Tag: Comedy

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.

Joe Dirt: Cult Classic, Classically Bad, or just a shit movie?

Hard to say, depends on who you ask. I would argue that it had a few redeeming jokes, could have been good, but overall, just a shit movie. Which is sad, because I tend to just feel sorry for David Spade more than anything. I liked Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. Or at least a few redeeming jokes/scenes. Fuck. So I guess I just feel bad overall. He probably just misses Chris Farley.

And then we got Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser. Was it wanted? Hard to say.

But it exists and it was released exclusively on Crackle, because Sony went and financed the film. So you can watch it in all 480p glory with commercials, right now. Which is why this is day 2 of my “Fucking Finally” review week.

480p, because if any higher, you could tell that the hair is not actually a wig, but his real hair!

This sequel takes place not at all directly after the first film, and not just because I don’t remember how the first film ended. But Joe (Spade) and Brandy (Brittany Daniel) are still together and they even got married. Yay! You knew that from the picture above.

Things were going well, technically. He even got Brandy pregnant to make a little Dirt. Turns out Brandi was actually popping out triplets though, all girls. Oh well, life is still fine. Even if Dirt just gets farted on at work and his family thinks he is a loser. To prove he is not a loser, he runs back to the trailer during a tornado to get something for one of his daughters. This makes him Wizard Of Oz it up and get transported to another place, where it lands on the leader of a gang!

Hey, that makes Joe the new gang leader, according to the second in command, Foggie (Patrick Warburton). Also, it is now 1965. Time travel, just because.

The rest of the movie is literally Joe Dirt existing in the past, doing past stuff, like meeting Lynyrd Skynyrd, before they are famous, doing a Cast Away parody, and other stuff. Heck, the whole thing is really a bigger Forrest Gump parody.

Also you can find Mark McGrath, Dennis Miller, Tracy Weisert, Christopher Walken, Rhonda Dents, and Kevin P. Farley stomping around at various points in this movie.

Feast your eyes upon this image and know pain itself!

Look at that image above. Look at it hard. Does it make you feel bad inside? Does it make you hate yourself? Does it make you wonder how could an image like that appear in a movie that doesn’t have “Movie” in the title?

That’s it! Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser does what no one thought possible. It created something on par with Scary Movie 5, The Starving Games, and Meet the Spartans. Shitty parody movies with barely a theme that have one unrelated scene after another to make terrible pop culture references and call them jokes.

However, Joe Dirt 2 doesn’t even have a theme. It just makes terrible references, not jokes, just references, and moves on. The picture above is trying to make it seem hip and cool, by putting a gif meme directly in the film to appeal to the youth of today and just seeming terrible. It literally came out of nowhere and didn’t even make sense in the scene it was in!

Honestly, I found maybe two scenes slightly amusing. The Skynard scene and the nickname scene. However, like every “joke” in this movie, they both still go on too long and make me sick of it before it is through. In a way, that describes the films as a whole. Joe Dirt could be considered an amusing movie. Joe Dirt 2 elongates the joke too far, making me hate 1 and 2 collectively more than I did before.

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

Fucking finally. Those are the words I said when I sat down to watch The Interview. I mean…fuck! What month is it? September? 2015?

The Interview was supposed to come out on Christmas of 2014 (after being pushed back from October to re-edit a little bit to make it better for NK), and I first saw a trailer for it way before all this North Korea bombing controversy happened. I was stoked to see it. I was sad when my screener was cancelled. I cheered on the good fight from Alamo Drafthouse saying that they would still show the film. And then it was on VOD like, right away and Netflix probably within a month of that. So it has been easy for me to consume and watch an review for over 9 months.

And I am just now reviewing it. What the hell happened? Why did it keep leaving my point of view and get pushed back? As a real answer, January I specifically put a lot of effort into finishing my best/worst of 2014 year lists, then I had to worry about watching all the rest of the Oscar nominees. Then I just forgot.

So without to much more delay, I am presenting you with a review of The Interview to kick off my “Fucking Finally” review week! Not just a bunch of movies I should have watched a long time ago, but movies that have been super available to watch and I somehow just didn’t do it.

I just couldn’t handle the fake smiles and forced friendships

Dave Skylark (James Franco) is the host of Skylark Tonight. He is very outspoken, in your face and not much of a professional. The good news is that he doesn’t have to be professional, because all he does is interview celebrities and talk gossip. He is an entertainment journalist, the lowest of the lows. Kind of like being a movie reviewer!

Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen) is his very good producer who has recently reached 100 episodes with the show. Wow, 1000 episodes of making technically shit TV, but it used to be even bigger shit before he came along. He never thought he would be doing this. He thought he would be a serious producer for serious news programs that actually made a difference in the world.

That is when they find out that North Korean leader, Kim Jung Un (Randall Park), is a big fan of Skylark Tonight! He also recently secured nuclear warheads and is waving them around like a metaphorical dick to the rest of the world. By just making a few phone calls, they are able to set up an interview with the Supreme Leader and a free trip to North Korea! Sure, they have to ask pre-approved questions and are limited what they can talk about, but it might elevate Skylark Tonight to be an important news program! Sure this interview will suck, but other political people will have to accept their invites if they interviewed friggan Kim Jung Un!

Enter the FBI (Lizzy Caplan, Reese Alexander). They want them to kill Kim Jung Un, using advanced poison technology that will in no way bring it back to them or the USA. Oh what a fun trip this will now be!

Also featuring Diana Bang as the NK Chief Propagandist, and Timothy Simons as a worker on the show who is just a super yes man.

Radio communication devices are always 100% effective next to each other.

If there is one thing The Interview had going against it, it could in no way ever live up to the hype that began to surround it. North Korea allegedly threatening to bomb movie theaters if they showed the film? (This of course, unconfirmed, as it was a message from the Sony Hackers, who probably weren’t actually North Koreans and just fucking with people). I mean, we had the POTUS speak out about free speech and wanting the movie to be shown! If a movie threatens the security of America, it better be the funniest, most crass piece of work ever done!

And guess what? It wasn’t. When boiled down to the essentials, it is only mildly offensive (barely) and average in humor. People judge comedy films much harsher if they aren’t full on spectacles, so an average comedy is generally seen as bad or a waste of time. Remember The Guilt Trip? Of course you don’t. That was an average comedy forgotten by time. The Interview won’t be quickly forgotten thanks to the months of free press the film got. But it definitely wasn’t a huge Sony conspiracy either. They lost millions upon millions over the hack and probably didn’t make all the money they had hoped for The Interview either. Although, it is their biggest movie in terms of money made through online distribution, so it has that going for it.

Ahem. Where were we? Oh yeah. The acting in the movie is fine, Franco was a completely different person (or a more exaggerated Franco, hard to say). Rogen was his normal self. Park did an interesting Un (is that the last name? I have no idea how it works in North Korea). Bang was pretty good in her role and the FBI was more or less irrelevant.

There are a lot of long scenes, a double edged sword. If you don’t find the current joke funny, it will stand out and be awkward. I don’t have to finish the second half of that statement I think. You get it by now.

Either way, I think the main reason I avoided it for so long is because I knew it couldn’t live up to the hype and knew I might not like as much as I had hoped.

I was told I need to watch The Visit, for a few reasons! One, my wife likes a lot of the M. Night Shyamalan films and she needs me to tell her how it is. Good reason.

Two, I have only seen one MNS film in theaters, and that was the terrible After Earth. And come on, that doesn’t count. None of that was typical MNS. And finally, despite thinking otherwise, I have actually seen all of his films but two. I figured I was missing at least 6 or 7 by now, but somehow I have watched most of them. I kind of have to keep going at this point, no matter my preconceived notions.

As for biases, IMDB labels the film as a comedy horror. For some people who have found his recent movies to be laughably bad with terrible twists, this allows him to join in on the joke with him. If he makes things intentionally cheesy, it is a win win for him.

Kind of like how a visit with the grandparents is a win win. They get to feel loved, you get snacks.

Fifteen or so years ago, a woman left her parents house to be with an older man. They had a baby girl, then another kid. Then eventually the man left her to raise the two kids all alone. The whole time the woman would not go back to her parents for help, never communicating with them despite problems in her life.

But then they found her via the internet. They want to see their grand kids! She said no. Grand kids forced it and now Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are going by train to see them! While they are away, The Mom (Kathryn Hahn) is going on a cruise with her boyfriend to get some well deserved time off.

Becca is a smart girl, aspiring film maker, so she wants to make a documentary about her experiences. This will be used as a project to help her mom heal the past between them all and leave to a better life hopefully. Tyler is the younger brother and a rapper, who enjoys free styling about random topics for “the ladies.”

Anyways, when they get to the farm, where there is no real cell phone signal (of course), they find their Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie, not Luke Youngblood) acting strangely. They were supposed to be a couple who offer counseling to sick people at the hospital that they volunteer at. But Pop Pop just seems to clean his guns and chop wood and stay alone. Nana bakes all the time and sometimes has a wild side.

Also there is the rule that they can’t leave their room after 9:30. That is when Nana starts acting even stranger and they wouldn’t want an accident to happen in the confusion. No, not at all.

At the same time, this oven is pretty nice and big and cozy.

Ed Oxenbould has already been in a lot of things in his very young career. In fact, he was Alexander in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. He was also the worst part of that movie. Technically, he was also the worst part of this movie, but in this case, his acting wasn’t bad. Just his actual character had some annoyances.

Shit, I am completely fine with basically everything he did in this movie, except for the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad rapping. He freestyles like, 3-4 times in the film and each one is cringeworthy and awkward. It doesn’t feel like it fits his charterer at all. I assume the actor could really do it and so they included it, but I just wanted it to end immediately each time it started.

The Visit is actually a decent comedy when it needs to be and scary at the other points. As we get closer to the end, the balances shift a bit more to the scary side with a bit of absurdity. Despite the shifts in tone, the movie handles it all really well. It never feels jarring to be a bit scared and then laughing a minute later. That being said, this is not going to be the movie for you if you want an extremely funny or scary movie, as both sides are lessened in order to make the narrative work.

I enjoyed Dejonge as the lead, main narrator and it was refreshing to see such a smart teenager in a horror film. It was also interesting to her talk about the documentary she is trying to make, allowing a strange level of meta awareness to the final product movie that ends up being The Village.

More importantly, Dunagan was fantastic. She played a great Nana, pulling off the crazy, confused, and happy extremes that the character went through. The weirdness of the film relies heavily on her character, and if she wasn’t a great actress, the film would have been complete shit.

That’s right. This film wasn’t complete shit. This was a good movie. A good, new, M. Night Shyamalan movie. That factoid is probably the biggest twist of all.

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

I feel like I am constantly fighting a losing battle. Right now I only go to one pre-screening a week (two if a special occasion) and rarely see new things in theaters, unless I have a super strong desire. It seems like when given a choice every week, I will end up picking the serious drama or action movie, skipping the comedy. I have actually skipped a lot of comedies. They just don’t have the same strong pull from them to see them on the big screen. They are things that I can easily wait for a DVD release to rent at home and watch alone with ice cream.

Anyways, every time I think I am about to catch up on the last few comedies, a few more come out. I skip those in theaters and this endless cycle continues as always.

Hot Pursuit is not the end of my journey. Since then this summer, there are at least two other major comedies that came out that I am waiting to be released. Oh well, I will sally forth and hopefully giggle a bit.

A movie with two female leads and they aren’t shoving sexuality in my face? I’m not mad, just surprised really!

Rose Cooper (Reese Witherspoon) is the kind of person everyone will collectively hate. She is focused on only one thing, her career, and it enters all aspects of her life. You see, her dad used to be a cop and was the best on the force. So she grew up with just him and went on a lot of ride alongs. She learned the lingo, learned everything, she just didn’t learn how to be social. Now she is an adult and in the evidence room because she is apparently also slightly retarded despite the fact that she should be a super cop.

But now she has a field mission! Her and a US Marshall (Richard T. Jones) have to head down to South Texas to pick up two people for the witness protection program. Felipe (Vincent Laresca) and Daniella Riva (Sofia Vergara) are going to witness against the cartel leader Vincente Cortez (Joaquin Cosio)! Scary! It is very time sensative, they need to be at the courthouse the next day to testify. If they go too early, they might get hitmen after them or something! Cooper gets to go, because if there is a female witness, there needs to be a female officer. Oh well, she will take anything.

Of course, after they show up, some armed intruders break in and kill Felipe and the Marshall, leaving Cooper all alone with Daniella. She can’t trust anyone, because who knows who is on Cortez’s payroll. So she has to figure out how to get her to the trial on her own, in one piece, with multiple sides now coming against us. Basically, a great first real field assignment.

Also featuring a bunch more dudes, including: Matthew Del Negro, Michael Mosley, Robert Kazinsky, Jim Gaffigan, John Carroll Lynch, Michael Ray Escamilla, and Benny Nieves.

Oh good. Slightly better outfits for the pervs out there.

To continue with the trend I mentioned earlier, unsurprisingly, Hot Pursuit was not that funny. Honestly. One actually great scene, which is the main reason the review gets a 1. It involved cocaine and characters on said drug. Fantastic. Comedy gold. Everything else was just a slow, dull bore.

There were plot twists! They weren’t good. There were jokes in English and Spanish! They weren’t good. Witherspoon’s character was so uptight, by the book, and yet dumb! That wasn’t funny. Vergara kept trying to run away! Wasn’t funny. Maybe a scene where they badly try to act like lesbians to get out of a jam? Nope, still not funny.

Sorry for spoiling most of the movie.

But damn. If I had to give the movie any credit, Witherspoon was definitely acting like a different person. She had a strange accent and everything.

Hot Pursuit is a hot mess from start to finish and is not worthy of anyone’s time or attention.

I don’t know a lot about American Ultra. I do know that it has some nice buzz words to get more butts in the seats though.

A lot of big movies have American in the title now. American Sniper destroyed the box office, so people really love American shit. Then we have American Beauty, American Psycho, American Pie, you name it! American to start off your movie is like a golden ticket.

And then of course whe have Ultra. That puts it at the top tier, and it sounds a lot like Ultron. Maybe they want people who love America and love the Avengers to see their film. If they can bring in those two demographics, they would be walking their way over to the billionaire club.

Again, knowing nothing about the movie, this has to be their plan right?

“And bring in an established couple from other movies! Like those kids from Adventureland!” – Movie Exec

Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) is a small town, do nothing, stoner. He has never left his West Virginian town and any time he attempts to leave he ends up having a panic idea. The thought of going places just freaks him the fuck out.

Thankfully he has weed. And the love of his life, Phoebe Larson (Kristen Stewart). She is basically perfect and deserves someone way better than him, as he is a constant screw up. But for whatever reason, she loves him back. Even when he kills two men outside of the convenience store that he works.

Shit. Shit shit fuck. He didn’t even know he could kill a man, and technically they attacked him first. He already has enough trouble with the law, weed smoker and all. It has something to do with the strange lady (Connie Britton) who came to his shop and basically said just gibberish. Next thing Mike knows, other strangers are trying to assassinate him and wouldn’t you know it? He can fight back! Magical Stoner Powers activate! Sometimes it can be good to be a government sleeper agent.

Also starring Tony Hale as a CIA employee, Topher Grace as a mean CIA dude, Walton Goggins as a hitman, John Leguizamo as a dealer, Stuart Greer as a sheriff and Bill Pullman as “mysterious CIA man.”

To John Leguizamo, Thanks For The Drugs, Jesse Eisenberg.

One exciting fact about American Ultra is that it written by Max Landis, who also wrote Chronicle. Huh. Chronicle. The great movie that was directed by Josh Trank, who recently directed a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Fantastic Four movie as his next main project. So weird that two guys who worked on an indie movie both got much bigger movies that were released in the same month three years later.

One thing I hate as a movie watcher is hearing other people echo commonly held complaints that they just regurgitate from the internet, without realizing they never gave it any thought. For example, a very popular “opinion” is that Stewart is terrible and cannot show emotion. People of course got confused with her real self and playing a hated character. For those that think that, they will be happy to know that Stewart shows a lot of emotion in this film: fear, sadness, extreme happiness. She is all over the place. And she also does a fine job.

As for the rest of the movie, American Ultra is a very strange film. Not fully comedy, not fully action, and not really a normal action comedy. And don’t even think it, because it is definitely not a stoner action comedy either, like Pineapple Express. It is a strange mash of all of these genres, and not in a normal or bad way. It reminds me of Red State. Red State was a hard movie to describe, clashing together different genres and keeping you on your toes. This film is of course nothing like the actual Red State, but I think you get my meaning.

American Ultra almost perfectly embodies the 2 out of 4 rating on this website. It is an enjoyable movie yes. Sometimes the jokes work really really well, thanks in a lot to the chaotic nature of a few scenes. And sometimes the movie feels like it drags and you just want to get to the next scene. We call that pacing issues in the biz, and it can make or break or apparently average out a film. But it did have some nice acting from our leads and some pretty slick shots at the same time. It can be worth a watch eventually. I think the people who love it are going to just really love it.

2015 has been a weak ass year for musicals. Basically we have a film or two that feature Anna Kendrick singing, a shitty terrible no good animated jukebox musical, and a made for TV mess. And the future doesn’t look bright either.

So I was a bit excited to hear about Lucky Stiff, a musical movie based off a real musical that was done in a theater. Because by golly, that means we are going to get something a bit unique with real singing in it. Not some quick to DVD jukebox musical that takes zero effort to produce.

There is still hope that a singing film without Kendrick this year is worth a watch.

This one lacks Kendrick, but its most famous actor in it is this guy so…fuck.

Harry Witherspoon (Dominic Marsh) is a poor, down on his luck, shoe salesman. He is the kind of guy who no one would care about. I don’t even care about him and we just met! But then he gets a telegram. Crazy right? Why would Harry get a telegram? Who would pay money to send him a message? Harry’s Landlady (Jayne Houdyshell) and I agree about this. It is bizarre.

Turns out he had an American uncle, Tony (Don Amendolia), who died and had his hands on some money. He is going to leave Harry, his last surviving relative, 6 million dollars in cash, but only if agrees to a few terms first. You know, like taking Uncle Tony to Monte Carlo and having a very detailed fun week of living life up to the max, which is something Tony always wanted to do. And don’t worry. His body has been prepared nicely by a taxidermist, so he won’t smell or be super gross. He will just be in a wheel chair and ready to party. So he has to Weekend at Bernie’s the whole situation.

But of course there is a catch. If he doesn’t follow the instructions to a letter, all of the money will instead go to a dog charity. For real dogs. Man what a waste! The humans in charge are interested in the money though, so they send Annabel Glick (Nikki M. James) to spy on them and potentially sabotage them to get that sweet cash.

That is still too easy. Which is why we have Rita LaPorta (Pamela Shaw), who claims to be the one who shot Tony accidentally, given that she is legally blind. They had an affair going on and her husband go jealous, but they also embezzled six million dollars of which he hid. So she wants it, and she wants her optometrist brother (Jason Alexander) to go with her.

There. Now we have a proper clusterfuck.

What? You want more? Fine. Let’s throw in Dennis Farina, Kate Shindle, and Kent Avenido, who was totally on like, three episodes of Glee, in which he was excellent.

“I’m too drunk to taste this chicken!” – I assume the Colonel Sanders looking motherfucker said this at least once.

Lucky Stiff was a weird movie. I sincerely hope you got that from the description. Very weird, bizarre at times, and technically because occasionally a character will break out in song makes it even stranger.

The average movie goer would look at this film and potentially quit halfway just because of how awkward it is, but thankfully I like strange films. I cannot say the acting is great. I can’t say all of the songs are enjoyable, nor can I say that any of them really stuck with me after the movie was over. In fact, the musical-ness was an afterthought. Everything was overacted (I believe intentionally) just to give this extreme zany atmosphere, I’d imagine it like a Mad TV sketch gone on too long.

But it was slightly entertaining, in the smallest ways, just because it was weird.

I should also note that the female lead, Nikki M. James, is actually a fantastic singer, and played the main female role in The Book of Mormon, winning the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical. You should see her acceptance speech, because it made me tear up. And then it made me realize how sad it is that someone can win something like a Tony, but not be able to still necessarily make it as a great actress.

Because for what it is worth, this film is technically terrible. The weirdness element could only carry me so far, but by the end I was just waiting for it to end. Oh well. Hopefully some smaller good musicals pop up by the end of the year. Pleaseee.

I am a big Armie Hammer fan, which is a weird thing to say out loud (or through words in a review post).

Seriously.

I liked him as The Lone Ranger and I liked him in The Social Network. He was charming in Mirror Mirror and appropriately dramatic in J. Edgar. And hell, he was the best cameo in Entourage.

I realize that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is based on a television show from the 1960s, but that is super old and I will never watch it for research purposes. All I care about right now is that Armie Hammer gets more leading roles, and damn it, maybe one day he can play a super hero?

pic with henry canville asking if he is jealous

Set during the Cold War, the opening credits of the movie really really want you to realize that after World War II, Germany was broken up into East and West, with West Germany controlled militarily by America and East by the Soviet Union. Why? Because that is where our film starts, and is one of the many places of tension between USA/USSR!

It begins with Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) bringing his American self into East Germany! He is there to see a mechanic, Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander). It turns our her father was a great scientist, who of course worked with the Nazis. He was able to eventually head to America to work on their nuclear program, but two years ago he went missing. Shit.

Solo and the US government think that he is in Italy against his will, working for Victoria (Elizabeth Debicki) and Alexander Vinciguerra (Luca Calvani). They plan on building their own nuclear warhead and using it. No good at all. In fact, this potentially threatens the whole world. Which is why the Soviet Union and United States have to team up! They are going to send Solo, the CIA’s best agent, in with Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), one of the KGB’s best agents, two men who have battled before, to work together to save the world.

Also featuring Sylvester Groth, Jared Harris, and Hugh Grant.

I have heard that the movie that came out is actually nothing like the TV show outside of people sharing the names. You know what I think? Don’t care. I don’t base reviews off of the source material, just what is presented before me. And what was presented before me ended up being a very entertaining film.

First off, it’s a Guy Ritchie film. Outside of his Sherlock films, I haven’t been able to see one of his movies without subtitles because they usually go way too strong on the accents. That almost happened again at the start, with strong German talk, but we got over it thankfully. The movie itself is HIGHLY stylized. The tone, props, settings, everything screams out that decade. It is one giant love letter to the entire era. The cinematography was wonderful and so was the choreography. It is hard to describe how stylized the film became, with one action scene featuring a very comic book feel despite not being based on the genre.

As for the main characters, Cavill and Hammer both did great jobs with excellent chemistry together. The first scene where they were introduced was able to showcase how fully badass both individuals were, while never really making one seem like the lesser spy. This film has been in production for a long time, and the last guy on before Cavill was actually Tom Cruise, but he had to back out due to Rogue Nation. With Cruise, it would have been a very enjoyable movie, but probably not the same dynamic these two were able to pull off with each other.

The movie was also decently funny. The competition between the leads and them being forced into awkward situations had me laughing quite often. Longer jokes existed too, including the “watch gag” which featured obvious and subtle jokes throughout the film.

I hope at least one more film gets made as a follow up, because I could watch Hammer talk with the Russian accent all day. Not to be ignored, Vikander also held up her own as a relative newcomer to the action genre (because we all should ignore Seventh Son).

Shit. This one is honestly hard to describe. I definitely enjoyed The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but I feel like an eight year old trying to describe…well…anything. I think if I had to say anything, this movie was definitely very cool. Hell, I felt a bit cooler after watching it, almost picking up a pack of cigarettes on my way home while listening to popular band music.

If you see The Man From U.N.C.L.E., you can feel cool, too!