Tag: Comedy

Is Kindergarten Cop good? I honestly don’t remember. My memories of it are fond, but that is based entirely on the 2-3 jokes I can actually remember. It came out 26 years ago and is probably objectively bad, but since it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and was directed by Ivan Reitman we can look back on it with some sweet ass nostalgia glasses.

So why the sequel? Fuck if I know. The rights were there, the plot was easy to put forward, and it would involve a large man dealing with kids. Basic 90’s comedy gold. I mean, that is when we also got Mr. Nanny! Nothing funnier than seeing someone with muscles do woman work and deal with shit head kids.

Despite everything, Kindergarten Cop 2 now exists. It is of course not at all related to the first film, straight to DVD, and we have to go on with our lives knowing this to be true. Barring time travel, Kindergarten Cop 2 will now always exist, and maybe even one day a Kindergarten Cop 3.

This would be the world gone mad should there ever be a KC3.

Agent Reed (Dolph Lundgren) is your typical tough guy, no nonsense, detective. His current worries involve getting a Zogu (Aleks Paunovic) into jail. Just your normal bad guy. They have someone in witness protection, Katja (Rebecca Olson), who was a part of his organization and is going to tell everything to put him behind bars.

Thanks to some Zogu shit, we find out that the servers may have been hacked in some way, and now a flash drive exists with the names and locations of everyone on the witness protection program. Zogu wants that flash drive to kill Katja and then no case can be made against him (outside of him killing Katja). But the flash drive was in the possession of a kindergarten teacher who is now dead.

Apparently the kids would know where it was, but after interviewing a few of them they find nothing. So they feel the only thing they can do is for Reed to go undercover and find the flash drive by interrogating them in a friendlier setting. But those darn kids are just so damn annoying.

Argh! Worst assignment ever, am I right?!

Starring Bill Bellamy as his partner, Fiona Vroom, Sarah Strange, Darla Taylor, and sure, let’s list some kids, Raphael Alejandro, Tyreah Herbert, and Abbie Magnuson.

Ah, kids! Still yelling! Ahh!

To be fair, this movie is probably very similar to the first one. I don’t remember. KC ended with the night scene at the radio tower or something right? Only one kid mattered. In this film the whole class was involved at the end, because then you can see little kids pummeling a bad guy. Hilarious!

But I found out the point of this movie. It was to complain about kids these days. That is about it. Schools coddling kids, not allowing things like peanut butter, or chocolate, and being nice and equal and shit. That is where half of the jokes come from. Like it was written by some old geezer who just doesn’t understand change.

The action? Not important or exciting. The Lundren/kid interactions? Not too great. Predictable. Standard.

Kindergarten Cop 2 isn’t even the type of film you would want to put on Netflix while cleaning your house. It is the type that you never watch. Ever. Just don’t.

Nice guys have gotten a lot of bad press lately. And that is because of the “nice guys” trying to take advantage of women by befriending them and expecting sex and berating them and being not nice people. So calling someone a nice guy is a pretty big insult.

And The Nice Guys movie happens to be coming out the same day as The Angry Bird Movie, what a whirlwind of emotions!

Fun fact, if you look at the last names of the leads of this film, you will realize that they are also, in fact, birds, making this seem like something more than a coincidence.

A gosling is a baby goose, for those uninformed shitters out there!

Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a private eye, raising his daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), alone. He mostly works sex jobs and things involving the porn industry, and screwing over old ladies into getting paid for working cases. Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is a hired muscle, paid to beat up stalkers, people messing with young women or daughters, just creeps in general.

And life is good for them both in the late 1970’s. That is until Healy is paid to beat up March, for “stalking” some chick named Amelia (Margaret Qualley). Except March wasn’t even looking for Amelia. He was paid to find Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio), a porn star who died a few days earlier, but whose aunt swore she saw her later.

Everything seemed to be going great after the beat down, until Healy headed back home and found two thugs (Beau Knapp, Keith David) trying to kill him. They too are looking for Amelia, whom Healy hasn’t seen in quite a few days. Something bigger is going on with this girl, and if he wants to feel safe at his home, he has to find her. So he might as well get some help. And he only knows why investigator who has any sort of luck finding her. You know it.

And then some shit goes down.

Also starring Kim Basinger, Yaya DaCosta, Matt Bomer, Jack Kilmer, Ty Simpkins, and Hannibal Buress as a giant killer bee.

Don’t stare. I did just fucking say a giant killer bee.

Ever here of this guy Shane Black? He actually wrote/directed Iron Man 3 and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, while also writing a bunch of Lethal Weapon movies and more action things. He loves action, and now he has written The Nice Guys, which has been in development hell. Him and his buddy, Joel Silver, a producer, have been just trying to write and rewrite it for years, and eventually they got the actors involved and made it as quick as they could.

And to Mr. Black and Mr. Silver, I would like to say, hey, thanks for keeping up the faith.

The Nice Guys was a hilarious movie. Gosling and Crowe have an incredible chemistry despite their age differences and in general very different film history. The comedy and timing between them as practically perfect. And even better than their characters had big flaws, not just strange stereotypes. After watching them in this film, I practically demanded a sequel, but the theater worker claimed he had no control over that.

The only other person worth noting is Angourie Rice, who plays the daughter, and was in the very terrible Walking With Dinosaurs. She was basically a third member of their group and really tied the film together. That also means that that for the most part, the rest of the cast weren’t really notable. And there are some decent names. Bomer felt robotic, Basinger/DaCosta didn’t feel natural, and Qualley as Amelia was forgettable.

A great action comedy for the leads and one that I hope spawns a future movie. It is still a film worth watching in theaters, but equally a good idea to watch with a group of friends at 3 am on a Saturday morning.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier before 2016 was the best Marvel movie to date. It was solid all around, had the best action, the biggest stakes, and was nearly perfect. Before that, Captain America: The First Avenger was probably the second most solid solo film of Phase 1, behind Iron Man and also behind The Avengers.

Despite the resounding success of Captain America films and the Russo Brothers at directing, I was worried about Captain America: Civil War. Like, really really worried.

First of all, it is one of the only full plot lines I have actually read the comics for, so it holds a special place in my heart.

Second, I had seen a few trailers and I was worried about a lot of things. If the trailers gave too much away. That the plot felt forced (unnatural) and the big fight between the two groups would be cheesy. That the previous films didn’t set things up enough for the resentment to be believable.

A huge list of worries. I only need to state them out clear so I am not shown to be a fanboy. Especially after Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, I was ready for disappointment.

And no matter what happened, I would be Team Cap all the way.

This movie will make more sense if you saw Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man. I assume you did, because come on, Marvel.

The film actually starts out, after some flashbacks, in Lagos, Nigeria! Some current avengers (Captain America (Chris Evans), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)) are staking out important buildings, looking for Crossbones (Frank Grillo). Needless to say, not everything goes perfectly and some civilians get hurt. Namely, a group of missionaries!

Based on those events, the events in NYC, in Sokovia, and more, the world has decided to stand up in unity and demand action. Over 100 countries have signed the Sokovia Accords, which states that the Avengers will now only act if they have permission from a UN Panel, and of course, have to act if they deem it necessary. A few of the Avengers agree with these accords. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is feeling guilty and War Machine (Don Cheadle) is on his side. Hell, even Vision (Paul Bettany) feels it is necessary to avoid problems in the future.

But not Captain. He has trust issues with these sorts of groups now, and doesn’t want to be forced to step aside if he sees wrong doing, or be forced to do something he sees as wrong. So he doesn’t sign the papers. The papers are led by the King of Wakanda, T’Chaka (John Kani), who is especially pissed that their primary export was used to make Ultron. And sure enough, more bad things happen. Apparently The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) is at it again!

Fuck, so much shit. Captain believes Bucky is just brainwashed and wants to protect his old friend and not let the government kill him. So yeah, there is some conflict here. Captain and a few others agree to help him out, to get to the bottom of all of this, while the other guys have to stop them for negligently doing bad things to the UN and other officers. Fuck, who is right, I don’t know?!

Also featuring the return of Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), and Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp). And of course, introducing Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, Tom Holland as Spider-Man, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, and Daniel Brühl as Baron Zemo. William Hurt plays the Secretary of State and Martin Freeman as the head of the UN Avengers Council thing.

Shit Spider-Man, why do you gotta go and steal my boy’s shield like that?

Captain America: Civil War is two and a half hours long, but I found myself wanting more. I needed more. More of everything! I could spend the next 500 words just comparing it to BvS, but that wouldn’t be a review of this film, it’d just be a shitty comparison. So I will keep it short: Civil War did a lot of things right that BvS did not.

Civil War turns out to be a fanboy’s wet dream. The action is incredible throughout most of the film. For each and every spout of athleticism, you can understand the fight. There aren’t a thousand quick cuts or shaky cameras. You will not only see well choreographed fighting skill sets before your eyes, but each character fights true to their persona and powers, so no one ends up fighting the same. Of course, a lot of heroes end up fighting and battling with other heroes. We also get tons of team ups you haven’t seen before. All of this creates for some intense scenes with a whole lot of fan service.

Now now, I know what you are thinking. If basically everyone is a good guy with future films, the tension can’t be real. Well, for the most part you shouldn’t expect people to die. Because it is a comic book movie and all that reason. I am not saying people don’t die, but I am saying for sure a lot of people do get hurt, both physically and emotionally. This is not a movie that wraps up everything with a nice big bow, it changes the future landscape of the films…much like The Winter Soldier did.

On another note, Civil War doesn’t go the obvious route throughout the plot. It didn’t go the typical Marvel movie route. It didn’t just keep escalating the odds to ridiculous levels. It had emotional backing behind it, on every side and even on the villain side. Some can complain that the villain is too calculating, but when I compare his plan to someone like Lex Luther’s (fuck I did it again), his makes a lot more sense without ridiculous stretches.

Thank’s Black Panther. You are clearly just aggressively giving the shield back here.

Now here, allow me to hype things.

Black Panther HYPE! What a great introduction to this guy. He was shown to be strong, agile, moral with conflicting issues given his royal upbringing. His inclusion in this film was well written and explained, along with why he chose to fight. He is in this film a bunch, more than most of the other Avengers. I am so excited for this eventual film and future roles.

Spider-Man HYPE! Spider-Man was in this film a lot more than I expected as well. We got to see him as Peter Parker a bit as well for an introduction. His fighting was very spider like, along with his normal combat quips. They also showed his age really well, when compared to the old ass fuckers on the team, giving a clear and distinct gap in knowledge bases and general attitude.

Future films HYPE! I can’t wait for more. Like I said originally, I wasn’t looking forward to Civil War. After BvS, I certaintly wasn’t looking forward to Suicide Squad. All of my hopes were riding with X-Men: Apocalypse, which I don’t see as being good as the last two, and Doctor Strange, which I am pretty excited for. But now I have higher hopes for the future of Marvel films. Higher than I already anticipated.

On a final note, despite the large cast and significance of the plot, Civil War was worthy of being called a Captain America film. It wasn’t just Avengers 2.5. His characters was largely the focus of the film, but at the same time he wasn’t a simple protagonist. Chris Evans is GOAT, hooray movies.

Originally, 2016 was looking to be a poor year for musical films. We would have movies about music, sure, but not enough musicals. Most of them are coming later in the year, up to this point I would say we have exactly 0 for the entire year.

But let’s take a step back and talk about John Carney. When I first saw Once I was disappointed, because it was hyped up as this wonderful musical, so I expected synchronized dancing and ridiculous situations. But it was raw and realistic. On later viewings, I understood it better, but still cannot fully appreciate it. Begin Again I have still only seen once, but thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a very different film, going from indie to main stream, both in theme and reality.

And now we have Sing Street. Another movie about people who just want to play music and make a living off of it. And hey, this one has street in the title, so you know this time the singing on streets is expected and not just a bonus. This time he is returning back to his indie roots and writing a whole lot more music. But this one isn’t about adults. Screw adults. This is about a boy making a band to impress a girl, which is how most bands ever got their starts.

And clearly they are the funkiest teenage group in Dublin!

Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is just a teenage kid, the youngest in his family, and his parents (Aiden Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy) are going through a tough time. Hell, this is 1985 Ireland, everyone is going through a tough time. Jobs are getting lost and many Irish youth are flocking to London for work and leaving their homes in a worst state. And now due to their financial state, Conor is transferring schools to a much cheaper Catholic school, where the boys are rough.

And now Conor gets bullied by Barry (Ian Kenny) and the head priest, Brother Baxter (Don Wycherley). But then he sees her. Raphina (Lucy Boynton), a girl who looks like she belongs in on film, with wild hair and jewelry. She says she is a model, so Conor asks her to be in a music video. After hearing him sing a bit, she agrees once they figure out the details. Great, now he just needs to get a band together.

He gets Darren (Ben Carolan), our little ginger kid who knows people, to be their manager/producer/camera man and introduce him to other musical kids. Conor knows how to play the guitar a bit and sing, but they need more than that. They are introduced to Eamon (Mark McKenna), who plays basically every instrument and owns them all, because his dad is in a wedding cover band. They get Ngig (Percy Chamburuka), Larry (Conor Hamilton) and Garry (Karl Rice) to complete the rest of the band.

Great, he has a band! And now, with the help of his older stay at home stoner brother, Brendan (Jack Reynor), he can write some songs, so they can make the music video and maybe win the heart of a mysterious model. You know, while all the other problems are going down. Also featuring Kelly Thornton as his older sister, Ann.

Stoop girl afraid to leave stoop?

Feelings, this film is full of feelings, how can I express these, with a sonnnng?

Sing Street was good. It was really good. Carney is some musical directing genius, that is the only way all of this makes sense. I was extremely skeptical going into this film. Based on the description, I took the film to its most basic parts, and all of his movies just sounded the same. I wondered how long he could make similar movies before we stopped caring. Well, after watching Sing Street, I could easily take at least another half dozen of these, as long as the lyrics remain original with a different overall plot.

As advertised, this film is about a boy just trying to impress a girl by starting a band. But the film is more than that. Just like it is more than a comedy. It is certainly more comedy than drama, but it deals with some serious issues involving divorce, infidelity, abuse (sexual and physical), giving up and following your dreams. I technically only cried one and a half times, but I had another half cry on the way home from the film just thinking about some of the plot.

Perhaps the strongest subplot in it is the brotherly bond between Conor and Brendan. Reynor does an incredible job as his pseudo role model while they both live in a house with parents who just don’t understand. Reynor is a complete scene stealer and you can see all of the deeper issues he is working with, culminating with not just one but two powerful emotional climaxes. If it sounds sexy that is because it WAS sexy. Reynor, I judged you badly for Transformers: Age of Extinction, now I want you to become Han Solo and win a supporting actor award for this film.

Heh. I said climax.

Ahem. Sorry. The acting from our lead was also good from Walsh-Peelo. In fact, basically the entire band and manager were all first time movie actors. Walsh-Peelo and McKenna were the main two that mattered, but the other boys held their own pretty good. Seeing the transformation of Walsh-Peelo as he learned about new bands was amusing and how he eventually coped with the failing home and school life that made up his current reality.

And finally, the soundtrack for this movie is just a blast. Both the original songs by our boy group and the 80’s music that inspires them create an overwhelmingly nostalgic experience. I have already listened to most of the original songs 3-4 times since watching the movie, thanks to YouTube. My favorite song is called “Up” and you should check it out if you are unsure if you will like the music in the movie.

Thank you Carney, you have given me a great pseudo-musical to give hope to this dry musical year.

Monkey Up is a movie I never planned on reviewing. I never planned on even knowing it existed. I could have gone my entire life and most likely I never would have heard about it in any situation. No one I know would have seen it, and know one I would meet in ten years would have seen it. It would have faded into obscurity.

However, extreme storms happened in the Houston area and it was suddenly rushed from the depths into my view. Streets were flooded, so I found myself unable to make it to the movie theater to see a screening of another film. So I had to literally drive myself back home, many hours early, suddenly finding myself needing to entertain kids.

So I turned to Netflix, like many a person under 40, and specifically set out to look for a shitty unheard of recent family movie. And there were a lot of great contenders. I wrote down some names, so maybe a few more of them will be coming your way soon. But eventually I found Monkey Up (my second choice, as my first one was a sequel, and I wasn’t ready for a series (or serious) commitment).

It was by Air Bud Entertainment, which I learned was a thing. Which makes sense, after all those films, and of course, the “Buddies” shit films.

No, this isn’t MVP and Dunston is not checking in.

Monty The Monkey (Crystal the Monkey) is a real, talking monkey in this world (voiced by Skylar Astin, technically the most famous person in this movie). He can speak English and everything, so you’d think he’d be everywhere. But nope, he is instead just the spokesman for Monkey Up, a banana flavored energy drink, which I would love to try.

His manager is Dessy (David Milchard) who first discovered him doing Shakespeare at the park. He isn’t too great at his job, since he cannot get Monty into serious roles, just shitty commercials for some quick fat cash. But the director (Chris Coppola) and owner of Monkey Up is a dick, so Monty is getting tired of it all. In fact, he heard about a famous director, Angelino Cappello (Danny Woodburn), making a film with a monkey as a lead, but he is doing it all with CGI! Oh no!

And yeah, Monty can’t convince him that he is a serious monkey actor ready for the big leagues. So he runs away and ends up in a giant doll house. That ends up in the room of Sophie (Kayden Magnuson), a present from her mom (Erin Allin O’Reilly) and dad (Jonathan Mangum) because they forgot her late after gymnastics. Also apparently everyone left the gymnastics place, fine with an elementary school girl by herself for like, many hours.

Sophie originally keeps him a secret, but then her brother (Caleb Burgess) finds out. Then the dad. Then eventually the mom. Monty decides that he wants to give this “family” thign a shot, to build up his potential as an actor to do more serious roles. He helps the brother learn Romeo and Juliet to impress a girl (Yasmeene Ball), the sister to do better at gymnastics, the dad to write his book, and of course in general do house hold chores and stuff.

By the end, Monty will learn what family really means. He will be able to reconnect with his own monkey family and maybe get out of these damn commercials. Also starring Jessi Cruickshank as an entertainment reporter, Christina Sicoli as an assistant, and John Ratzenberger as Sophie’s grandfather.

DRINK MONKEY UP! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

Seeing Crystal the Monkey in anything is very distracting. For whatever reason, almost everything makes her a male monkey. But I when I see Crystal, the first thing I think about is Annie’s Boobs. No, I’m not being weird and fantasizing about Alison Brie on a family film review. I mean the monkey on Community named Annie’s Boobs. That was my first Crystal role, even before The Hangover Part II and the Night at the Museum movies.

That’s enough monkey talk. This is a pointless movie. The story itself is one that has been told dozens of times in family films that it is almost painful to sit through. Outsider joins a family in turmoil, fixes things up, learns to be a better person, and stays with that family. Yawn, snore, writers need to try and be more original.

But they are original! This outsider is a monkey who can talk! With his own monkey issues with a similar talking family, that wears tiny monkey clothes at the zoo, and everyone is just cool with it. It is so awkward.

Overall the film can only be described as boring. I started to distract myself with cleaning and mindless walking around to get me through it. It isn’t badly filmed, or even terrible acting. It is just so mentally uninspired that it felt like torture to watch.

And here is the thing that pissed me off the most. The bad guy didn’t even get punished. To make everyone happy, he got a ridiculously amazing pay day. A stupidly large sum, that apparently the family could totally live without, because they are already rich and no biggie. And the bad guy gets money. Money and some monkey shit thrown at him, but who cares when he goes back home to start buying amazing new furniture.

I was forced into watching the trailer for The Huntsman: Winter’s War and I was confused. Based on the plot and what I remember about Snow White and the Huntsman, my timelines started to hurt. It said it was a prequel, but if events in the trailer happened in the prequel, how did we even get the first film? That was my main concern going in.

But before we get to that, it is hilarious that this movie even exists. Right after the first one came out, there was talk about a sequel but about The Huntsman instead of Snow White. The point of the first film was to give us a strong female lead character, so to kick her out for the sequel is just amusing.

Of course, there was also the scandal with the director, Rupert Sanders, and Kristen Stewart, having an extra martial affair thanks to the film. I wonder why they weren’t invited back…

There can only be so many queens in one picture.

Before the incidents of the first film, our Evil Queen (Charlize Theron) was marrying king after king, killing them, taking their kingdom, and moving on. She also had a family, namely, a sister. Freya (Emily Blunt) had no magical powers as she hadn’t unlocked them yet like the rest of her family, but after tragedy, sure enough, she had ice powers.

Freya runs to the North after losing her kids and decides if she cannot raise a baby she will raise an army (actual line from the film). So she begins to conquer nearby villages and kingdoms, stealing their kids so she could turn them into her own personal warriors. Her Huntsmen, as she calls them.

That is where we get to meet Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and Sara (Jessica Chastain), well, the kid versions of them. They are the best warriors, her cream of the crop, and they fall in love. But love is forbidden in her kingdom, for reasons. And if you remember the first film, you will remember that Eric was super drunk and depressed over the death of his wife Sara. It doesn’t take a genius to spoil what happens next.

Did I just spoil the whole movie? Nope. Because then it fast forwards to after the events of the first film. We have a prequel and a sequel. For the real plot of this movie, the magic mirror goes missing on its way to a Sanctuary to lock away its evil. So The Huntsmen is forced to go look for it to help end its evil. And on the way he has the help of some he-dwarves (Nick Frost, Rob Brydon) and she-dwarves (Sheridan Smith, Alexandra Roach).

Of course this might put him on a path to go against The Ice Queen, which is good since he hates her and all. Sam Claflin briefly resumes his past role and Sope Dirisu is also a Huntsman with speaking roles to make the cast more diverse.

You’re god damn right I’m reviewing The Huntsman and not showing The Hunstman in the pictures. #GirlPower

Off the bat, this film is definitely superior to the original, but it is still not a great film. The idea of having it as a prequel was weird to me as I couldn’t imagine a good enough story to take place pre-Snow White. And a sequel was weird because I imagined it would only dampen the point of the first film. So it did both and did the best it could to try to make a coherent story.

I have problems with the prequel, because if there is this terrible Ice Queen up North ravaging the country side, you’d think someone would mention it in the first movie. Maybe even that the Queen had a sister. The only part not shoe horned in is the fact that Sara was his wife and she dies. But even that was poorly done and didn’t seem like the type of thing that would drive him to years of depression and booze.

As for the sequel, yes it does cheapen the first film, but the first film was bad. The adventure wasn’t that great, the plans were still piss poor. The special effects were a bit better as was the humor, thanks to the dwarves and Hemsworth playing a happy Huntsman. The fight scenes in general were a lot better as well.

The film still suffers from a rushed ending with a lot of silly actions from the characters. I was pretty sure I heard the narrator say that Freya was betrayed by her sister early on, but apparently Freya didn’t know that? The betrayal came at the very end and the fact that it was supposed to be a surprise confused me.

Other minor notes: Yes, Blunt had to play someone emotionless, but it was terrible. Chastain and Hemsworth had great chemistry. Theron should not have been in this film. And this film has goblins, but these goblins are basically apes with horns with tar in their blood, reminiscent of fantasy trolls. Of course, the first film had a troll that was nothing like the fantasy troll, so they instead had to call them goblins.

The most ungoblin-y goblins I have ever seen.

Another Thursday, another foreign film. Or documentary. Really it is whatever is convenient on a Thursday and/or how hard it is to find a documentary I want to watch. And this week, a documentary to watch was too difficult!

So I picked My Big Night, as I saw the trailer recently at the theater and it looked funny. And it had dancing! I like to dance and party, every night is my big night. In the comfort of my own home. Clubs are scary.

My Big Night is directed by Álex de la Iglesia, who more recently directed The Last Circus and Witching and Bitching. The former I never heard of before, but it looks intense. The later I actually had recommended to me at least twice and I never saw. Whoops. Maybe I will get around to that one if My Big Night maintains my interest, at least a little bit.

And the first musical number reminded me awkwardly of Prisencolinensinainciusol.

Hooray the new year! Sure, it is like, August or September of 2015 when this movie takes place, but we need to celebrate this bad boy now.

Namely, the television company has serious issues, including a corrupt owner (Santiago Segura) about to lay off hundreds of people. So they have had massive protests outside of their studios. Regardless, they are filming this special months in advance to make sure it goes off without a hitch. That means retakes, reshoots, crowd shots, over and over again.

Speaking of the crowd, they are full of extras who have had to dress up in the same clothes, pretend to party with fake food and drinks, day after day. And then someone gets seriously injured and they need a new extra. That is where Jose (Pepón Nieto) comes in. He has been waiting for a temp job for months and this is the first one to bite. He will do anything, even if his ex-wife and kids are leaving the country to vacation and he has to leave his senile mother (Terele Pávez) at home alone. He also has to deal with Paloma (Blanca Suárez) a very attractive woman who is sitting next to him who is apparently a jinx but super into him.

Other plot lines include! Aging singer Alphonso (Raphael, who I’ve been told is a real singer doing a parody of himself?) battling for the “midnight” spot with a young pop star Adanne (Mario Casas). A stalker (Jaime Ordóñez) who loves Alphonso enough to want to kill him during his performance. And a few women trying to steal Adanne’s sperm to have a blackmail baby. And the two cohosts (Hugo Silva, Carolina Bang) constantly bickering over their lines while auditioning to host a future show.

And shit, even more weird side plots.

Also starring Carmen Ruiz, Carmen Machi, Carlos Areces, Luis Callejo, Enrique Villén, Tomás Pozzi, Luis Fernández, and Ana Polvorosa.

When you’re this fly, you don’t even need color.

My Big Night is an insane ride, with intersecting plot lines and characters, all woven around an absurd idea. The whole movie is absurd, so many little things working together to make this the craziest night of pre-recorded television ever. I like crazy, I like absurd, I would have just liked a little bit more details.

Honestly, the only reason I was able to understand the protesters outside, the time frame of this taping, and how crazy the taping process has been, is thanks to re-reading the plot summary after the fact online. There is so much going on during this film, that they forget to mention all the finer details.

Now, My Big Night is definitely entertaining. I had characters I was rooting for and enjoyed a lot of the music. Some of it could be lost on me culturally, especially not knowing anything about Raphael in real life. It just felt like it should have been a lot more. The ending was also pretty week, comparatively. It was like they had no idea how to end it.

The movie has a ton of promise and I would be excited to see more from this director. You’ve earned yourself a viewing of Witching and Bitching.

There is one important movie I missed in 2015, because I was tired of watching the worst of the worst. I stalled on a few films and had to watch too many 0 out of 4s in a row, so I quickly wrote my worst of the year list and moved on to bigger and better things (Oscars).

But what about Rock The Kasbah?

It opened alongside Jem and the Holograms and ended with the fifth all time worst box office opening, for films with 2,000+ theaters. Third overall live action. And the two that beat it in that category were also out this year (including Jem!). I watched Jem and We Are Your Friends, but for whatever reason avoided Rock The Kasbah.

But because I am a glutton for punishment, and a perfectionist, I had to see it and make myself feel like shit all over again.

This whole thing looks really rape-y. I am uncomfortable. Are you uncomfortable?

Richie Lanz (Bill Murray) is a skeezy manager of musicians. He has one real client, Ronnie (Zooey Deschanel), and he seems to scam other people into auditioning and giving him cash to make him their agent. What a swell guy. Operates out of a hotel.

Well, somehow Ronnie impresses a guy at a bar who books people for OSO shows for the troops in Afghanistan. Richie convinces Ronnie to go, because hey, a paid gig for months! He leaves his kid behind and they head off where Ronnie just hates it all. She gets sick and nervous and freaks out. So she decides to leave in the middle of the night once they get there, with all of their money and Richie’s passport.

So Richie is stuck there. But also in a military base/town. He can’t go back right away but he isn’t screwed. So he hands out, gets to know the locals, and eventually hears Salima (Leem Lubany). She is singing and her voice is marvelous.

Richie gets the idea to enter her in on the Afghanistan version of American Idol, but her burka and family may be an issue. And they are. And guns happen. Woo movie.

Also featuring for various sized roles: Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Arian Moayed, Scott Caan, Danny McBride, Fahim Fazli, Beejan Land, Sameer Ali Khan, and Taylor Kinney.

Your normal group of rag tag losers hoping to make it big.

Bill Murray. Just stop. You have given up for a long time it looks like. You probably gave up right after finishing Lost in Translation, but I am too lazy to check the list right now. Outside of some Wes Anderson brilliance, it just feels like everything is fake. Like he never cares, like he isn’t even trying to act. He is just playing an egotistical version of himself in every film.

But for whatever reason, Rock the Kasbah exists. Named after a song. If that song has any other reference, I don’t know it. It eventually turns into a singing competition plot line, but also women’s rights and religion, and just…existing in the middle east for no reason. Why do all these films that feature a singing competition end up being meh or worse? I’m looking at you, American Dreamz.

This film feels like a dream. A bad dream that keeps playing out, one boring situation into the next. The problem that Richie faced was an easily solvable one, but he was in Afghanistan for so long despite it. Seemingly just existing in he town, and then even longer once he found the girl. It made no sense for him to stay that long, especially since he has a daughter at home who didn’t even want him to leave. She wanted him to come home and survive and he seemed to say fuck that and this movie now exists.

Rock The Kasbah was a literal pain to get through. If I had seen it in theaters I would have walked out. Instead I had to pause it frequently just to do something else quickly to get my mind off of how bad the movie was. If I had seen it earlier, it would have placed high on my worst of the year list. Instead, it now just serves as a big bolded asterisk of a film.

We here at Gorgon Reviews believe in tradition. It is tradition that puts a review out every weekday, that keeps the chuckles coming, and forces me up late at night to write long lengthy pieces.

That’s right. Another Milestone Review. This time the magical number is 1600. And I didn’t have to look long. My last Milestone Review was The Love Guru, a truly unfunny film that killed Mike Myers‘ career and wasn’t accurate to the wonderful sport of Hockey.

But Myers used to have a buddy. A comprade, a friend, also from SNL. Dana Carvey. He played small roles mostly, never really famous, but he did make his own big flop. One that, basically, also killed his career. No longer could these dude’s just party on, they reached a point where people didn’t want to see them anymore.

And for Carvey, that point was apparently reached in 2003 with the release of The Master of Disguise. A film so hated and talked down upon on the internet, that I imagined there could be no way it was that bad. It was probably just jerks who didn’t even see it and hated the trailer. It is cool to hate on movies in a crowd, after all.

I needed to give The Master of Disguise a chance. It is important, for poor old Carvey’s sake.

I just have to remember that it came out in 2002 when jokes like these might have been funny.

Our story begins in 1979, where we learn about the Disguisey family. They are an Italian family who have learned to harness the power of disguise. Not just putting on a costume and changing your voice, but almost fully becoming a new person. They have used this power for good and to protect the world from bad people. Never anything super dangerous, just common criminals.

Which is why we see Bo Derek running from armed criminals. Bo Derek?! No, just kidding. It is actually Fabbrizio Disguisey (James Brolin) in disguise as Bo Derek. With his help, a criminal, Devlin Bowman (Brent Spiner) gets arrested. He ran a smuggling ring and thus he had to be stopped.

The life of a Disguisey is very dangerous, but it is a calling they feel in their blood. Despite this, Fabbrizio decides to not tell his young son of these gifts and responsibilities, to protect him from a hard future. And he isn’t all the way there in the head.

This isn’t even part of a disguise. For him, this is just Tuesday.

Now, 23 years later, Fabbrizio is presumably retired from the game and just running an Italian restaurant in unnamed Italian family. He has a wife (Edie McClurg), with the name of Mother Disguisey, and a awkward, nerdy son who is a waiter at the restaurant. Now, poor Pistachio, he has the urge to be a true Disguisey without knowing what that means. So instead he spends a lot of his time dressing up in his room and mimicking guests with unique voices.

These are not good traits for a waiter, but damn it, Fabbrizio loves his son. Pistachio thinks he has finally hit it off with a lovely big reared lady, Sophia (Maria Canals-Barrera), but she is actually into another waiter.

But Pistachio is still a good guy. He is nice to kids. Like little Brave Barney Baker (Austin Wolff), who hurts himself skateboarding outside the shop. To make him feel better, Pistachio lets him play with his dog, The Cuteness, whenever he wants.

And that is his mom! We will get to her eventually.

Moving right along, PISTACHIO’S PARENTS GET CAPTURED! Oh no! People break into their home and take them away and he has no idea who did it. He tries to call the police, but he sounds so ridiculous they assume it is a prank! That is when his grandfather shows up, Grandfather Disguisey (Harold Gould), to help him out. Pistachio didn’t know he existed because his dad kept him away. Grandfather realizes he needs to teach Pistachio to become a Master of Disguise, to save his parents. And no, Grandfather cannot do it for him.

Grandfather has to teach Pistachio the power of Energico, a mysterious force that only the Disguisey’s can access. By repeating some lines and focusing hard, they can truly become another person, learning skills they never knew before, or languages, or just general knowledge. It is the most important part of the disguise.

And sure, Pistachio needs an assistant too. After a long search, they find Jennifer Barker (Jennifer Esposito), Barney’s mom. She needs money and likes the fact that there is health insurance, but doesn’t understand her responsibilities. They reluctantly pick her, despite her small butt.

Turtle’s are only into butts that remind them of their mother.

Guess who kidnapped the parents? Of course, it was Devlin Bowman, out of prison after 22 years or so, and looking just as young and as fly as ever.

He has nefarious designs for them. Well not really. He is forcing Fabbrizio to use his Disguisey powers to help him steal priceless treasure from around the world. And that is about it. You know, the Constitution, Liberty Bell, things like that. In order to get him to comply, he has locked away the wife and given her drugs to make her think she is just constantly preparing dinner. But if he refuses to act, he will have her killed!

At the scene of the kidnapping, Jennifer finds a use cigar belonging to The Turtle Club, a members only rich thing in their city. Of course, Pistachio takes this name literally and tries to be the Turtle-ist person he can be. Turtle-ist de Turtle de Derp. This is the scene you can remember from the trailers. Despite Pistachio’s best efforts, they are still able to get inside. Apparently the cigar is super custom made and belonged to a Devlin Bowman. Thanks Turtle Club!

Well isn’t that special.

The duo decide to look for Bowman at a local antique fair in the city, because everyone knows that Bowman loves antiques. Pistachio dresses up like a sex crazed old lady to seduce Bowman (see above, not actually the Church Lady but close enough), and well, it doesn’t work. However, he does take a liking to Jennifer, and invites her over to a party later at his house.

And hey, that is in the job detail. She has to do it. There at the party, Pistachio is now dressed up like a pseudo-Scarface character who likes to party. Because reasons. He uses this character to distract Bowman, while Jennifer goes into his house and looks for clues.

She doesn’t find much, but what she does find is pictures that will help give the whereabouts of Fabbrizio, somehow. I honestly have no idea how that part works.

Pistachio continues to be very annoying, so Bowman sends his henchmen after Pistachio. He escapes by dressing up like a Jaws parody person on a boat and also as grass, complete with cow shit.

Carvey goes into water. Disguises in the water.

For whatever reason, Jennifer is now trapped at Bowman’s house and needs rescuing. But not in a daring way, just an excuse to leave. None of this makes sense, but Pistachio does two different disguises to get her out, changing after he is let in the lobby and no one seems to care. Despite “Rescuing” her, Bowman sends his goons to follow them.

Later, the pair look at the pictures and figure out all of Bowman’s plan, including where his items are being held! Hooray! They also run into Trent (Mark Devine), her boyfriend, on a date with another woman. Oh no! Pistachio uses his magical Slapping powers to take him down, and he is a big hero, slapping a would be cheater dick guy.

When Pistachio drops Jennifer off at her house, he gets a kiss and he is smitten. Despite that, after leaving, the goons decide to kidnap Jennifer and take her hostage. Why her, not Pistachio? Why did they wait so long? Why did he just not keep her when she was at the house? The world will never know.

Either way, thanks to hologram technology, Pistachio figures out a plan and sneaks into the house as a cherry pie.

Okay okay, I will admit, this part was pretty unexpected.

Pistachio, basically the best thing ever now, is able to defeat Bowman’s Ninja army with ease. But Bowman has one more plan. He has brainwashed Fabbrizio! Now Fabbrizio is wearing a Bowman outfit and thinks he is actually Bowman. So the real Bowman escapes with the U.S. Constitution, while Pistachio has to get his father back into his own mind.

And you know, he does that. Hooray! So the return all the artifacts, Pistachio is a master now, and he marries Jennifer. Man, that was quick.

Oh but Bowman got away. They find him in Coasta Rica, so Pistachio dresses up as George W. Bush to get the document back and Bowman is to be locked away!

And then there are about ten minutes of credits, full of bloopers, and other outfits that didn’t make it into the final showing for whatever reason. And after the credits is a 90 second or two minute scene, where Pistachio finds out that a midget was in the Slap Dummy apparatus the whole time. And he is dressed like Mario! Shenanigans! Also The Cuteness, the dog, was the grandfather the whole time.

Did you catch all of those last minute post credit plot twists?!

The Master of Disguise is rated PG for some mild language and crude humor. Why the low rating? Well, apparently Carvey wanted to make a movie his kids could watch, because everything else he had done was for older kids and adults. And so yeah, he wanted a super family friendly movie. Based on that logic, Carvey seemed to want something full of fart jokes, an extremely simple plot, bad acting, and a waste of time.

First of all, Carvey’s main character accent was terrible. It was consistent, if anything, but the Italian-American accent wasn’t even a great parody, so it is annoying we had to hear that throughout the film. One recurring joke was that Bowman would laugh uncontrollably, because he is so evil, and a fart would ruin it. He had gas, and he had it a lot. The ever recurring fart joke.

Another unfortunate recurring joke involved basically sexual harassment in the work place. Pistachio and the Grandfather constantly talk bad about Jennifer’s butt, asked for her measurements for a make believe uniform, ignore the fact that she has a boyfriend (jerk or not) and assume she will eventually fall for Pistachio. On top of that, the Grandfather basically scowls every time she brings up a question on her pay or dental care, basically stringing this poor single mother along who clearly just wants to provide for her son.

Good family values there.

The humor was incredibly low, most of them revolving around Carvey doing stereotypical impressions. We had a German courier and a British detective out of nowhre, completely minor parts. But the funniest bit was the guy from the final picture, who only appeared in the credits as a deleted scene character. Fuck, he was funny and with a really amusing voice. That not making the final film just made me despise most of the other characters that much more.

Give me fat carnival people who talk like Wally Gator any day of the week. But just don’t give me this movie again.

It is now mid-April, and if that means anything, it means that shitty January movies are finally coming out on DVD. A lot of these January films were not screened for critics, for some reason. I mean, do they not care about press?! (That was sarcasm).

The one January movie I actually wanted to watch was Fifty Shades of Black. Sure, it is a parody film. But I have several reasons for wanting to see this one.

1) Fifty Shades of Grey, the film that is being parodied, was on its own terrible. We are getting a parody of shit, so the parody is likely to call out the shit while doing it.

2) It is a Wayans parody. Say what you will, but his two haunted house parodies are better than the last three Scary Movies combined. They aren’t necessarily great films, but he did put a lot of effort into them and didn’t just phone in his performance.

3) I don’t have a third reason, I just really want to see how bad this thing actually is.

It definitely captures the romance from Grey pretty well.

The story begins with young Hannah (Kali Hawk) going to interview Christian Black (Marlon Wayans), the head of a big company for her university paper. She isn’t a journalist, but her roommate, Kateesha (Jenny Zigrino) is sick, so she goes for her.

She is immediately swept away by his charm and his looks and starts to have feelings for him. Christian begins to take Hannah on dates and he lets her know that he has a secretive side. A play room, where he is a dominant and is looking for a submissive for some sex play.

Of course Hannah isn’t really into that, nor is she into contracts. But she still wants the sex, no matter how quick and uneventful it is. And hey, if he wants to smack her butt a few times, whatever. But when she starts to fall in love, that is where their relationship begins to fall apart. And basically I wrote the actual plot of Fifty Shades of Grey just now.

Kate Miner is the assistant, Mike Epps is Hannah’s father, with Fred Willard and Jane Seymour playing Christian’s adoptive parents, Affion Crockett his brother and Irene Choi his sister. Also Andrew Bachelor as Hannah’s best male friend, and Florence Henderson as…well, a rather weird cameo.

No, Marlon is not acting those abs. Those are the real and you are now pregnant.

If I could draw one conclusion from watching both the real and the parody movie, I can determine that they are equally bad. Grey is telling a stupid story and Black is telling a worse version of the story with the occasionally funny joke.

That is right. Fifty Shades of Black made me laugh occasionally. It was actually the movie’s goal too, unlike the times I laughed during Grey. It had some funny moments, with sometimes subtle jokes. And it made fun of the bad writing of the Grey book and some of the nonsensical parts of the film, which is what a parody is supposed to do. Of course, Black also went overboard, over and over again. For every actual funny joke there are 10 jokes that fall flat. Either from poor delivery, poor effort, or by over acting the scenes to extremes.

This film is somehow the polar opposite of Grey. In Grey, you see a lot of naked women and no penis, and in this movie, no naked women at all, but at least three fake penises. Life is weird. I just want a movie that can unite the genitalia under one film equally, and not be stingy on either side.

Wayons still put a lot of effort into this movie, although some of the physical comedy aspects were now given to other cast members. I think this film would have benefited by cutting out Crockett’s role completely, along with Zigrino. Their jokes were the bottom of the very full barrel and went on for too long.

The funniest thing? This parody actually has a better ending. It doesn’t end on a forced cliff hanger. It completes a story and doesn’t blue ball the audience. Fuck you, Fifty Shades of Grey.