Tag: Comedy

Anna Kendrick is in six movies this year. Six! That is a crap ton for a single year.

Yes, one of them is animated, so just voice work for Trolls. And two of them I don’t know a thing about. And a wide release comedy. But then there were two films that had extremely limited release, basically straight to DVD.

Mr. Right, of course, and Get A Job. Now going into Mr. Right, I am super biased against it, because I accidentally watched the trailer and basically cringed through out it. Had I not known anything, I might have been a bit more optimistic. But factors working against it include a cringey trailer, a lame title, and a very big age gap between our two romantic leads. Arguably that last point should be put under cringey though.

At least the fashion is bangin’.

Oh, Martha McKay (Anna Kendrick), why do you like such assholes? She is ready to surprised her boyfriend at his place, and he shows up with another lady. Great. So now she is drunk and sad and going to be miserable for ever. Not even playing with kittens seems to help.

Then she runs into Francis (Sam Rockwell). Literally. He does something impressive and invites her out on a date. Right then and there, not knowing anything about her, and she says sure. And aww, it is nice. He might be the one. Sure, she doesn’t know his name, but she will find it out eventually.

Francis also used to be a very high paid assassin. However, he grew some morals and didn’t want to do it anymore. Instead, he would go back and kill the people who paid him to kill someone else. Obviously the morals are shaky and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So people are out to get him now, as he pissed off many groups of people. Hopper (Tim Roth) used to be a co-worker and is the main antagonist here.

Francis likes Martha and Martha likes Francis. And technically he doesn’t like to her when he says he just killed a person, but she thinks it is a joke. However, eventually she finds out, conflict, some action stuff, and then some more romance. Typical, you know?

Also featuring, as mostly bad people and hitmen, RZA, Michael Eklund, James Ransone, Jaiden Kaine, and Anson Mount.

Gotta have a killing trademark, I guess.

Mr. Right was written by Max Landis, that guy who did American Ultra and other writing things that people love. He is super active in Hollywood right now (not Anna Kendrick active, but high for a writer). American Ultra was weird and unique but still landed to be just okay. Mr. Right is average, kind of dumb, with the occassional great moments. That is not a good sign for Mr. Right.

Again, there are some amusing moments. Kendrick goes super adorkable at points, babbling, making funny noises, sure. But that is not a complete movie. Rockwell doesn’t feel charismatic and the couple together never feel great. I can’t see why Martha becomes so smitten by him so quickly. The only real reason we have is just because the writers say so, but they don’t show it in the film well.

As a comedy it is subpar. As a romance it is almost non-existant. And as an action, well, the action is okay. But it is romcom action, not straight up epic action that purely action movies provide. It is mostly just some hand to hand combat fight scenes with a few Rockwell and RZA jokes thrown in.

They should have made some element really stand out. And Rockwell talking to people in a fight is not enough. Mr. Right is overall very forgettable.

Presidents in the modern era meet with almost everyone. Celebrities, athletes, civil rights leaders, union leaders, foreign leaders, gym leaders, you name it. So it isn’t weird to see a picture of Obama hanging out with Justin Bieber.

But maybe back in the day it was a bit more odd. Like, a famous picture of Elvis Presley shaking hands with Richard Nixon. One of the biggest entertainers of the last few decades and a president with a lot of…well, character, I guess. It was a really famous image and sort of set the country into jubilee at just the thought of these two larger than life men in a single room talking about who knows what.

And just what led to this monumental meet up and what did they talk about?

Well, it would take a movie named Elvis & Nixon to get to the bottom of it I suppose!

This really just feels like fanfiction. Who wrote this? When do they get undressed?

In 1970, the US was in disarray. There was a war going on that not everyone loved, the parties were divided, drugs were big in the news and in our suburbs. Basically, not too different from today.

But one man was sick and tired of it all. His name was Elvis Presley (Michael Shannon). He was tired of these drugs, these gang fights, people stoned at concerts. He was in the army before and people loved him, so he figured he could go undercover as himself, into their events and protests. And maybe convince them to say no to drugs and put an end to it all. He could be a really big help, hell, he knew karate!

So he wants to head to the White House. He has a damn plan. He will talk to President Richard Nixon (Kevin Spacey), he will convince him to swear him in as a federal agent at large to work secretly for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Brilliant, great, wonderful. Except Nixon didn’t care to meet with him. Even if a meeting could boost his popularity with the youth and the south. Except Elvis doesn’t want to hold a concert, he wants it all to be a secret, no publicity.

Sure, these men might not see eye to eye, but they want similar things, so maybe they can work together. Or maybe their assistants and staff can force them to work together. On Elvis’ side, we have Jerry (Alex Pettyfer) and Sonny (Johnny Knoxville), with Jerry trying to get out of working with Elvis to focus on his own life and maybe engagement. The president aides include Krogh (Colin Hanks) and Chapin (Evan Peters), both people later involved with the Watergate scandal, fun fact!

And so yeah, the meeting is of course them setting everything up and what their conversation may have entailed in that mysterious room.

Here is a picture of a recreation of that picture!

Two powerhouse men can only be played by two powerhouse actors, and we certainly get that with Shannon and Spacey. When I saw the casting, I was almost flabbergasted with excitement. To repeat, almost flabbergasted, not fully flabbered nor gasted. Despite loving each actor from many of their recent and older roles, I still found both of them hard to see in their collective role.

Now, in this film, they both did great jobs. But Shannon has such a unique face, I never really fully believed he was Elvis, he was always an actor. Basically the same for Spacey. For both of these roles, it could be due to the fact that these characters over time have become very exaggerated and in real life they weren’t so intense, but it just never really fully clicked.

The story itself is decently amusing. The cast of characters while small added a lot to the film. The movie is also under 90 minutes long, so it never drags and a good third or more to it is actually focused on their actual discussion in the white house.

The film just has a lot of build up for this moment and honestly, doesn’t go too many places. Elvis & Nixon won’t take up a lot of time and is pretty amusing. Hell, you will learn a lot about an event that is just all sorts of weird in American history. But one that never really elevated more than cool tidbit.

Let’s get one thing straight. No one will take this review seriously. No one can take any review for Ghostbusters seriously. For the last 1-2 years, this film has been dragged through the mud of the internet. From director, to casting choices, to posters, to trailers. Everything has been heavily scrutinized and a lot of it met with extreme backlash.

Like it or not, biases exist in so many forms they are possible to escape. Even when I try and watch a movie by ignoring the trailers, ignoring plot summaries and more, I am still slightly affected by it by recognizing people in the cast and comparing it to their own past work. And that is a subtle bias. When you hear nothing but negative things about something for a long time it will take a toll on you.

What I am NOT saying is that the toll will be the same way to everyone. But extremes will happen and are bound to happen. People very well may end up actually hating this movie, but if they dislike it, they will be called sexist or misogynists or probably Moonboy for all I know. If you love the film, you will be seen as maybe some social justice warrior, liking it to high levels just as a counter to the hate. And both of these things are potentially true. Some people hate it for sexism, some people love it to counter the sexism. But also some people just won’t like it and some people will love it regardless of either.

This intro I wrote before seeing the review, but of course you can already see my rating. So when I say no one will take this seriously, I just mean that it is impossible for anything anyone says about this film to be taken with a grain of salt, outside of actual personal experiences and opinions.

Am I sexist if I make my first picture of just him with no one else?

The year is current year, and Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is up for tenure at Columbia university now for some hardcore physics stuff. She has to be careful to not embarrass the university in any way. So when Ed Mulgrave (Ed Begley Jr.) pops up to talk about a book she wrote a long time ago about Ghosts, things get awkward. Her co-author, Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) is working at much lesser university on paranormal related sciences and she put their book on Amazon to make some extra income. She is now working with an engineer, Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) and they are developing some sweet new technology.

Once they find out that Mulgrave runs an old museum/house with a potential ghost, they hop over to find out, and yep, there is a ghost! Their video goes viral on YouTube, Erin loses her job and they decide to start researching these ghosts full time. They soon meet another scarier ghost in the Subway, where they also meet Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones). Patty isn’t a scientist, but she offers them a vehicle so they let her join the train. They also get a receptionist, Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), who is really damn stupid but good looking and the only one to apply.

Long story short, this asshole unsocial dude, Rowan North (Neil Casey), is using his own devices to ramp up paranormal activity in the area, hoping to unleash a huge amount of ghosts to begin the apocalypse. Fun!

Also featuring Andy Garcia as the Mayor of NYC and Cecily Strong as his assistant, Michael Kenneth Williams and Matt Walsh as members of Homeland Security, Zach Woods as a tour guide, Karan Soni as a Chinese food delivery man, and all* of the original Ghostbusters cast as cameos. The biggest cameo is Bill Murray as a ghost skeptic.

”
Ah there they are, not crossing streams and all.

Here’s some background. I did not grow up with the Ghostbusters movie in my life. I didn’t see the first film in its entirety until just a few weeks ago. I knew what happened in it roughly, I knew quotes, I saw bits and pieces, and I of course knew the song, but I never really saw it. Similarly, I still have never seen Ghostbusters II, only because I didn’t own it to watch it. So it isn’t something that helped define my childhood full of nostalgia.

Coming from that background, thinking the original Ghostbusters movie was only okay, I also have to say the same about the sequel. Both are comedies and meant to be comedic in nature, but rarely did I find myself laughing. Maybe some smiles or cute moments and the surprise scare, but rarely a true laugh out of loud. But this isn’t a review of the old one, this is a review of the new film. Wiig and McCarthy were both playing relatively un-funny characters. That is because they had to be serious to really sell their passion. Their characters had a few jokes that were revisited and some slapstick but that is about it.

Jones and McKinnon were fine in their roles and a bit more interesting. They were the only characters that actually felt like they had personality and were generally consistent with those personalities. I can see why people find McKinnon’s character the funniest because, well, Wiig and McCarthy are just so drag in comparison. They should have had one less serious character and one more unique but not identical to McKinnon for more actual laughs. She did make me laugh a few times, but Hemsworth’s character did make me laugh the most. They made him stupid arm candy, a nice gender reversal, and they went so extreme with it that it was hard not to chuckle.

Outside of those three characters though the film just wasn’t that funny. Mostly slapstick and chaos.

And now here is a ghost, now everyone is represented equally!

The film had a lot of wasted potential. They had Walsh and Williams as agents and they collectively maybe had three lines, they were no-name characters in the end and had no reason to be played by those actors. The cameos from the original cast were okay, but Murray was absolutely dreadful. He wasn’t even acting as a character in this film despite having multiple scenes. He came across as a guy bored out of his mind who was just getting a small pay check. It was embarrassingly bad.

The film was all over with its science as well. Like the original, they would say a lot of jargon that sounded cool but meant nothing out to anyone listening. Their stream weapons were inconsistent with how they worked, making the long final fight scene sort of odd.

And yes, the film was too meta about the message they wanted to send. They had to turn it into movie directly against the online (sexist?) haters as a sly joke. Years later they won’t make as much sense along with the other numerous pop culture references. But commenting about the hateful things people say on YouTube and the internet just took me out of the movie as the film collectively winked its entire screen at me.

But what do I know. I am a guy who gave this an average film. I have probably been biased on my own thanks to everything that has happened. Maybe I am just too afraid to give this a really positive or negative review, so I go into neutral obscurity hoping to maintain some level of unbias but still directly being influenced quite heavily. We will never know and this film or future films in the franchise will never be able to escape it.

* – No not Rick Moranis and of course not Harold Ramis.

Okay okay, I know I said this last time. But finally I am reviewing a Disney Channel Original movie that ISN’T a musical. I thought I had that covered when I was watching Descendants last year, but damn, that was a musical too. I had no idea.

But for real, this time, not a musical. Just a remake of an 80’s film. “Oh no!” The people scream. A remake!

Let’s be clear here. The original film, Adventures in Babysitting, was not a masterpiece movie. It literally came out almost 30 years and having a made for TV remake, to modernize it and change the plot completely, doesn’t change the nostalgic past of your memories.

So I chose to review another made for TV movie, Adventures in Babysitting, because it garnered enough negative reaction on the internet for silly reasons.

And despite not being a musical, I wait patiently just to see the song scene.

We don’t have one babysitter in this movie, we have TWO. Jenny Parker (Sabrina Carpenter) is your typical do-nothing-wrong high school student. She is perfect, smart, nice, going to college, and a great babysitter. She is also up for a prestigious photography internship, which would be sweet before she goes to college. That is where she bumps into Lola Perez (Sofia Carson), a radical person, college be damned, but the other runner up for the internship. And thanks to a silly misstep, their phones get switched.

Well, Lola suddenly gets a ticket for illegal parking from a hottie police officer (Max Lloyd-Jones), so she needs to come up with cash to pay for it. She answers Jenny’s phone, finds out that there is a parent desperate and willing to pay double, so she pretends to be Jenny and recommends herself. Sweet and easy, no crime done.

Lola has to watch to Anderson kids: AJ (Madison Horcher), who likes roller derby, Bobby (Jet Jurgensmeyer), who likes to cook, and Trey (Max Gecowets), who is older and has a crush on Jenny. Jenny has to watch the Cooper kids: Katy (Mallory James Mahoney), who is obsessed with dressing up and balls, and Emily (Nikki Hahn), who is now counter culture and scene and shit.

Of course, the two groups are brought together when Trey sneaks out to go to the CITY at NIGHT for a concert! And then bad thing after bad thing happens until the group can work together, everyone getting their unique moment to shine, and friendships can be bonded. We also have Kevin G. Quinn as a boy Jenny likes. He is important, I guess.

Oh girl, that hat, you are so OUT OF CONTROL!

Don’t hate Adventures in Babysitting because it is a remake of something you probably haven’t seen in 20 years. Hate it because it isn’t a great movie and is almost embarassing as a result.

A few years ago, we had to see The Sitter, a movie that was supposed to be a homage or something to Adventures in Babysitting, but instead it was just overly crude and not funny. This went the other way. It is too nice and safe and thus, boring.

Our two “against the grain” characters are still goody two-shoes. The dangers in the city are basically non-existent. Oh, they are chased by bad people? Yeah, because they took a photo they need to delete and they refuse to talk to the people to find out why they are mad. The kids have no idea why they are now being chased, but they run, all because they wouldn’t talk to them and all they wanted was a deleted picture. Ugh.

Of course there is another antagonist. Just time in general. They have to get the kids back, fix every single issue they cause just by being out, and of course clean up a house, before the parents get back.

The entire thing is just so safe. But what annoys me the most is the plotline about Jenny’s crush. Lola answers Jenny’s phone, talks to the crush, and turns down a concert invite from him and says concerts are stupid. So during the movie, Jenny eventually finds out, says she totally would have accepted the invite, meaning they have to break into the concert for her to meet him and get their eventual dating on.

Bitch, you have to babysit tonight and it is a big night that needs many babysitters. You were not going to last minute cancel on a friend and client for the concert and you know it. Stop lying.

Again, this film is safe and boring and I should probably stop reviewing Disney Original Channel movies. But a Descendants 2 is going to happen eventually, so that is probably when I will return to the fray.

Despite my many claims to be in love with Richard Linklater (damn the Before trilogy, making me melt like butter), I actually haven’t seen a lot of his work. Meaning for the most part, his older work has evaded me.

Yes, that includes Dazed and Confused. I know, I know. I such. And yes, it is free on Amazon Prime right now. I still haven’t gotten around to it. The only reason I bring it up is that I heard this film, Everybody Wants Some!! is a spiritual successor to Dazed and Confused. It has none of the same characters, but it is set in the 1980’s instead of the 70’s, and college instead of high school.

See! That’s all that matters right? I am totally ready for a movie that is confident enough to have two exclamation points in its title, with neither of them representing musical status. (Yes, I understand the Van Halen song title connection too, I’m hip guys!).

I’m so hip I want to point out the man nipples on the left. You’re welcome.

Summer is over, it is 1980, and it is time for college. Our main character is Jake (Blake Jenner), a hot shot pitcher from his high school team. He picked this made up Texas college because they are amazing at baseball, and he wants to win and join the MLB. In fact, the team lives together in a couple houses off campus, perfect for partying and beers. His roommate Billy (Will Brittain) is obsessed with his girlfriend at home, constantly on the phone, also a freshman pitcher.

It should be noted there are no baseball games here. This is the fall, baseball is played in spring. Hell, there is barely baseball practice yet. In this film we get like, one practice and that is it.

This film is about athletic dudes, being in college, being bros, and having fun. And a shit ton of hazing, mini-competitions, partying, looking for girls, general house issues and so on and so on.

And of course it features a huge cast. We have smooth talking Finnegan (Glen Powell), philosophizing Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), ultra competitive McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin), Roper (Ryan Guzman), and Dale (J. Quinton Johnson). Also a few ladies, Zoey Deutch and Dora Madison.

But also a lot more dudes. Like Tanner Kalina, Austin Amelio, Temple Baker, Juston Street, and Forrest Vickery. And more, but I am tired of linking them.

Several sweet stashes exist in every scene, seriously.

It is really dang hard to talk about just what in the hell Everybody Wants Some!! is about. Thankfully, it isn’t that hard to talk about why the movie is good.

First up, the guys had a lot of personality. Everyone was different, but everyone felt real. I was excited to see Powell and Jenner as major roles as well. Powell played Chad in Scream Queens season 1 and was arguably the best character ever made. Jenner was the winner of season 2 of The Glee Project, which was a reality show to get on Glee, became a main character and apparently is in fucking movies now. Crazy. Jenner did a fine job, Powell was fantastic. Russell also played a wonderful character with an amusing plot line.

The film itself is also decently funny. Again, it is almost entirely just shenanigans between teammates. Hanging out, shooing the shit, hitting the bong, whatever you wanna call it. Just people existing.

It can be a sports movie without really any sports it turns out. It can be a good film despite having no reason to even exist. This is a definition of a “fun” movie for me. Not exploding action blockbusters, which have tons of problems and a bad plot. But a film like this where it is just about fun. And Everybody Wants to have Fun. (Sure, also it can be pretty sexist, but it is going for accuracy of the time, not a statement of how people should behave).

The Secret Life of Pets is just one of those animated movies coming out this year that I gave absolutely, positively, no fucks about. There are animated movies all the time and all of them are competing to be the best.

I wasn’t apathetic because it wasn’t Disney or Pixar. I like a lot of other studios, I am not some weird populist. No, I am apathetic because it is being made by Illumination Entertainment. Before this film, they have made 5 movies and they are all objectively bad. Despicable Me, its sequel and Minions were bad, The Lorax was bad, and Hop was racist and bad.

I only saw the original trailer for The Secret Life Of Pets a few months ago. Outside of the awkward title, it just didn’t look like it would be an original movie. Oh, talking pets? That hasn’t been done before. (Cough)

Now a 25 minute scene on venom drugs in a kids movie? That is new.

The movie takes place in NYC, big place, lot of people, lot of animals. And pets can talk and understand each other. Not just pets, all animals. They have some universal language despite not having the same noises.

Max (Louis C.K.) is a loyal house pet, taken as a puppy from a box for free by his owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper). He is greatful for her and waits almost all day in front of the door when she leaves. He has a ton of friends in the apartment complex and across the way who like to hang out while the owners are away. There is Chloe (Lake Bell), a fat cat, Mel (Bobby Moynihan), a pug, Buddy (Hannibal Buress), a dachshund, and a bird Sweet Pea who I guess doesn’t talk, just chirps.

But then Katie comes home with a surprise. She comes home with Duke (Eric Stonestreet). He is big, he is wild, and he is taking over the alpha dog status from Max. So Max wants to get rid of him. He wants to destroy the place so Katie will take him back to the pound. They begin to fight with each other more and more, and sure, yeah, somehow it ends up with them both now out of the apartment, collars lost, just trying to get back home.

And they are in New York City. Everyone knows it is a rough and tumble place for strays. You all saw Oliver & Company. On the streets they have to deal with animal control, the League of Flushed Pets (run by a bunny voiced by Kevin Hart), and shit like water.

Also featuring Jenny Slate as the puffy Gidget who lived across the street and was in love with Max, Albert Brooks as Tiberius, a hawk, and Steve Coogan, Dana Carvey, Tara Strong, and Michael Beattie.

Duke could straight up eat Max. And Katie. And me.

Like I had feared, The Secret Life of Pets doesn’t offer a whole lot to the animation genre. The animation isn’t state of the art, with the quality looking more or less the same as the first Despicable Me film. This time there are only four or five important human characters, so their awkward proportional bodies isn’t super distracting like it is for other films. We just get slightly exaggerated pet bodies, which is a bit easier to accept.

About half of the film reminded me of Toy Story, the first one, the one that came out 21 years ago! New pet (toy), they argue and fight, both pets (toys) get lost from home and face near death to get back. Hell, there are a couple of scenes where they even have to chase a car where one or the other is trapped.

Nothing was surprising about this movie. It is incredibly simplistic and places where they could have added conflict and a bit of emotional connection are just nothing. Duke had an older owner and they attempt to find them during their time in the city. Without spoilers, things don’t go the right way. Perfect time for a nice emotional scene, but it is rushed through and another bullshit conflict is added. Bullshit conflict to move the plot is lazy, and this film is full of it.

One more complaint paragraph before some pros, don’t worry. The ending was a complete mess too. From the quickest phone call animal control response ever, to the unnecessary all out brawl between pets, to a no real stakes rescue, to the third or fourth time of the animals driving crazily vehicles, it just ended on so many bad notes. And yes, a brawl to solve a big issue is shit. Grown Ups 2 did it, and this movie did it just for a quick joke. Especially when an easy explanation could have fixed everything and taught some better morals.

Unrelated fun fact: An Andrew WK song appears in this movie. Party, party, party!

“But why with all these issues did you give it an average rating?” Well, surprisingly the voice acting saved the shit out of this movie. Kevin Hart as a bunny? I didn’t know I needed that in my life. His voice works great in animated films and his antics get less annoying when he isn’t the lead. Jenny Slate has been annoying to me in her last few films, but her as the Gidget was also pretty great. Albert Brooks as a hawk is the final amazing aspect of the voice acting. All three brought their A-game and brought it on hard.

The animation wasn’t completely average in every area either. The scenes with the snake, both seen above and as a sort of password felt really cool. They worked the 3D really well to make these animals pop out in unique ways. And shit, there was a dream sequence about sausage featuring the finale song from Grease, and it was a visual explosion of wonder.

The Secret Life of Pets won’t win awards for story, visuals, or make a lot of money. But the cast do the best with what they are given and technically make the best film Illumination Entertainment has ever made (in my eyes).

I still don’t want a sequel, because the entire idea behind all of this is just so uninspired. It feels like a straight to DVD animated film, just with some top tier celebrities to voice the animals.

Every once in awhile a truly surprising film comes out. It could be surprising by having incredible acting from people considered to be B-stars. It could be surprising by having some new technology and allowing great special effects.

Or it could be thanks to a truly absurd and original idea that just blows your mind as a viewer. Something that has never been discussed like it was in a movie before, something that will leave you as a changed movie goer by opening your mind just a tad bit.

I am about to fully review Swiss Army Man. But as a suggestion, if you know nothing about the film and want a crazy experience? I suggest you go and watch it without checking out the trailer, without my small plot synopsis, completely blind and just let the movie happen on you.

Uh oh, dead Harry Potter, that means this is your last chance.

Hank (Paul Dano) is on a tiny deserted island, like, really small, with only some rocks in a big mound. He has been there for some time and he is ready to kill himself. But then, a body washes on the shore.

Hank hopes it is a live person so he can have company, but nope, it is just another dead body. This dead body (Daniel Radcliffe) gave him one small glimpse of hope before smashing it all away. And this body keeps farting, almost constantly, making it even more bizarre. But then Hank sees the body floating on the water, almost propelled by these same farts. Since Hank has nothing else to live for, he hops on that body and rides it like Jetski to freedom.

Well, at least to somewhere else. He finds himself on a much bigger beach, with a forest and trash. He is now SOMEWHERE in the world and damn it, that body helped him. Maybe that body can help him some more too, or at least, he feels like he has to bring him to civilization to get the proper burial he deserves. So he brings him with it.

And sure enough, that body ends up helping him in more ways than he ever imagined. And when the body starts to talk back, Hank helps him more than he ever imagines as well.

Also featuring (slightly, very slightly), Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Richard Gross.

LIKE A GODDAMN JETSKI.

Are you still with me? Even though you found out the movie is about a farting corpse and a guy trying to make it back to civilization? I bet the Jetski gif made you stay. You’re welcome for that, and that happens in the first 10 minutes.

Speaking of time, Swiss Army Man is only around an hour and a half long and it ends up being the perfect time for a movie this long. We don’t get overlong sequences of them trying to survive and the ending goes at a good pace. We are given several different montages of the Radcliffe / the “Multi Purpose Tool Guy” being used in unique ways to help Hank survive and they are done in a strange way to really add to the magic of the whole movie.

Keeping with the slightly absurd concept, the music in this film is a phenomenal fit. The movie music is basically made entirely by Radcliffe and Dano. Okay, I know in reality, the music is done by some performers, somewhere else, with extra instruments and all. But as it is put into the film, it is mimicked after their own dialogue and noises and flows wonderfully. The music itself is an experience. It feels airy, full of adventure, and downright inspiring.

The reason this movie works so well is that Dano and Radcliffe fully commit themselves to their roles. There are no sly winks to the camera or hidden smiles. They are two people in this serious situation and despite how crazy it all feels, they work together to make it work. It takes some high level chemistry to pull it off. Both Dano and Radcliffe pull off extraordinary performances. Definitely Radcliffe’s best performance ever. And it is a top one for Dano, but for Dano, almost everything is top level.

Swiss Army Man is bound to be one of the most unique experiences in cinema over the last decade. It is a magical film with enough ambiguity to make the viewer think and draw their own conclusions. The ending gets a bit weird, but to me it really just shows that anything is possible. Just don’t give up and the weird can become reality.

You saw the title of this review. You aren’t a complete noob. You know what is going down.

With this, I have reached review number 1650 for my website. Like I have been saying more and more lately, sure, that number isn’t sexy, but a milestone is still sexy to me. My last few Milestone Reviews have had a theme of career ending films for the actors involved. So I figured we needed to take a break from that and switch to babies.

I used to hate babies. They confused me. Then I went and had one of my own. Hell, my baby turned 1 just last week. Literally a week ago from this posting. That is crazy. I understand babies now. And I also understood that Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 was considered one of the worst films ever created. Have I seen it? Of course not, why would I watch anything back then starring babies? But now it is basically a film I have to review eventually as a Milestone Review.

BUT IT IS A SEQUEL. A movie has come before it. Baby Geniuses. A whole five years earlier, when it was still the 1990s! The 90’s have a lot of weird and strange movies, reviewing them all would be a terrifying endeavor. But this time, there is an important reason. If I never see Baby Geniuses, then I can never see Superbabies without the proper context! Don’t worry, Superbabies won’t be review #1700. Instead I will just sneak it out sometime in the future. Definitely before review #2000.

Daww, babies giggling or something. That can be cute.

Babies are inherently smart. That is the main point of this movie. They know a whole lot about the universe. Secrets of the universe. That is all hiding up in their baby heads. And they can communicate with other babies, using their baby talk language. It is just that once they start learning the actual human language they forget everything before then. They call it crossing over. Learning human talk means forgetting everything they knew from baby times and thus becoming non important entities in the world.

If you missed my explanation, don’t worry, a high tech computer explains all of the backstory to Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd), despite being a doctor who knows all of this to be true. Heep and Dr. Kinder (Kathleen Turner) just haven’t fully figured out baby speak yet. They know how to teach babies to be incredibly smart, including karate and shit, they just don’t know how to communicate with those little ankle biters.

Look at how evil they look! Mwhahaha!

Anyways, their best baby is Sylvester (I don’t want to tag the babies or their voice people) as he has been there the longest. He is almost 2 years old, an excellent fighter (sigh), and constantly trying to escape their laboratories at BabyCo. BabyCo is a company that just makes toys and items for babies, makes sense.

Sylvester (or Sly as they call him) is a twin that they took from an orphanage. The other twin is Whit, but he was adopted by Robin (Kim Cattrall) and Dan (Peter MacNicol). Robin is the niece of Dr. Kinder, and Dan is just really good with babies and writes books or something.

Holy fuck that is a big baby!

Anyways, Sly does another escape attempt, and guess what! It is successful. It involves hiding in a dirty diaper basket, getting thrown away, and getting the crap (heh) out of there. He tries to bring another baby with him, a girl, but she is too scared to go. So, obviously, she goes alone.

And then he heads to a mall. To hide, he switches clothes with a girl baby and goes completely undercover. Yep, he wears drag as the baby calls it. Sly waits until the mall is closed before going out of hiding and he has the mall to himself! Yes!

When you have a mall to yourself, obviously you can now play video games. And change your outfit! So we get an entire baby fashion show, seeing the baby in a tux, a Saturday Night Fever outfit, and more get ups. While dancing and doing random shit.

This picture isn’t good enough. Just watch the scene while it exists on YouTube.

That scene really irks me for probably obvious reasons. Babies can’t dance, just like babies can’t fight and stuff. But since this is just a one camera shot of him dancing a few times, not a lot of quick cuts, they couldn’t fake it well. So they got a tiny good dancing toddler/kid or midget to do all the dancing. Or a large person and made them look small by perspective. But then they OBVIOUSLY just kind of attached a the face of the baby onto the dancer both times. It looks awkward as it is badly done and obviously fake.

Just such poor quality. I mean, at this point in the movie I already knew it was terrible. I just didn’t expect it to get this bad.

Oh hey, did I mention JoyLand? It is a baby themed Theme Park, entirely indoors. Kids can use it too. All of it is free for them, parents have to pay and the money goes to research or charity. Everything is robotic, including that one giant robot baby. There is an entirely robotic petting zoo too, that a child can take a controller for an animal and make them do things. Why? Because apparently no one else has one like it.

Although, it takes away from any reason to really go. People can see fake animals every day, clearly a real petting zoo is a superior thing, but whatever. I am sure the robot stuff won’t come back to harm them.

I also have barely talked about these guys. Maybe I will do that now.

Thanks to the most unlikely of circumstances, Sly picks and outfit that Whit owns. And they both happen to be wearing it. Robin decides to take Whit to the mall and they run into each other in one of those big crawl tube places. They freak each other out, go opposite ways. So Robin ends up grabbing Sly and the goons end up grabbing Whit! Oh no!

Sly is stoked, because he escape. He goes back to that house. He finds out that Whit had a sister, a bit younger than him, Carrie. And Carrie knows that Sly is an impostor but doesn’t know what to think. Whit is back at the secret lab, with a bunch of smarter babies, all sad and crying and confused. But no one cares. They don’t care about the crying baby. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT THE CRYING BABY EVERYONE.

This lady is a big fat phony. She just wants to eat the babies.

Where am I? I barely remember.

Dr. Kinder realizes quickly that the goons grabbed the wrong baby. It is actually that fuckface Whit, her nieces adopted kid. So she figures she will just go running over to her house to grab the correct kid, no problems.

But there are problems. Namely in that Dan through his own research has basically figured out baby talk. He can understand the babble and what it means in actual Human English. That’s fucking crazy. And when his kid tells him to not let him be left with Dr. Kinder, he listens.

There are a fuck ton of other babies in this movie, but none of them really matter.

Anyways, some more dumb stuff happens for awhile. Then all the babies in the research facility are sent to Lichtenstein, because that is where their other lab is. The babies at the house led by Sly decide to break into Joyland/BabyCo to break the other babies out. Or destroy the research. Or something. They do it by hypnotizing Lenny (Dom DeLuise), whom I don’t even know why he is in this movie. Him or Dickie (Kyle Howard).

And of course, the robot animals and robot babies are used to take out all the guards. Some more things happens, Dr. Kinder loses, and the babies Whit and Sly decide to cross over from the baby speak land into Human language land, leaving behind the secrets of the universe and more. Sly gets adopted by Robin and Dan and yay families.

The ending then has like, 3 minutes of montage of the babies doing stuff, like, actual clips from the movie we just saw, with the Randy Travis song The Gift Of Love for some reason. I guess they wanted that emotional impact ending and to fulfill your quota of babies for the next week.

Kyle, what are you even doing? And this isn’t even his worst outfit.

I can readily admit that this is not my best written Milestone Review. It is not even top half most likely. It doesn’t help that within the first 10 minutes of the movie I knew I already hated it, with the rest of the 80 or so minutes not doing a damn thing to change my mind.

So yeah, it became a bit harder to remember all the different aspects of the film. Like random baby names. Like the purpose of Deluse or Howard in the film. Like the plan at the end. Like how Lichtenstein was even involved. My mind tried to completely wipe all knowledge of the film right after viewing it, with only my few notes written down as a guide to actually write this summary.

It doesn’t help that this movie is from the 1990s, was a crap quality, and finding decent pictures of it on google was a major pain.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it is a comedy that doesn’t have any good humor. Oh, they insert a bunch of giggling babies to make you think funny moments are happening, but babies giggle at every random little thing. It is like they made this movie for babies and no one else to find entertaining. But if you know babies, they can watch and be entertained by anything, regardless of how deep the content is.

And honestly, if you are going to have a movie where babies before 2 years are super smart, know all these things and communicate with each other, you shouldn’t still have them sound like babies. That is boring. You know what is funny? Babies sounding like adults. Just look at those ETrade Baby commercials, talking about adult things with a grown up voice.

Hilarious!

This movie is not and once I hit Publish, I will forget about this one too. Let’s assume I need no previous knowledge to understand Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.

Eddie The Eagle is one of those movies that I heard was coming out, I wanted to see, and then never saw. I know I know, it happens all the time, but usually I at least manage to see the movies that interest me.

Fun fact about watching the movie. Well, fun to me. The entire time, despite knowing the actual actors name, I assumed it was Emile Hirsch. The problem is that I could not remember Emile Hirsch’s name, but assumed it was very close to Taron Edgerton. They don’t really look alike, have no where similar names, but I finished the film thinking “Man, that guy from Prince Avalanche sure did nail it!”

It is one of the strangest mix ups I have ever experienced, so strange that I decided to write about it in the intro of a movie review.

“What is this, a ski jump arena for ANTS?”

Eddie Edwards (Taron Edgerton, not anyone else) always wanted to go to the Olympics when he was a boy. He was kind of nerdy, but he had a goal and put his mind to it. He just wasn’t very athletic. He tried so many types of Olympic actives but always came up short. His mum (Jo Hartley) encouraged him to reach for the stars, but his dad (Keith Allen) eventually got sick of it, wanted him to end his obsession and to focus on getting a job and an income. And then Eddie decided he was doing it all wrong. He should train for the Winter Olympics instead.

So Eddie learns to ski and heck, he becomes pretty good at it too. He gets decently fast, but he still doesn’t qualify for the British Olympic team. Partially because they think he is a weird guy and not “Olympic Athlete” material. You know, he is quirky. An embarrassment. So what does Eddie do? He finds a new thing to try. Olympic Ski Jumping. If he can learn how to jump and reach a certain distance, then he can qualify for the Olympics on his own, standards be damned!

Which is why Eddie heads to Germany to a Ski Jumping school. If he can learn to jump quickly, he can participate in a competition, qualify, and still make it to the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics! Yes, those Winter Olympics. The same ones that featured the Jamaican Bobsled team. And sure, he finds a gruff but eventually lovable coach (Hugh Jackman) and is faced with the fact that most jumpers start training when they are 6 and not when they are in their 20’s. But damn it, this is his best chance at going to the Olympics and he won’t let anything stop him!

Also starring Edvin Endre, Rune Temte, Iris Berben, Jim Broadbent, and Christopher Walken.

Yeah, technically this is not how an Eagle would fly. But if an eagle had Skis, maybe they would!

I am only human. That means I like to be inspired every once in awhile, and hell, I can find a sports movie inspiring as well. I love the classics but I have found lately that sports movies are trying to hard for inspiration and forcing too many changes into the story. Only a movie studio can take an amazing 100+ game winning streak and lie about everything after the team finally lost and think its a good idea. I’ve been needing something greater than Spare Parts or McFarland, USA or Million Dollar Arm to really get me going.

Thankfully, Eddie the Eagle had everything I wanted and fulfilled something missing in me for years. Hell, I felt inspired just six minutes into the movie. A lot of credit needs to go to the sound and music team. I don’t know what inspired the music, but the tune throughout the film just made me feel like I could do anything.

And heck, the movie is about a guy that constantly got shit upon by others. Especially those in charge. No one wanted him to succeed and constantly they blocked his attempts to go to the Olympics. But he made it. Did he medal? Nope. Did he do his best? You betcha! And he broke records too. Mostly because no one before him had really Ski Jumped in GB since the 1920s.

And what confused me the most after the film ended is that it DIDN’T give me a nice blurb about what ended up happening with Eddie after the Olympics. That is because the Olympics changed their rules to make people like Eddie ineligible for the Olympics in future years. Basically, modern Olympic people don’t know how to have fun and are jerk faces. But I had to learn that on my own.

Egerton was wonderful as the lead and I just wanted to hug him the whole film. This is a drastically different role than the one he played in Kingsman, so I am now excited to see where Egerton takes his career outside of that franchise. The guy can act.

Fly like and Eddie the Eagle. Do it or live in regret the rest of your life.

Anton Yelchin has passed away at 27 thanks to a freak accident at his home. This is terribly sad and tragic news. A young death is always hard to wrap your mind around and I don’t think I will really understand he is gone for a few years. He has five films on his IMDB, at the time of this writing, is five films, so he will still be gracing us with his presence for months to come.

I always try to quickly review a film of a recently deceased actor, if possible, as soon as I can as a sort of tribute to them. This review is actually up on the site just two days after the passing, my quickest turn around. Yelchin has been in a ton of films I haven’t seen so there was plenty to choose from. Thankfully, for the films I have seen, he has consistently given his best and never been part of a film I absolutely hated. From Star Trek, to Green Room, to Like Crazy, to Fright Night, to Charlie Bartlett, to fucking Odd Thomas, his range of characters is pretty great.

And it sucks that with his early passing the world has lost such a great acting potential. Who knows where he might have taken his acting? Would he have an Oscar? Does complaining about the loss of talent make me an asshole? Who knows.

But now I am reviewing a film, 5 to 7, recommended by another critic last year. And I will probably go back and watch a lot of recent films from him because I probably should have watched them before. But now I’m rambling, woo new movies!

I’m not crying, it’s just been raining…on my face.

Brian (Anton Yelchin) is a typical New Yorker. He is living as a writer, but nothing he writes is getting published. It is okay, because his parents (Glenn Close, Frank Langella) have money and he doesn’t have to rush to a job. They want him to go to Law School, but they will let him try writing for now.

Then Brian meets Arielle (Bérénice Marlohe). He sees her smoking a cigarette, so he walks across the street to join her. Suave as fuck. She finds him charming so she invites him back to smoke next week, and since he shows up, she invites him on a date later on from 5 to 7 that night. A very specific time because it has cultural meaning.

The 5 to 7 time in French culture at least is a more open time for couples, where they can be off doing anything and it not really be suspicious or weird. And it has grown to mean a time when you can hang out with your paramour. Brian didn’t know about this, so he was very surprised to find that Arielle had a husband (Lambert Wilson). But he is aware of Arielle dating Brian, and hell, he has a side woman as well (Olivia Thirlby). They are just an open couple who know they need companionship outside of their marriage and their family. Yep, kids too.

Brian is young, 24 or so, but he really likes Arielle and cannot stop thinking about her, so he gives it a shot. He has to realize that he is the side bitch and can only see her romantically a couple hours a day. No romantic weekend getaways. No late night parties. Just a little bit of intimacy. And that is a weird thing to get used to.

Shit, if I had them as parents, I would probably just write all day too.

I was a bit worried going into this movie. It felt like a romantic comedy. I knew it wouldn’t be typical, but I have seen a lot and it is hard to make something feel unique and different. Hell, when they introduced the dad’s mistress, I was worried this would turn into a What Maisie Knew situation. Without going into too many spoilers, it flirted with that specific scenario, but thankfully still surprised me.

The best part about 5 to 7 is that it felt real. Brian was a young and inexperienced kid and not the best flirter, so their first interaction was awkward. I almost judged Yelchin and thought it was just bad acting, until I realized it was supposed to look pathetic and made perfect sense. Brian wasn’t perfect, Arielle wasn’t perfect, everyone in this movie had flaws and felt realistic. Hell, the parents bickered and argued, but you could tell there was love there and understanding.

So thankfully 5 to 7 featured fantastic acting from all the major players involved. And the story is pretty unique despite dealing with a subject matter in films before.

If you want a realistic movie about extramarital affairs, that are parts of open relationships, and how it affects the lives of everyone involved, 5 to 7 is a pretty good choice. If you want to just see a well acted film, 5 to 7 is still a good choice. At times amusing, other times sad, 5 to 7 is probably the whole package for a film.

I first was going to give it a 4 out of 4, but I am sure that is just my emotions taking over. The reality is the film was sad, but I never was able to fully connect with it emotionally still. I didn’t cry and really, how great can it be if I don’t cry?!