr…sally farrtas….grr. sallyforth.

Anyways, Cedar Rapids isn’t a stoner comedy, doesn’t use “offensive” jokes to make laughs, or much slapstick, but just goes a more natural route. I liked that. It was definitely a great change of comedy. I heard someone refer to it as a “midwest people” comedy, a stereotype we don’t get to explore at all enough. We pretty much have Fargo, as a northern midwest comedy, and that is about it. So a lot less funny accents here, and a lot more, “break out of your shell, you square!” comedy. The name also comes from the insurance convention in the region, which takes place in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

I also really didn’t hate any character in the movie, which was good (except you know, the “evil people”). Also, Maebe from Arrested Development as Bree the Prostitute was enjoyable. What?

Hurray, deciding to rent movies that I have heard zero about. They are the best. Don’t you hate hearing others opinions about movies when all you want to do is watch it yourself? (My bad, by the way, posting all my movie opinions).

Gerard Butler gets to play an intelligent and super pissed off mad man killer, which he rarely gets to do. Normally he is just some bad ass guy, but usually good. The last time he got to play a psychotic and smart killer was Phantom of the Opera, but he also sang a bunch then. He also does that role OH SO WELL.

“Ohh, I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weinerrrr”

Normally just the muscle, I found it incredibly believable his character could do everything he does in the movie. Sure, even a super smart person would have a hard time completing everything in the film but I guess its tiny possibility makes it interesting to watch. He has 10 years to plan it all, so the resources are there I guess.

Oh yeah, should probably note that at the beginning of the movie his wife is raped, and killed, and his child killed as well, right in front of him. He identifies the perpetrators and they are caught, but thanks to the justice system, one gets out way early. Gerard does not approve! His lawyer, Jamie Foxx, can’t help him either. So he, a normally Law Abiding Citizen, takes it into his own hands to punish both the wrong doers, and everyone in the justice system that screwed him over.

“Are you still using Flynn from Tangled after you mention rape scenes?” Yes. Yes I am.

The ending though, the ending was not what I was expecting (in the bad way). Overall I think the way they made it end left it kind of…eh. Like it was all pointless. Fuck it, this movie you can cheer on the bad guy and you only feel bad morally for a little bit.

This movie was a lot better than expected, but technically I expected nothing. I first didn’t watch it, because the cover made me think of Eagle Eye. (yes, even though I read the words “Source Code“) Eagle Eye!? yuck! Don’t need any Shia LaBeouf in my room!

Or my website.

Doesn’t help that the main woman, Michelle Monaghan, is the main woman in Eagle Eye too.

Anyways, this is a sci-fi (esque) action movie, where if you can ignore some plot holes in how everything works, it becomes pretty good. What plot holes? It is hard to explain, here and in the movie. More or less, they said that after a “big event” in the realities aroun…no I still can’t explain it. More or less, they have a way to send people back into an event, inside a person whom shares qualities with their sendee back, and can do things before the event occurs. Not stop it of course, because it has already happened. But some cool things, like figure out who did it, figure out what they will be doing next, etc.

Why is this good? Because some dude bombed some trains in Chicago! And is planning on bombing more things! If they can find out who it is, maybe they can stop him!

Unfortunately when dealing with alternative realities, paradoxes tend to happen pretty easily. The ending was beautiful, and cannot be mucked up if they ever try to do a sequel. So that is good. I am tired of also liking 6/7 of a movie and hating the end. This time I liked pretty much all of it.

Also, for those Jake G haters, you can watch him die at least six times in this movie. No, that is not a spoiler. Unfortunately, as I said it was set in Chicago. We can’t all be perfect though.

Alright, a good thing to realize right off the back when watching this is it is NOT a prequel to the 2001 Burton one. Instead it is yes, another reboot, and a retelling that is more try to the original film series. This confused me a bit, as they threw in references and clues talking about space travel and stuff in this version of Rise, but they didn’t match with the ’01 version, making me go “Whaaaa?”. Saying “Whaaaa?” in theaters is also very distracting.

Anyways. This movie did a good job of making me care about the apes more than humans. Because seriously, the biggest problem with Avatar? Fuck the Na’vi.

Fuck you too, buddy!

More specifically, if you give me a conflict between Humans and not humans, overall, I want the humans to win. Every time. Species over other species. I may not agree with all the actions (as we are supposed to feel uneasy in Starship Troopers) but I don’t want them to lose because of it. So if this movie brought up a big war with the apes and humans, I would be pissed if the apes won.

Thankfully, what it does better than ’01, is make the apes not the bad guy. ’01 made them clearly the bad guys (humans enslaved! War hungry apes!), but in this movie none of the apes are bad/evil, just a few people and that is all. It also does a good job of explaining at the end how the Apes will take over, so if they choose to continue the franchise the eggs are all in place. The only people who were really hurt were the bad humans too, and no all out war, just an escape for the apes to live in peace.

Not really a spoiler, but yeah its Franco‘s fault. He develops a drug to cure Alzheimer’s, but the testing on apes made them wicked smart. He just wanted to cure his dad, is all. Also, how good is John Lithgow in this movie? This plus Dexter season 4 shows this guy has got that acting thing down.

All in all, this is just a movie about the love between a monkey and John Lithgow.

The plot moves along at a good pace. If I had any complaint it is that the “Ape Escape” in the last half hour may have taken a bit too long.

In terms of randoms, I found his love interest a pointless add in. She didn’t seem to take away or add anything to the film, so that whole buildup was annoying. Also, the company owner in the beginning in the movie, in his first two scenes, removed and put on his glasses a total of five times. My friends didn’t notice it though. Seriously. I wrote them down for my second viewing. At 4:00, 4:10, and 4:35, and then 7:24 and 7:45 minute marks, this happens. Way too much dude.

What is with all these one word simple movie titles. Paul? Someone will look at the URLs for these pages and just think very sexual and inappropriate thoughts about what the site is actually about.

Well I guess you could think of sexual things and inappropriate things, without them being the same “thing”. But why?

I forgot that this was technically another British comedy, so it gave me a more refreshing take on a foul mouthed alien story we have all grown accustomed too (that last one being Machete (see what I did there?)).

Pegg/Frost, despite being the main two, were not as exciting as the rest of the supporting cast in my opinion, which definitely made the movie. (Oh. So all the Americans. Whoops.)

It was cool seeing Jason Bateman as a “bad guy” too, and Sigourney Weaver was a nice joke there. Also, for more patriotism, U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned Seth Rogen yet. Dude is great at voice acting. Must explain his horrible face? He was obviously one of the better parts of this movie, just like he was the best part of Monsters vs Aliens (which was lame). So yeah. Aliens are funny. Nerds are fun. British people trying to not be considered gay in America is interesting. So overall pretty good movie.

Oh. Bonus movies on the Blu-Ray too. For a limited time, you can watch for free with this movie….Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or Tremors 2: Aftershocks. They are pretty much all the same movie. (WHAT!?)

Alright, I have a confession to make. I am definitely biased with this review. I know part of the crew who put this movie together.

If you go to the cast and crew page of Super, you can find one Justin Beckham. He was actually the head camp director person for a Boy Scout Summer Camp I worked at in high school. Now a lawyer, he decided to help make a movie. Some people know how to live better lives than others I guess!

Anyways, this was a low budget dark comedy that was also independently release. Coming out within a year of Kick-Ass didn’t help either. Studio movie based off a graphic novel vs something someone just decided to do. Despite the low budget and “already done” theme, it was amazing. While focusing less on amazing action scenes (yet somewhat upping the gore/violence) and more on the human emotion side you get a different picture. The hero is of course Rainn Wilson. Kevin Bacon and Nathan Fillion are both in it as well, as a villain and tv character respecftfully. Ellen Page‘s character was crazy awesome. Like a less deadly, more psychotic (and strangely hot) Hit-Girl. What else was unexpected? Anime tentacles, a rape scene (not related to tentacles, oddly enough), and realistic (ish) deaths.

“Did you say rape scene?”
Damn it, Flynn!

In other news, this movie is pretty cheap on Amazon. I saw it for preorder as $13 on Blu-Ray, but now it is still just $14. Pretty cheap for Blu-Ray.

I personally think the ending of this film is debatable, but no one else who saw it did. They actually ignored my theories, but if you watch it, I will argue it with you to!

The premise of the movie is that someone becomes a much better human thanks to experimental drugs? That just sounds like Senseless. Afterall, both end in less, and have 5 letter words. But in senseless just his senses were enhanced and it was a comedy. In Limitless, his mind is enhance. And its action/drama. Oh well.

The story starts out as expected, Bradley Cooper is a loser. Probably a hipster. A writer who doesn’t write. Just living in the NYC.

Above: Hipster Loser, Bradley Cooper.

Thanks to certain events, he gets these pills temporarily. And he becomes…productive! He cleans his apartment! He writes his book. Aww, finally growing up Bradley Cooper. A drug to make someone be less of a loser! What I really like about this movie is it is weird. The beginning, loser hipster days is kind of boring. But that is on purpose. The drug focuses not on being enhanced strength wise, but mentally. BC gets smarter and smarter, unlocking more and more human potential. Soon he is wracking in the dough. But it doesn’t stop there. His body just gets better and better. The film speed and style almost seem to keep speeding up, and the viewer has to step up his game to keep up.

Reminds me of Flowers For Algernon, without the sadder end. It is cool watching the evolution, and it is awesome focusing on a smarter person. It also teaches us that drugs are not always bad, mmkay.

I think everyone knows who Matthew McConaughey is. I also think most people know about his “Face”. He has a weird intense face. I think this intense face ends up getting at least one close up in every movie he is in too. For a way too long example of this face, check out Tropic Thunder. In the scene with him and Lex Grossman (Tom Cruise (I think that’s the character name?)) talking about the Jet. He definitely has that moment in this move too.

This is not at all the image I wanted here.

But instead of being an agent he is a lawyer! Lincoln Lawyer meaning his car and his profession. MAN that took forever to figure out. Nothing about slavery.

He also is known for getting criminals out of their crime. But he is haunted by the fact that he might ever let an innocent person go to jail (not the other way around). This becomes an interesting crime thriller. Halfway through it you know who the killer is. But there are many complications with the law and its hard to describe without giving away. The whole ending is tense and you wonder how will Matthew McConaughey get out of this mess!
Also, this has William H Macy in it, which makes every movie better.

Even this one.

3 out of 4.