Tag: Comedy

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.

I just checked my watch, and yes, it looks like we are at the point where I will just about see anything if you tell me that Jake Gyllenhaal is in it.

I don’t even need to list his last few years of excellent films. But I will talk about 2015. Southpaw was divided, but it made my top of 2015 list. Everest wasn’t as universally loved either, but it took me on an emotional thrill ride and I still gave it a 4 out of 4. Although, sure, that one had less Gyllenhaal being amazing.

I don’t have a damn clue what Demolition is actually about, but knowing one actor in it has made me happy to watch it.

It is like the opposite effect of Robert De Niro now.

Heck, if Jake could just dance for 90 minutes I’d call the movie a roaring success.

Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in finances, super rich, and married to Julia (Heather Lind), but she just died in a car accident. Davis was the passenger but he only got a few scrapes. This really fucking sucks. Sure Davis might not have been the most emotionally invested person ever, but he still loved his wife and she meant the world to him. She also meant the world to her parents, Phil (Chris Cooper) and Margot (Polly Draper). Oh, Phil happens to be Davis’ boss. They are both wrecked over this, but Davis seems to feel almost nothing. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t scream, it is like he is still in shock and is empty inside.

None of this helps when he decides to go to a vending machine and spend $1.25 on a bag of peanut M&M’s, which fails to drop. What the fuck vending machine. So Davis sends a complaint letter to the company and accidentally lets them know a lot about his life. He then writes follow up letters, making sure they know the whole story. This is very personal, but hey, its Davis’ way of finally talking about his issues.

This eventually leads him to Karen (Naomi Watts), the entire PR department, who feels connected with Davis despite being a complete stranger. She has a 15 year old son (Judah Lewis), is dating the boss of the company (C.J. Wilson) and has her own issues, but hey, no one is perfect. Maybe one day these two will meet. Davis, a grieving man, and Karen, a lost soul. But that might be too hokey and romance like. Fuck romance, this is about losing a loved one not finding one.

Also starring Malachy Cleary and Debra Monk as Davis’ parents.

Yes, in demolition we get to see a guy demolish shit. The title isn’t just a metaphor!

Jake Gyllenhaal plays an unstable character? Check. Jake Gyllenhaal acts really well? Check. Jake Gyllenhaal takes his shirt off? Check check check.

Like usual, Gyllenhaal delivers. He gives us a quirky dude who the audience will cheer for and hope for the best. But this is a comedy/drama. Things aren’t going to just be happy. Jesus, his wife just died. He needs to let it out and grieve and do something to honor her in his own way. He is worth the price of admission.

As for this film, it is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, who more recently directed Wild and Dallas Buyers Club. Those were nominated for Oscars, but I don’t see this film getting any nods. The film, despite tear educing and funny, just didn’t have enough closure. Closure in both the actual plot, and the side plot involving Watts.

Watts felt really underused for this role. It deserved to be something bigger or better. She was just wasted for the small role, given her more recent success as an Oscar nominated actress. Oh well.

Did I mention we get to see Gyllenhaal dance and lose his mind? That’s fun.

Happy Holidays from the end of March!

I wanted to see Krampus when it came out early in December, but unfortunately there weren’t any prescreenings for the film. Guess they assumed critics would hate it, or not get the point, man.

Either way, I was disappointed, but not disappointed enough to spend money on going to the film. December is busy for awards movies, not comedy horror films!

But the idea of a Krampus movie was very exciting. I haven’t even seen a Christmas horror film since Rare Exports years ago, which was wonderful and you should consider adding it to your Christmas collection.

But this one has scary clowns, so you know it might be more horror than comedy.

It’s Christmas time, yay! We are going to celebrate at the Engel household with their family coming over. Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) have to make sure their house is clean, food cooked and everything decorated for Santa. After all, their kid Max (Emjay Anthony) still believes despite being like 10 or something. Also living in the house is their older daughter Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Omi (Krista Stadler), Tom’s mom. She speaks German!

Anyways, the family eventually comes over. Rednecks. Howard (David Koechner), Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), and Linda (Allison Tolman) with some dick kids (Queenie Samuel, Lolo Owen) and a baby.

Needless to say, the other boy kids tease poor Max for believing in Santa. They find his letter to Santa and read it outloud, making fun of his wishes for things like his parents to love each other more, and so on. He gets mad and rips up his letter throwing it into the wind! And with that, the power in the whole city goes out. And the winter storm gets a little bit more wintry.

Strange things are afoot. But let’s just cut to the chase. People have ruined Christmas. Krampus is here to punish them.

Damn grandma, you are brave enough to take on the Krampus alone?

When you go into a comedy horror film, you can never really expect a whole lot. They rarely have large budgets and are never really too funny or too scary. Krampus seems to fit the bill like the other ones, with a slightly more impressive budget.

I feel bad for Adam Scott, who often is put into these sort of roles (see Piranha) and lower budget comedies (see Hot Tub Time Machine 2). He is a funny guy who keeps getting stuck in bad to mediocre films.

Krampus at times is a little scary. Toys come to life in a very The Nightmare Before Christmas way. The Krampus itself felt downplayed with most of the work being done by creepy helper demon things. But knowing that even the kids weren’t safe was a nice surprise that a lot of films seem to avoid.

As for the comedy, well, there really wasn’t any. The comedy came from strange things happening, like CGI gingerbread men attacking them. No other real jokes outside of the weird factor, which is the most disappointing aspect of the film.

It did an okay job at the scary parts, but failed when it came to making me chuckle.

I could never really get into Red vs Blue, but I also never really got into Halo. There could be a correlation there! I tried probably three times to start Red Vs Blue, but never finished season 1 despite liking it. Then years later I would try again, and of course start over to understand the “plot”, eventually stop before season 1 ended, and it continued on and on.

That being said, I am not entirely familiar with anything else Rooster Teeth has done. But they did make a movie, Lazer Team, and after being in theaters for only two weeks, it was released on YouTube Red. YouTube Red is a subscription based YouTube service that has no ads and lets you run it in the background on your phone as a music player. And hey, it has some original shows and movies on there as well, with Lazer Team being one of its first major films to be released on the platform.

How neat!

I mean, none of this says anything about how good it is. But it does show how neat it is.

I expect a piles of lasers in a movie with this title. All kinds too. Especially the pew pew variety.

In the 1970’s, the US government received a message from aliens and were able to secretly decode it. They found out that eventually an alien race would come to destroy the Earth. But in order to help them, the Antareans would send them a single power suit a few days before they get there so they would have a chance. So they found a gifted baby and raised him to be the perfect man. Adam (Alan Ritchson) would be the strongest, fastest, and smartest person they could develop, and he would save the Earth one day!

Or not. Now in modern day, after a series of events, we have a few modern slackers and dummies in the same spot. Hagan (Burnie Burns) is a low level sheriff in the small town and hasn’t ever done anything great with his life. He has in his custody Zach (Michael Jones), a talented high school football quarterback, who has the hots for Hagan’s daughter (Alexandria DeBerry) and is an idiot. Herman (Colton Dunn) used to be a quarterback at the high school, but couldn’t go on to college or pro because Hagan missed a block in their last game, giving him a permanent leg injury. And Woody (Gavin Free) is Herman’s dumb friend.

Due to alcohol and arguing, they accidentally end up shooting a UFO out of the sky, before it can make it to the military base. They discover the suit and begin to put the pieces on. Hagan gets a glove that makes a shield, Zach a glove that can shoot lasers, Herman some boots that can make him fast, and Woody a helmet that will eventually make him smarter. They of course don’t know any of this at the time, but eventually the pieces once activated merged themselves permanently to their body.

Which of course means, this group of losers have a few days to figure out how to work as a team, because they are now the only hope the world has. Also featuring Steve Shearer as the main military commander.

Only one of them even has a laser! How sad.

Lazer Team is a small budget sci-fi comedy, and knowing that helps lower your expectations going in. This is not going to be Turbo Kid, which is also an indie film, but had a lot behind it to make it something special. No, this is a movie where plot and effects are secondary, what the creators and actors are really after are the laughs. They want to make you giddy and smile.

And on that note, they still only do just an okay job.

The main character by Burnie Burns (aka one of the greatest names ever), the writer of this film and main member of Rooster Teeth, is playing the straight man so he rarely has the better moments. He is extremely passive and throughout the film I never really get behind him to root for him. No, the only character I care about is Zach, the dumb ass quarterback, because he is the funniest one. Michael Jones looks like a poor mans Adam Devine, but he works well in this film.

They had one character who isn’t smart, get the helmet to make him super smart. Unfortunately, a lot of those jokes don’t have a huge effect, because we barely knew him as a dumb character before the changes started. It did lead to some nice jokes, but most fell flat given the lack of history with him.

Even though the jokes were only just okay, I did end up liking the ending of the film. Some good action and explanation happen and it is an ending that can make one look forward to future films. Just disappointed that some of the action scenes earlier on didn’t seem to pack as much punch.

Oh well. Okay film, good first try, do better next time or I will come down on you with the rage of a lower-tier film critic!