Tag: Comedy

“Final Girl” is a term given to the last surviving female in a horror movie. This woman may have been in danger the whole movie. But somehow by the end she has enough gumption to slay the killer, or escape the building, or whatever. Hell, Ripley is a Final Girl.

Enough horror film had this happen for it to become a trope at least. I actually never heard about it until this year. Not just because of the movie The Final Girls that I am about to review, but because there was another movie also out aroudn the same time called…Final Girl. Yeah. It is pretty damn easy to get these ones confused. I haven’t seen such close titles for real unrelated movies since A Late Quartet and Quartet.

Now I will see Final Girl, some day. I have to given how easily it is to mistake The Final Girls. But to make matters even more confusing, they also share an actor. Somehow, Alexander Ludwig decided it’d be a good idea to be a lead in both films.

With an amazing shocked face like that, there’s no question how he landed the roles either.

Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman) was in a series of horror films back in the day, but now she is just struggling to find a job. All people remember her for is her role in Camp Bloodbath, now a cult classic, but a movie she doesn’t like too much. But this isn’t her story. You know, because she dies in a car crash early on in the film. Her daughter, Max (Taissa Farmiga) was also in the car but she survived.

Since then, life has been lame. Her best friends brother, Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), has apparently promised that Max would show up to a special screening of Camp Bloodbath. She agrees, reluctantly, as long as her friend, Gertie (Alia Shawkat) comes along. Chriss (Alexander Ludwig), a male friend who is totally into her, also comes along, which means the local bitch, Vicki (Nina Dobrev), who used to date him tags along as well.

And since this is hard to explain, I will be succinct: Some shit went down, and now they are trapped in the movie. Good news: Max can reunite with a version of her mother, that’s cool! Bad news: a masked man is trying to kill them all! But now that they are in the movie, it is harder to predict what would happen. Their mere presence changes the plot line for good, so they can’t rely on their movie knowledge to win this one.

Other campers are played by the likes of Adam DeVine, Angela Trimbur, Chloe Bridges, and Tory N. Thompson.

Honestly the only thing you need to be good at in a horror movie is your scared face.

Remember Cabin In The Woods? That was a genre bending, horror comedy that a lot of people didn’t know how to react to, but has eventually been accepted as a great and unique film. Cabin in the Woods is hard to define. The Final Girls is not hard to define, because I can look at it and say “It is like, Cabin in the Woods, kind of!”

A comedy horror means two things: It is usually funny, and it is usually not at all scary. They all just become parodies of horror without the fear behind it and this is honestly no exception. There are maybe “scary” moments, sure, but no one watching it will find it scary as per the norm.

Instead, The Final Girls should be judged on its comedy and it should be valued highly. Witty and fun, the cast of characters, and movie character stereotypes allow a lot of good deaths that follow and exploit common horror tropes. This is a PG-13 movie, which I feel limits some of the extremes they could have gone to, which is a shame. But the final fight scene felt nicely epic, some of the deaths were pretty creative, and the constant allusions that they were in a movie and not just a strange story were a very nice touch.

Overall, The Final Girls is a pretty good movie experience, and I hope they don’t mess it up with sequels. Hell, I like Alexander Ludwig now, and that is after I also saw When The Game Stands Tall.

Thank goodness this film is called Burnt. Based on the title and poster, of Bradley Cooper in a chef’s outfit, I can make inferences though. It is about a angry chef, that was wronged and he wants revenge. Maybe. He could be a Gordon Ramsay like character and his life could come crashing down.

I am happy it is called Burnt, because it used to be called Adam Jones. Movie titles where it is just a fictional characters name are already bad ideas, because they don’t mean anything. And if you character is Adam Jones? One of the plainest damn names of all time. It didn’t feature a cool name like Enrique, Pierre, or Sadrik. Just Adam. Jones.

Naming aside, it turns out Adam Jones wasn’t the original name either. The original name was Chef, and we all know why that title was eventually changed. Hell, the plot of Chef was the first thing I thought of when I heard the word Burnt. As long as it is as good as Chef, we should have nothing to worry about.

Hey, it has food in it! Another similarity!

If you didn’t already guess it, this film is about Adam Jones (Cooper)! Turns out Jones used to be a big deal. He lived in Paris and worked for one of the finest restaurants and eventually its head chef. While he was in Paris hear earned himself TWO Michelin Stars. Which is a pretty big fucking deal. But he did some bad things. He was on almost every narcotic, and it messed with his brain. He burned bridges and disappeared from his friends, his coworkers and lovers.

He actually put himself into exile. He shucked oysters for two or three years in New Orleans, getting clean, sober, and his focus back. And now he is ready to take the cooking world by storm again. This time: London. He wants the third Michelin Star. He wants to be one of the all time greatest chefs. He just has to try and reconcile a lot of relationships and find good talent to help him get there.

Obviously it won’t be easy to fix all the issues. He left Tony (Daniel Brühl), a Maître D’ and close friend, in a shambled restaurant. He ruined his good friend and former sous chef, Michel’s (Omar Sy) new restaurant. There is the daughter of his former mentor, Anne Marie (Alicia Vikander), who he was dating at the time. He has a now rival chef, Reece (Matthew Rhys), who used to be a coworker and is now a Three Star chef. And there is Helene (Sienna Miller), a great young chef who he wants to take under his wing, but refuses to work with the guy based on his reputation. She also has a daughter, Lily (Lexi Benbow-Hart).

Here are some more important-ish people. Some of his new chefs are played by Riccardo Scamarcio and Sam Keeley. Emma Thompson is a psychiatrist who has to monitor his blood for any narcotics. Uma Thurman plays a big deal food critic in London. And Sarah Greene is the Hostess for their new restaurant, basically a little Tony.

If I get a plate that has fingerprints on it, I send the whole thing back, personally.

It turns out that my guess on him just being Gordon Ramsey was pretty accurate. Not British Gordon Ramsay, but American shitty TV Gordon Ramsay. He owns like 3/4 of Fox reality shows at this point, and Fox has the worst reality shows. They commercial break at tense moments or cliff hangers, they encourage language just so it can be bleeped out, and half of the episode is a recap, or the intro/outros that transition with the commercial breaks, which tell you what you will see and what you just saw. Except this is a movie where adults can see adults do adult things, so we get to hear the glorious Fucks and so on. One long scene early on during a particularly upsetting service, it is like just a big Hell’s Kitchen break down.

But thankfully after that moment, it gets better. He becomes less Ramsay and more actual character. He has growth in this film, he does’t yell 100% of the time, but he maintains the same passion and drive throughout. It was nice to see his highs and his lows. It was not as nice to see his stunt double clearly in one scene, and in another scene, have his face bloody with a piece of skin falling off and in the next scene a minute or two later, magically only a small cut. Those were dumb moments.

I think Cooper did a good job leading a film that wasn’t a straight up comedy. His French was also surprisingly good, that is, to a lame American’s ears at least. Thankfully, the rest of the cast was really great as well. Let’s give them their own sentence, shall we?

Miller was good as the main female lead, and she wasn’t a typical romance pretty face – she rocked it. I usually see Brühl in more interesting roles, but he helped carry the film and the restaurant with his simplestic and seemingly perfect performance as the best Maitre D’. Sy I don’t see in a lot of films, but this is the second French-ish role. His character had nice surprise and intense moments. And Rhys was a limited role, but brought his own unique intensity to it all.

Yay acting! Are there cliches? Sure. But it is a well done cooking movie that doesn’t make one feel stupid for not knowing how the fancy foods work. It tells a fun story and doesn’t turn into a sappy romcom ever. Yay food!

For some reason, Happy Madison is developing a bad rep. Adam Sandler‘s production company has been around for awhile and has brought in such classics like, Jack and Jill and Grown Ups 2! Hell, just this year we already got Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.

With such a rich pedigree, how does a company like that get hated on? Hell if I know.

And then there was Pixels, their third film of this year, and one I thought would be completely animated given the posters. Whoops. I obviously figured it out before I watched it, but damn, I don’t think I have ever been fooled like that before. Sure, it could be loosely based off of a Futurama episode, but that was a cartoon, so everything is fair game.

Unless they wanted a giant Mickey Mouse here, then they’d have been fucked.

Brenner (Sandler) was a big deal, in 1982. He was the master of the local arcade, able to see the patterns in the games, creating high score after high score. Hell, he entered into the national arcade tournament and made it all the way to the finals. He lost though to Eddie (Peter Dinklage), a cocky son of a bitch though, because Donkey Kong has some real random elements to it, so he can’t quite figure it out. Oh well, it didn’t ruin his life.

After all, 33 years later, he is working for what constitutes a Geek Squad like company, installing technology in rich big houses. Oh hey, and his best friend, Cooper (Kevin James) ended up as president (married to Jane Krakowski too). But he is seen as a buffoon. Who gives a shit though, because Aliens are about to attack!

Oh yeah, there was a third friend, Ludlow (Josh Gad), who was pretty good at games too, but became a conspiracy nut. And looks like he was write about aliens at least!

The strange thing about these aliens is they are attacking using what looks like arcade games from the early days. You see, after the tournament, they sent digital copies of the games and a lot of pop culture items into a time capsule into space. And alien race took the games as a challenge and built giant replicas of these games to attack the Earth. Each side will only have “three lives” so the first to “win” 3 of these attacks, wins overall. If Earth wins, they leave, if Earth loses, everyone dies. You know where this is going: losers from the 1980’s have to save the day!

Also starring Michelle Monaghan, Matt Lintz, Sean Bean, and Brian Cox.

I’ve had a nightmare like this before. I was playing a real life centipede, but I had no ammo.
Basically insects just fell on me from the sky.

Maybe its the nostalgia, maybe the cool effects, or maybe Dinklage giving his impression of the guy from King of Kong, but Pixels wasn’t super terrible. I know everyone around me said it was bad and they hated it, but I also know they went in ready to rage on it.

Pixels definitely had its moments, but the best parts were the clever ways they “fought” the various levels that totaled the many cities around the world. Having Pac-Man terrorize NYC as they chased him with cars? Come on, that’s clever.

There are unfortunately some lamer elements to the film. Having a cheating subplot? Waste of time, and ruined some of the fun. Q*bert? Fuck Q*bert. That mostly felt like an annoyance more than anything. Creepy suggestion that a woman can be a trophy? Well, you know.

But overall for the most part, Pixels was entertaining. It could have had more fun real life battles instead of an all out attack at the end to cameo in games. If we got even more in depth levels, it would have been great. It was like an advanced Nick Arcade. Just one that probably should have gone for the PG-13 rating, since it probably didn’t deserve PG at all with some of the jokes and language thrown in.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

Seth MacFarlane is not my favorite person. And I didn’t even think his Oscars were that bad. I just think his movies have been pretty sub par as of late. In A Million Ways To Die In The West basically every joke fell flat for me.

And then of course there was Ted. Sure, there was some amusing original material in there. But as I watched it (in theaters), I couldn’t believe how date it had already felt. The humor was almost 100% focused on current pop culture trends. They had a few 80’s pop culture jokes thrown in to balance it out, but it was way too current. I knew most of the things I found amusing I wouldn’t bat an eye at in five or six years anymore.

Needless to say, I was pretty dang worried about Ted 2. Would it just be more of the same of Ted? Yeah probably. I don’t need 90 minutes of shitty pop culture in my life.

But if it was entirely about stealing Tom Brady‘s semen, then we might have something here.

Ted 2 takes place some time after the original. The main difference is that John (Mark Wahlberg) is divorced, probably because Mila Kunis didn’t want to be in another of these movies. Now he is basically afraid of commitment to anyone. Ted (MacFarlane) is still married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth), but their relationship is strained. They might even get a divorce. So they decide to do the time honored tradition of having a kid to save their marriage.

Ted has no penis, so sex wouldn’t work. They work on sperm donations, but that fails too. So they decide to adopt. But the problem is, Ted cannot do it because apparently he isn’t classified as a person and doesn’t have person rights. This changes everything for Ted. Now he loses his job, his marriage is now nulled and can’t legally do most things! He is just an object! Oh no!

So, in a nut shell, that is the point of this film. He wants to fight the ruling in court, so he can get his life back. That is why they have a lawyer (Amanda Seyfried) who is chill and likes to smoke pot, hooray! At the same time, Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) is helping Hasbro fight Ted in court. If it is ruled he is an object, they can take him back, find out what makes him magical, and make Ted’s for everyone around the world. Weeeee.

Also! Morgan Freeman, Sam J. Jones, Patrick Warburton, John Slattery, and John Carroll Lynch.

The good news is that Ted 2 relied on less pop culture references to get by this time. Outside of quite a few recent Patriots references.

The bad is that the plot is kind of shit and not worth watching. Let me clarify, the plot idea isn’t a bad one. It could make a good court room comedy film. But they only vaguely focus on that. There are barely any scenes in the court room, really only two major ones at the beginning and end. The first court room scene only takes a handful of minutes, but the film would rather Ted and John just sit on a couch and tell jokes.

Ted 2 as a result just doesn’t have a lot to offer as a film. In recollection, I am having a hard time trying to remember any moment I found really funny. I was completely chuckleless. The writer only had a rough idea for the plot and maybe a couple jokes, but I assume the majority of these scenes were thought of independently of having a real place to put them. So in a way, Ted 2 was a lot like a Family Guy episode.

There isn’t a lot to say. Ted 2 just isn’t good. Not as bad as AMWTDITW, but not as good as its mediocre first film.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

Oh hey, Vacation. A comedy series a lot of people look back with fond memories. Because it told the truth. Family vacations are terrible, but we all grin and bear it because that is just what you gotta do.

It is a concept most people can related to, and with nostalgia being the strong bitch that it is, it makes sense for there to eventually be more Vacation movies. Movies that capture the true American spirit: cramped in a car with people you already hang out with too much. At the same time, people assume that if you make a new version of something old, the old one gets tarnished or something.

Those people are dumb.

Which is why I do declare I will not make comparisons to the first Vacation movie. I will judge this on its own merits as a new comedy, that may have references to a previous movie.

And my noble steed on this ride will be a small car.

Vacation is not a reboot or a remake, it is a sequel.

Rusty Griswald (Ed Helms) is now grown up and has a family of his own! He is a pretty good pilot, but works for a shitty airline that only does short domestic flights, so he can spend time with his family. His wife, Debbie (Christina Applegate) is a stay at home mom, raising the two boys. The older one, James (Skyler Gisondo) is almost done with high school, very sensitive, plays the guitar. He constantly gets picked on by his much smaller younger brother, Kevin (Steele Stebbins), who is a dick and is into wrestling.

Well, they normally go out every year to a cabin in the woods, but Rusty realizes that everyone finds it boring. So he decides to change it up. A cross country road trip from Chicago to California to go to Walley World! Yeah! Rusty had fond memories of the park as a kid, despite that one film where a bunch of bad things happened. This time it is going to go right and they are going to ride the best roller coaster in the country. Damn it.

Of course shit goes bad. Their car is weird and European, white water rafting, bad hot springs, crazy truckers, thieves, and more. They also make a pit stop to visit Rusty’s sister, Audrey (Leslie Mann), who finds the idea of a trip ridiculous. She is also super wealthy for marrying Stone Crandall (Chris Hemsworth), who is a super attractive weather man. The only other real plot line is James constantly running into Adena (Catherine Missal), a girl on another road trip.

Vacation also offers a lot of cameos. Of course we have Chevy Chase, but we also have Ron Livingston, Michael Pena, Kaitlin Olson, Nick Kroll, Tim Heidecker, Colin Hanks (Apparently), Norman Reedus, Keegan-Michael Key, and Charlie Day.

Most of my vacations ended up at a college strip fest as well.

Vacation ends up being different than its predecessor in many ways. For one, it is a modern comedy. So there is an industry regulated volume of a dick jokes that it needs to have in its film to make it to the big screen. This sort of thing isn’t always noticeable, because if they have a lot of varied other jokes, you usually don’t even notice all the dick jokes that are secretly hiding in the back ground. Unfortunately, if a movie is 95% dick jokes, they stand out like a sore…thumb. (You thought I’d say penis, heh heh heh).

So yes, it feels like Vacation is a one trick pony, where that trick is jumping over a bar that is floating about an inch over the ground. It would have been nice if they decided to raise that bar instead and make longer smarter jokes, but those are hard and require patience I guess.

Ed Helms just wasn’t interesting. A typical character in his wheelbarrow and it didn’t seem to offer anything new. There was some good interactions between the kids, and Applegate did a fine job.

Honestly, the reason I am giving this a passing rating is for two scenes. One, Four Corners monument scene was surprising and strangely funny. But more importantly, Charlie Fucking Day. This movie is borderline watchable for his scenes alone. Hysterical. High energy. Wet. Fantastic. Technically soon you can probably find the whole scene on Youtube, but I feel like the film should get some credit for featuring something so marvelous in its data innards.

Yep. Without Charlie Day this movie would have just been downright terrible. You don’t hear that phrased that often.

I would consider myself a fan of Adam Carolla. He is a man’s man, and not just because of his role on The Man Show.

But in general, he is like a old man’s Nick Offerman. He knows a lot about cars, building stuff, and…being an adult? I guess.

Either way, I was very upset when he was kicked off from Celebrity Apprentice, because he probably should have won it after Penn Jillette.

Damn it, I keep getting side tracked. Carolla made a movie, starring himself, funded by a shit ton of people. Whatever site he raised the funds on let him reach past his goal to fund the film. It even broke a record for whatever that site is. And now that I will see Road Hard, I will have seen and reviewed all two movies he has ever been the main star. Big numbers there.

He might even be able to afford his own Waffle House franchise.

Adam plays Bruce Madsen, a man with a manly name, who has gone through a lot. Well, most recently it feels like, he has gone through a divorce. That is a shame, but it is what it is. Sure, he isn’t living in his amazing house anymore that his TV career paid for, but at least his kids are happy. And fuck. They are smart too and wanting to go to college? What is up with that?

You see, Bruce used to be famous. He got super well known for The Bro Show on television. This lead to a lot of money and other TV show opportunities. It ended up being better for his co-host, Jack (Jay Mohr), whose career skyrocketed and is now hosting one of those late night television shows. Damn, that sucks for Bruce! Needless to say, the jobs aren’t coming as easy for Bruce as they used to be. People are starting to only remember him being really good on that Celebrity Barn Raising show.

So Bruce has to go back into stand up comedy, his roots. He has to travel around doing small time shows, that don’t sell out, but do okay because he is that “guy who used to be on the TV!” And college is expensive. He needs a big break to get his career off the ground. He needs to get back into TV, getting a steady pay check to enhance his resume. He needs something to get him back out of the comedy clubs to land back on his feet.

Featuring Diane Farr, David Alan Grier, Philip Rosenthal, David Koechner, Cynthy Wu, Larry Miller, and Howie Mandel as himself.

In this picture: Literally not landing on his own feet.

I think I can speak for all Adam Carolla fans when I say this movie is him at his finest. Hell, if you couldn’t tell, this is literally him playing himself. I tried to drop off enough hints in the intro, but he made a fictionalized version of himself, dumped a few more shitty moments on it, and called it a movie. Regardless of one’s skill, you probably know how to play yourself in most situations so the acting should just come natural.

I hope there is no bad blood between him and Kimmel in real life. That will make me sad.

Back to to film! Not surprisingly, I enjoyed this tale. It is a simple one, but it has some good comedic moments, features jokes in the form of stand up comic acts, and has good supporting characters who also make me laugh.

Sure, because it is a simple story, it doesn’t really end up too surprising by the end. It just tells a simple story solidly, and I can respect that. Like a well crafted stool. Or a…movie that isn’t shit.

Yeah. Much like that.

I am happy to say that before I watched The D Train, I knew absolutely nothing about it. I had only briefly seen the poster/DVD cover. Enough to recognize the two leads.

I actually thought this was a war movie. Again, quick glance at the cover, I thought the arm in the background was like, a gun strapped to the back. I thought they had just won a war!

Or you know, a movie about trains or something. A lonely New York meet up that turns into friendship. Fuck it, let’s just go into it.

Quit yelling. I’m trying to relax on my couch, far away from war and trains.

Dan Landsman (Jack Black) is a weird dude. But we will get into that. First let us talk about his normal tendencies.

Dan has a wife (Kathryn Hahn), a 15 year old boy (Russell Posner) and a baby girl. He has a boring job doing something and has been there for awhile. It isn’t particularly rewarding, but it pays the bills. His boss (Jeffrey Tambor) is an older guy who doesn’t like new technology and is generally swell.

And he is the self-appointed head of the Alumni committee for his high school class. The others (Kyle Bornheimer, Henry Zebrowski, more) don’t agree with a head, but whatever, they have a 20 year old reunion to prep for. No one seems to give a shit and turn out is looking low. Things turn around when Dan finds out that the coolest kid in school, Oliver Lawless (James Marsden), has finally made it after all this time. He was an actor and wanted to be a big star and now he is in a national television commercial about sun block!

OH MAN SO COOL. He thinks if he can convince Oliver to come to the reunion, more people will show up, and he will be a hero! He just needs to fly out to LA to convince him in person. So he lies about it as a business trip to his boss and wife, just to hang out and party with Oliver.

And Oliver is a great dude. They get drunk, they get happy, they dance, they flirt with women and Dan is able to convince Oliver to show up!

And also, something very different happens. Something that has never happened to Dan before. Something that will make his trip home and subsequent weeks leading up to the reunion very weird and uncomfortable.

Enough to drive a mediocre middle aged man to drinking? You betcha!

From the description, it looks like The D Train can be a very uncomfortable movie from start to finish. An average dude in a boring life, put into a super liberal party setting, with a man he has strangely idealized for decades. He has always wanted to live vicariously though him, but now he has the opportunity to seem cool and actually celebrate with the man. Life is wonderful!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t an uncomfortable movie, just a boring one. Sure, there was that one scene. And like, a good scene at the reunion, and maybe another good joke. And that is it.

The best thing really about this movie is that it was a different sort of character for Jack Black. Not different like Bernie, but more just regular dude. So good job Jack, diversifying your resume. That will be good help in the future assuming you need it. Marsden unfortunately adds nothing to the film. Hahn does a pretty good exasperated housewife though, sick of her husband’s shit.

The plot isn’t even that bad. With some work, better dialogues, and better…just scenes in general, it could have been a solid movie. Instead this movie is about a nickname and a dream gone wrong, and is completely forgettable.

When I grew up, I feel like I went and did sleepovers all the time. Probably just selective memory happening. And you know, barely remembering elementary school things anyways.

I didn’t realize until later that it is probably used as a way to give the parents a break from their kids for a whole night. And then the other parent would pay it back later and watch the kids overnight at their house. Plus, the kids think it is awesome. It is a win-win-win.

The Overnight is about a sleepover for little kids. And by that, I mean a kid sleepover from the parents point of view. And by that, I mean the parents are also sleeping over. And by that I should clarify that no actual sleep happens. In fact, the kids aren’t actually relevant at all in this movie. The beginning of my intro was merely a red herring to fill up space. Suck it!

This photo is also a red herring, as no one in the movie is actually Amish.

Being an adult in a new place is weird. Making new friends can be weird, because no one knows how to do it as an adult. Your friends become people you work with or that you somehow meet due to your kids knowing. You can’t just show up to a group of people in a bar, say you are new in town, and be instantly accepted. Like a kid could do on a playground. You just can’t.

That is the situation Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling) find themselves in. They have a young boy and have recently moved to California. They have no friends, which is especially bad on Alex who might just be a stay at home dad. I can’t remember. Either way, AJ does get invited to some kids birthday party, so they attempt to go and meet new people to have new friends.

Well those people are dicks and Alex doesn’t talk to them. But a boy starts playing with his kid, so that is good. And the dad of the boy notices Alex and Emily so he does the responsible adult thing and introduces himself. Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), who thinks Alex and Emily are just swell, so he invites them over on this very same night for a pizza dinner they had planned. That way their kids can be better friends and Kurt can tell them about the area. Yay play dates and pizza!

They soon after meet Charlotte (Judith Godrèche), his French-esque wife, and everyone hits it off great! Good food, drinks, and conversation. But Charlotte and Kurt realize that our newbies are overstressed from the kid at home and recommend letting him sleep for a bit while they have fun, that way they can get a nice break for awhile. Sounds good. But as the night goes on and the alcohol continues, things get a little bit weirder and a little bit naked-er.

Yep, we’re about to talk about penises everyone.

That’s right. The male human penis. Not really a staple of cinema yet, but it definitely appears in comedy probably the second most across all genres. That is of course, after the porn genre. If you haven’t picked up my not so subtle text, I am heavily implying that both Scott and Schwartzman drop trou for the whole world to see in this film.

But that is only kind of true. Sure, in the movie, we get dick. But we get fake, prosthetic dicks. Neither dicks in the movie are the real actor dicks. But they sure are realistic, so it might as well be their real dicks.

Speaking of dicks, this movie is about a bunch of actually good people (not dicks, get it?), but the couples are just experiencing relationship problems. So of course the weird events that begin to unravel involve their bodies and their own desires, but not in the creepy “Wait, is this just a porno?” way. Everything is a lot more natural. I won’t go out and say realistic, but natural.

The Overnight is not a rip roaring comedy with tons of gags and slap stick and poo jokes. No, it is just putting a relatively normal couple of people in what most people would describe as bizarre night of events. At times it is deep, loving, and sensitive — none of those are supposed to be read as innuendo.

Overall it is a well acted film and my only major complaint would be that not enough ended up happening throughout the film. A lot of personal conversations, a good amount of amusing moments, and enough real moments to let this film be a relatively unique experience.

Good news everybody! Another 50 reviews down on my website, another Milestone Review ready to announce.

Some people tell me, “Hey, Gorgon Reviews, why do you do a longer ridiculous review to celebrate every 50 reviews? No one gives a shit about 1450 or 1100.” Well, first, that is harsh. And 50 reviews, at 5 a week, means I just did 10 weeks of hard work and I’d like to do something fun.

Sure, once I get to 1500, I could start doing them less often. But there are so many supposedly bad movies from the early 2000’s that I haven’t gotten to watch, and they deserve my attention and love! Which is why I will treasure review 1450 (that is today), just as much as review 1500 (in about ten weeks).

Today I am looking at The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, a film I knew was ridiculous when I was a kid. Spy Kids was one thing, this one was just sillypants sillypants. But I realized that there is a connection between this film and some of my other Milestone Reviews, and connections are fantastic. That’s right, a member of Twilight is involved in these films, which is all the more reason to watch this movie.

And I will dissect it like the strangest most unethical science experiment.

Max (Cayden Boyd) is our hero, and he is neither shark nor made of lava. No, he is just a boy in middle school or something. He keeps a dream journal. And sometime early into the school year, let’s say first week, he tells his totally true story about summer vacation.

You know, how he met Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner). A boy who was raised by sharks since he was like six, letting him gain gills, fins, claws, crazy teeth and everything. Self proclaimed King of the Ocean. He is friends with Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley), from Planet Drool. She is made of Lava and can shoot lava from her hands.

Anyways, they went back to Planet Drool at some point in the summer and he hasn’t seen them since.

Foreshadowing.

Guess what. His class totally doesn’t believe him. Because he is of course full of rotten cow shit. Mr. Elictricidad (George Lopez) wants him to redo the assignment I think. And this kid named Linus (Jacob Davich). He is a dick and picks on him with other kids and they steal his dream journal.

Don’t worry. One kid believes him, Marissa (Sasha Pieterse), so they are practically dating. She is also Mr. Electricidad’s daughter.

But if he bangs the teacher’s daughter, how will he also get with Lavagirl?!

Needless to say, his parents are also sick of his shit. His dad and mom (David Arquette, Kristin Davis) are probably going to get divorced because of his shitty dreams and how much he thinks they are real despite being 11 or something. They ignore his pleas in regards to his dream journal and told him to forget that stuff.

Next day at school, giant electrical storm hits and everything gets scary. No worries. Sharkboy and Lavagirl show up, much to everyone’s surprise. So they take Max on a shark rocketship up to Planet Drool, openly acknowledging that he should know how to get there since he made it all up.

Yes, Sharkboy and Lavagirl know they exist purely in Max’s head, in his day dreaming world, and they aren’t having an existential crisis. Even with this knowledge, Max doesn’t realize that everything that is happening is hogwash.

Not even magical hogwash, just normal dream based hogwash.

Oh hey, Planet Drool. Things are not as they should be. This is where all of his dreams and goals live, including the unfinished ones. Guess one, there are electrical storms here too!

Oh no! A bad guy, with a TV head named Mr. Electric (very original dreams) is ruining the place! He even has all the other kids on a roller coaster forever, keeping them awake. If they sleep, they can ruin dream world with their own dreams.

So they save the kids and battle Mr. Electric and lose terrible, putting them in the Dream Graveyard. I wish I was making this shit up.

“Okay, Mr. Lopez, just say all your lines really close to a camera lens. Trust us.” – Producer

With the help of a never finished robot named Tobor (Also Lopez), they escape there and go to a happy place of milk and cookie dreams. They realize that someone else’s dreams must also be in Planet Drool making things go to shit. Mr. Electric isn’t the only bad guy.

Lavagirl and Sharkboy feel incomplete. They don’t know where their future is going and are missing parts of their past. They need answers! But Max doesn’t remember everything. What a fuckwit. He also apparently has powers of his own, but again, he doesn’t remember it.

However, they eventually convince him to take a nap, in his dream. Sharkboy sings a terrible song. Dream dream dream dream dream, and note that they are clearly already in a dream, and he has to go to sleep in said dream.

He’s got the magic touch, some would say.

Needless to say, his quick nap gives some answers. They also find out who is behind most of the negativity. Some dick named Minus (Yes, it is Linus), who has his dream journal. Bad news for Minus is that they realized that Max is the Day Dreamer officially, so he can imagine things on the spot and they can come true.

Sure, it took Lavagirl and Sharkboy back and forth going to the brink of death for him to realize this shit, but it happened. So eventually Minus realizes he is being a dick and he is cool again.

This does not save the day. Mr. Electric gives no fucks and he says he will destroy Max where he can’t protect himself. So he goes back to Earth.

Of course he did fuck up the entire dream journal first. Whattadick, Linus, Minus, Bo-Binus.

Back on Earth, Mr. Electric intensifies the electrical storm, causing tornadoes and things start to fall apart. Mr. Electricidad is offended by the creation, since it has to have been Max’s dream come to life. But whatever. Deal with it.

Somehow Sharkboy and Lavagirl arrive to help save the day. They also make Max’s parents realize they still love each other and family is important. All in the same disaster!

I forgot to mention that on Planet Drool, there was also an Ice Princess (Marissa) with a Crystal Heart. Their plan was to find the Crystal Heart to freeze time, to allow them enough time to fix the planet. It turned out to not be too necessary. But Max brought it to Earth, so they use it to defeat Mr. Electric instead.

This is where everyone learns that dreams are what you make of them, and you should make them come true.

If you want to be the lead in an all Shark riverdancing experience, then by golly, make that shit happen!

I have a hard time believing that Robert Rodriguez, director of Planet Terror, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Sin City, thought in any capacity that this movie was decent. Yes, it came out in 2004. Yes, CGI was not as good as it is today. But this is beyond bad. This is like a $10 used bin in Wal-Mart CGI, if that existed.

The main draw to this movie would have been it’s 3D, I guess. But again, 2004 was well before Avatar came out and they changed the way 3D worked in theaters. This was probably shitty red/blue sunglasses 3D, so I am sad that I didn’t get to experience the 3D with my version. It was clear what they wanted to do with the 3D with the cheesy scenes and I am sure it came across just as bad.

Not to over-scrutinize a shitty kids movie but…the plot makes no sense and seems to fall apart the further it tries to play it out. The acting is bad on all fronts, adults and kids alike. Lautner was brought in because as a youth he was really good at martial arts, and all the flipping and jumping was actually him. He still is good at that now, but it was more impressive when he was like ten. Who would have thought that a kid with the shitty rap lullaby video would turn into a weird sex symbol.

If you hate visual messes on the screen, you will also hate this film. The entire dream world landscape was just ugly and bad.

Yeah. I may be harsh on this. But again, Rodrgiuez must know this is terrible, but he did it anyway for the lols. That is the only explanation for this mess of a pointless film.

Circle Circle. Dot Dot. Everyone knows that is what you need to get your cootie shot. Except for my wife, who asked why I drew boobs on her arm.

No one wants Cooties. They are gross and carried by other gross kids. Fuck those asshats, trying to spread their germs on you. Or worse, COOTIES.

When I heard they were making a horror comedy about actual cooties and how the outbreak starts, I will admit I was interested. Zombie movies are trying very hard to be original now, so why not make a whole lot of kid zombies? That adds a new dynamic, morally and comedically, with lots of room for potential. It makes sense, if you think about it. Kids in general have potential, so Zombie Kids should have potential as well!

Although, with their shorter arms the whole thing just might be child’s play.

Clint (Elijah Wood) is a fancy book author who used to live in NYC. But times are tough, and he is living with his mother. It is the start of summer and he has lucked his way into a summer school teaching gig, as a substitute. Anything to pass the time, I guess. If anything it can get him out of his slump. He is trying to write a horror book about a possessed boat and he is only about a chapter in.

Needless to say, the kids at summer school are kind of dicks. But at least the teachers are mostly not dicks.

Well, Wade (Rainn Wilson), the athletic director is a dick. But everyone else is eccentric or fine. Oh hey, there is Lucy (Alison Pill), who he went to school with. She seems relatively normal.

Other teachers include people played by Jack McBrayer, Nasim Pedrad, and Leigh Whannell. And let’s not forget the crosswalk guard Jorge Garcia and the janitor Peter Kwong!

Anyways. Some sort of infected chicken nugget causes it all. Girl eats it, starts getting sick. She bites another kid, and soon, kids are running around the school, biting and attacking anyone in site. Fucking kid zombies.

As for some of the kids, we had Patriot (Cooper Roth), the biggest dick in the school, Dink (Miles Elliot), his lackie, Tamra (Morgan Lily), patient zero, and Calvin (Armani Jackson), a kid who didn’t get bit and gets to hang out with the adults! There was another girl that hung out with them, but I forget a name. And of course, Ian Brennan as the normally vice principal, but for summer, principal! He wrote the narrator of Glee.

Here’s what you missed last time on Cooties: Fuck these little fuckers!

Cooties ended up being a lot more graphic and violent than I expected. Horror Comedy usually means a lot more comedy and horror is more of a sub genre. Like, “Oh yeah, there are zombies, so there is a horror element, but we are all just hear for the laughs.” No, the zombie kids end up being a bit scary and definitely very gruesome in their attacks on the teachers and parents at Fort Chicken. Add in the booming loud noises department and I was constantly taken aback. Yes, they made loud noises to scare you, and yes, that is lame. But they were still unexpected.

I actually had a mostly enjoyable time with this film. The banter in particular between Wood and Wilson was the highlight of the film, along with one of the teachers being ridiculously smart in biology out of nowhere. A lot of it however falls apart with the ending. They just don’t stick it. It is as if the writer/director didn’t know where to take the story. With only 10 or so minutes left, our characters were in a new situation. No real time to fully appreciate the situation, just enough time to showcase something cool and end with a cliffhanger.

The movie is also afraid to kill off the teachers. Anyone who seems to have lines is encased with plot armor. The kids lose any real scare when they turn into just things that run at them just as doors are closing. At least early on there was mass chaos, kids chasing other kids, teachers getting fucked over who were outside, etc.

Despite everything, Cooties was entertaining in ways I didn’t expect, and pretty decent on the joke department. I would watch a sequel in the future, should it happen, with some amount of optimism. But in all honesty, despite unresolved story lines, I don’t think a sequel has anywhere it could go that would set it apart from other zombie films.