Tag: Comedy

I feel like it was just yesterday when I finally reached the elusive 1050th review for my website. I know, an awkward number to be nostalgic about, especially since it is the milestone after an actual big one of 1000.

But you see, my Milestone Review for 1050 was the movie, Teen Beach Movie, a Disney channel original, which could be or might be the next big thing after High School Musical. Which of course also had its own big review.

Well, apparently TBM (acronym, bitches!) did do well enough to warrant more praise. I mean, I gave it a 2 out of 4, and was surprised I didn’t end up hating it! So sure, why no do another. Although, the second HSM film is the WORST by far. The camera work is terrible, it looks like it was all done second handed and rushed and none of the songs were good. And unfortunately that one was about summer time and swimming. So I am a bit worried for Teen Beach 2, which is my 1400th review (woot woot). I hope the sequel doesn’t drastically reduce the quality of the first, rushing out a movie to get people all sex nuts.

Just give me some good old fashioned satire. Please and thank yous.

Dancing in front of the screen to your favorite movie in sync with the actors is kind of cool.

Last day of summer! Mack (Maia Mitchell) and Brady (Ross Lynch) are enjoying some anniversary of meeting each other. How so? By watching the same damn movie they probably watched a thousand times on the beach before school starts. And hey, it is a song about how it was the best summer. Nice. Convenient.

But it turns out school is hard. Brady is a bit of a slacker that cares mostly about surfing. Mack keeps really busy, lots of clubs and organizations and wants to get into a good college. When they start to hang out with their older friends (Raymond Alexander Cham Jr., Piper Curda), it is clear that they might not have enough time for each other.

Maybe they were just a summer fling!

Brady can’t spend time focusing on this generic college application. He doesn’t even know his full name!

They quickly break up later that day. Brady forgot to meet her for college fair, and so she went with hunky tall asian kid Spencer (Ross Butler, even shares the same first acting name, oh noes!) instead. It takes 24 minutes into the movie post breakup for us to get another song, which is an incredibly long time for a musical. That song, On My Own, starts out good, but then goes extremely poppy real quick, and suddenly Brady is singing it into a microphone in his room. Does he record songs all of the sudden?

While this is going on, in the Wet Side Story world, Lela (Grace Phipps) is turning away from the script. She wants to save the day too and not be a damsel. Somehow this turns into them finding the magical necklace, where Lela and Tanner (Garrett Clayton) decide to run off into the ocean, taking them to the real world, not the movie world!

Everything is wonderful here, outside of the lack of singing. But don’t worry, they can make people sing in dance, because they are movie characters. They sing “Right Where I Want To Be,” not knowing their movie-ness, but just thinking they are in the future. They have other super powers as well. Like, their hair and clothes don’t get wet under the water.

I was legit going to complain about this picture and bad CGI until they made it a plot point. 🙁

Either way, Brady and Mack now have to work together. Totally sucks, since they hate each other now since it is not summer. They each take the same gendered movie character to their homes to help them blend in. Their plan is simple, make the real world seem terrible, and they will leave on their own free will. That way if anything bad starts to happen, like their world disappear, it isn’t such a big deal to fix it.

You know. Showing them things like calculus. And introducing them to their best friends. Those BFFs who totally love the new friends too, quirks and all. Another fun movie power is that they can’t not be in 1960’s clothing. They put on a new outfit, and magic, that shit looks old.

Nothing seems to be working, so instead they make them go to the cafeteria alone to find a place to sit. This cafeteria is apparently 100% outside and full on high school cliche. Instead of dealing with that negativity of goth kids and cheerleaders, they turn their frowns upside down. Like, literally. They sing a song about how wonderful smiling is, to get everyone to smile and sit with new people.

There is a such thing as smiling too hard though.

I feel like I have to talk more about this scene. It ended up being my favorite song, because it was the perfect satire/parody-ish musical song that I wanted and liked about the first. Most of the songs up this point were pretty shit, or failed to make the right points. But this one. This one went full on weird and 1960’s musical.

Just look at the picture below this one. Look at it in wonder and realize that it is totally in this movie, fully embracing the weirdness that is this now franchise. Musicals in the real world would totally be as awkward as this. I need awkward to thrive, and this is what I needed in the movie.

The more you look, the more weird stuff you will notice.

Hey what about movie world? Well they are all bored, not sure how to move the plot forward. They still have biker Butchy (John DeLuca), biker chick CheeChee (Chrissie Fit, now way more famous for being in Pitch Perfect 2), the shimmy girl Giggles (Mollee Gray), and other dude Seacat (Jordan Fisher). Well they also notice that people are starting to disappear and go away, mostly background characters. Still scary. Thankfully they find the necklace to go to the real world too and can get their friends back!

Back in the real world, Lela and Tanner are adapting way too quickly. No longer do they have their movie powers. When Tanner smiles it doesn’t necessarily produce the cool shiny sparkle! Since idea #1 didn’t work, they decide to instead hype up why life in the movies is better. And of course, they now try singing to them, because that is the only way this shit works.

But then it still doesn’t.

It is very impressive for them to have all these sets on a beach ready to go!

Well shit. Now that the friends arrive and tell them that people are disappearing and presumably dying, they think it is a good idea to go back to movie world. They don’t want death on their hands.

But Mack and Brady are still not back together! I know, it is pretty fucked up. So it is a school dance night, and they aren’t dancing together. That is the saddest of all the things. Turns out the movie gang didn’t go back after all. No, they needed to save the relationship. And the best way to do that is to force a song at this strange dance, where they sing about how they just gotta be themselves you know? And they can’t change who they are. A classic musical trope, that features all the boys and girls dancing at each other on their respective halves of the school gymnasium.

So that basically works, but holy fuck, they really gotta get these movie guys back home. So they run to the beach, and literally all the people with speaking lines blow up and fizzle out of reality, leaving just Lena and Tanner from the film. They don’t go into details, but I imagine if they go back, they will be alone and confused. Unless going back magically saves the day and everyone pops back all easy-peasy. There is no real reason to assume that though.

Being your own unique person involves doing mirror like dance sets and singing the same chorus.

Brady and Mack sing a song to get back together. Mack also finds out that Brady has been designing super sweet surf boards on his spare time and he has been afraid to tell her, because Brady is a fuck face. They also realize that if Lela and Tanner pop away, apparently the movie will not exist and they will never meet. Which is awkward. Before Lela goes, she is told by Mack to make her own story and not give into the preconceptions of her movie world. Be her own woman!

They save the day! Yay! Wait what, Brady and Mack don’t know each other. Apparently Wet Side Story still doesn’t exist. Instead it is called Lela, Queen of the Beach. Instead of an awesome Romeo and Juliet musical beach movie it is a movie with even less plot, about Lela being awesome at the beach? Talk about a down grade. Somehow this erases the last few months of history, despite the movie not even mentioning this possibility.

But don’t fret. Brady and Mack now meet for the first time at a screening of this new movie on the beach, at a big party! For whatever reason, everyone knows the movie but Brady. This is some strange flip of the first time they meet, conversations and all. Thankfully, everyone dances and sings along to the movie on the screen, in time with the movie again, letting Brady and Mack fall in love. Or something. Hooray they still end up together, but…differently.

Again, singing and dancing along with the screen is THE coolest.

Obviously, this sequel is worse than the first film. The first film was an average parody of the old fashioned musicals and it was over the top on purpose. This film barely crosses the over the top moments, outside of the song I talked a lot about halfway through the review. I was disappointed with most of the songs. The school dance song could have been better if it didn’t have a generic as fuck chorus about marching to their own beat. It made it terrible. Not even the final closing song was good, because it has a nonsensical chorus for no reason at all.

“Bubble bubble bubble-a, popple popple popple-a
Sparkle sparkle rattly-doo
Fizzle fizzle fizzle-a, whizzle whizzle whizzle-a
Boom-a, boom-a, that’s how we do.” (Repeat x2 each time).

I want to say that song and a few other scenes may be references to Grease, but they do them poorly and just end up looking like shit.

I am also pretty annoyed that the ending doesn’t make any sense. Let alone the danger of them disappearing and somehow just changing their world as they knew it. This isn’t even a time travel movie. This is people going from a movie into the real world and vice versa. They equate their issues as if they were being transported back to the 1960’s, which is not at all how movies should work. Having them suddenly not meet at all earlier in the summer because a movie changed is also terrible, because it came out of no where with no explanation. Related, the fake movie in question always looked bad, but the new movie it became somehow looks far worse.

The only redeeming quality, outside of the awkward smile song, are the biker characters of course, who don’t get as much time to shine. Tanner and Lela have some decent jokes in the real world, but when they become real, those jokes fade.

It is disappointing that they brought in an awesome Asian male to be fawned over, and he ends up with another Asian character at the end, losing some potential sweet romantic diversity.

Teen Beach 2 went for the shitty sequel to make cash quickly route, instead of developing a story as smart (ish) as the original. It practically changed the genre from parody to…just regular not so good original Disney Channel movie. Such a shame. And it will probably develop into a trilogy, maybe with this one also going to theaters?

In conclusion, Ross Lynch is no Zac Efron.

The original Paul Blart: Mall Cop came out very early in 2009, which was a weird time in America. A lot of people lost their money and jobs, so they wanted entertainment to take them away from this brutal thing called life, to help them pass the time until something good finally happened.

That movie was just another kick in the nuts for America. In fact, it was so bad, no one even noticed when Observe and Report came out two months later. That ended up being the better film, but no one wanted to watch something with another mall security guard.

Now, six years later, the movie gods have decided that we have forsaken them over and over again, with shitty film after shitty film. So they have decreed there would be a sequel, aptly named Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2!

And unless we change our ways, they have even threatened us with a television show for his story to continue, guaranteed eight seasons. This news blurb came to me in a deep theater based prayer.

Bow down movie watching mortals and repent! For he acts for your sins!

Paul Blart (Kevin James) was lucky. That is what we have learned since the first film. Six years later he is still working the same crappy mall security job, doing what he loves. However, his wife that he met in the first film left him after six days. And then his mom died after getting hit by a vehicle while checking the mail. Yep. Everything is shit for Paul. At least he still has his daughter, Maya (Raini Rodriguez) who loves him. However, she got accepted into UCLA, and that would have her move far from home. Best to ignore that until a critical moment later in the film.

Thankfully, there is the perfect distraction. Paul gets invited to a security guard conference in Las Vegas, very exclusive, only for the best of the best!

Unfortunately, bad things are also afoot at the conference. Vincent Sofel (Neal McDonough) is there with a bunch of bad guys! They are going to steal works of art from the hotel that are worth millions! Mwhaha!

Too bad they are going to underestimate the small security guard conference sharing a hotel with them. Typical bad guys, ignoring mall security. Have they learned nothing in six years?

A lot more people here, but none of them are really important enough to talk about their characters. But they are played by David Henrie, D.B. Woodside, Nicholas Turturro, Loni Love, Gary Valentine, Ana Gasteyer, Eduardo Verástegui, and Daniella Alonso.

This picture makes it look like Kevin James has a tiny mouth under his real mouth.

I don’t hate Kevin James, I actually like him. I am not saying he is a great actor, but he can be a funny dude. Remember Hitch? Hitch wasn’t that bad. And I thought Here Comes The Boom was way better than it had any right to be. My first media intake of James was actually his stand up special Sweat the Small Stuff (I never watched The King of Queens) and loved it for years! It just seems that no one outside of Adam Sandler is giving him any work to do which is sad. Everything is also super family friendly. He could do great with some more at least upper teenager material.

Unfortunately instead we get shit like Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, where everything is a fat joke, slap stick, or just awkward in the worst ways.

The acting is bad, the plot is worse, the characters are boring and not funny. Nothing works in this movie. Sure, technically it tells a mostly cohesive story, but it does it in the lamest ways possible. It doesn’t even want to treat its hero correctly. Watching his mom get killed by the car and the divorce so soon into the film, it was clear this was a movie to make fun of a man and shit all over him and not to laugh with him. Those things felt mean, not funny, and set the tone for the entire rest of the movie.

Kids might find this movie funny, but I would never show it to my own. I try to only show them good material and not just the lowest common denominator film for the cheapest laughs. That is why they will never see Planes under my watch. And hopefully they won’t even have to live in a world where a third one of these films gets made.

Something must be in the water, because this is my second “made for TV” movie in a few weeks. Not to spoil the surprise, but I have a third one next week as well.

To give 7 Days In Hell some credit, it is at least an HBO movie, so it won’t be restricted by what stay at home moms want to call the network to complain about if it gets too violent, sexy, grotesque, or angry. They can do what they want!

The release of the film of course is due to Wimbledon about to finish, so why not have a quick mockumentary about a game that never happened. This film is of course inspired by the Isner-Mahut Wimbledon match up in 2010, that went for over 11 hours over 3 days, and was the real game that would never end. It is not based on the Wimbledon romantic comedy from 2004, which (screw you haters!) is actually one of my favorites of the year.

Paul Bettany just needed better hair, like these folks.

This historic match took place in the early 2000s, but before one can find out why they battled hard enough to play tennis for 7 days straight, one has to see where the men involved came from.

Aaron Williams (Andy Samberg) had a reverse Blind Side situation, where he was a white kid on the streets and he got adopted into a black family. Note the last name, yes, he was the adopted brother of the Williams sisters. So it is no wonder he too became great at tennis. Never great enough unfortunately. Because after a huge accident one serve away from winning Wimbledon in the 90’s, Aaron has never been the same. His game was off, he had to turn to other careers and eventually wound up in prison. His hot head personality is missed on the court for many years until he gets out of jail.

On the other side, we have Charles Poole (Kit Harington), a child prodigy, starting to play tennis at the age of three. Some say his maybe abusive mom (Mary Steenburgen) forced him to be the star he is, but it worked and he became the youngest pro ever. He is also the best chance of a British person actually winning Wimbledon in a long time, coming into the tournament at the 2nd overall seed. He is also close to retarded, having no real schooling outside of tennis and graduating from a truck driving school.

Needless to say, due to (plot), these two gentlemen find themselves playing each other in the first round, Aaron to get back to the top, and Charles for his country and to be the very best.

But then rain delays were just the beginning of the issue, in this back and forth match where a player could rarely hold an upper hand, until, you know, it finally ends and stuff.

Any documentary of course has people to tell the story, so we got a few of those! Including a few tennis historians (Will Forte, Fred Armisen), a Jordache Executive (Lena Dunham), the girlfriend of Charles’ at the time (Karen Gillan), and a creepy TV interview host (Michael Sheen). But that isn’t it, the story is also told by David Copperfield, John McEnroe, and Serena Williams!

This is bullshit, they should be playing overnight as well. Who gave them breaks?

I tend to try and have some sort of time criteria for a review. If a movie isn’t an hour long, is it really a movie? Or is it a strange television episode? This in particular has made documentary watching harder, because there are a lot of made for TV documentaries that include commercials leaving the viewer with 40-45 minutes of material. Most notably in this group would be the ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries, which this mockumentary is actually styled after. So it makes sense for the movie to only be about 43 minutes in length, and hey, I will let it pass, because the teaser for it made me giggle. Damn it.

I was surprised at how many jokes it could cram into one tiny documentary. A lot goes on with their lives and with the game, and it feels good not really spoiling any of it. In particular, after Samberg, Forte and Armisen provide the most laughs as the historians.

This is a tiny project and it definitely works for what it is. If anything, Harington is actually the most disappointing aspect. I don’t think it is him, but they gave him a lame character to play. Either way, I hope they do more movies in this style in the future, as they can provide easy entertainment probably relatively cheaply for the channel.

Me and Illumination Entertainment don’t get along. They had one of the most racist kid movies in recent history with Hop, a bad Lorax, and the Despicable Me series. I thought the first film was bad, but at least I liked the minions.

Then Despicable Me 2 came out. They heard we liked minions, so they gave us a bunch more minions. It ended up being bad as well, full of shitty humor and too much minions, not enough good story.

But that made Universal, the distributor, a shit ton of money. More money than any other film they had distributed, so of course we needed MORE. More what? More Minions of course! “Fuck Gru, give us Minions!” They are now super advertised, with tiny shorts before movies, awkward commercials, lunchboxes, pencils, everything. They are printing money by having tiny yellow creatures on them that speak gibberish and sing gibberish covers of famous songs.

This film was also pushed back, but not for delays. Originally scheduled for end of 2014 release, they went with the mid-summer release instead because it had been making them pretty dang good money.

Enough money to take down Disney World? We will see…

Minions is a prequel to the Despicable Me movies, about how the large group of minions (Pierre Coffin, all of them) came into existence and how they eventually met Gru. Turns out they are basically large single celled organisms, and never really evolved into bigger and better things. Instead they were followers. Instead of looking for just the biggest and strongest creature to protect them, for whatever reason they looked for the most “despicable” person to follow, because the minions are apparently evil as fuck, despite never doing anything evil.

The minions went throughout time, following bad guys and always pissing them off or killing them from their ineptitude. Until they had to go into hiding where they made their own minion community! It was safe, but boring. It wasn’t until three minions, Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, set off to find a new big bad boss did anything change. Aka, the 1960’s. Their travels eventually introduce them to Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock) and her husband Herb (Jon Hamm), who are about to steal the crown from Queen Elizabeth (Jennifer Saunders) and take over the country.

But if the minions want in on being her slaves, they gotta prove themselves first. You know, doing evil stuff and doing the job for her. Easy peasy. And if they fail, well, eventually they will find Gru right?

Also using the voice talents of Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Geoffrey Rush as the narrator, and Hiroyuki Sanada as “Sumo Villain” because that is all they could give him, I guess.

If this was called Minion Pie, this scene could be the day that the minions died?

Watching the trailer for Minions, I had hope. It looked like it could actually be a funnier movie and maybe make me laugh. Not having to worry about the awkward bad guy + kids situation, we could focus on a better more interesting plot of shenanigans and tomfoolery. Tomfoolery we may have gotten, but not the kind of tomfoolery one would want.

The movie made me laugh just one time in 90 minutes, which is obviously a bad sign. The jokes weren’t clever. Their only attempt at appeasing the adult audience would be the several songs they included for the minions to gibberish sing, all of the songs older of course given when it takes place. But even that is incredibly lazy. That joke is more of a “Haha, do you get it? You know this song right? This is funny because it is something you know but minions singing!”

This is not to say that I am angry at the fact that they don’t speak any real language. That is part of their character design. But to have a movie focus so much on them talking to others and each other, feels terrible. We can assume everything they are saying, sure, due to the weird way their language works. But it feels more annoying than anything. They rely on side human characters and narrators to actually explain plot points, because for the most part their main characters cannot.

Additionally, having them focus on three random minions to give them some sort of personality just annoys me that the other dozens of characters are ignored. I would have rather seen them work as the cohesive group, going full on henchmen, not just a couple guys on a bad road trip.

I am surprised that it ended with them actually meeting young Gru. I figured it took place in the late 60’s so they could justifiably fit in 3-4 more Minion movies pre-Gru to milk the franchise more. A Minions 2 with young Gru would be annoying, because it gets rid of all of his character development (but maybe it would actually make him evil? That’d be a shocker). For now though, our next film with them would be Despicable Me 3 out in a few years, which promises more of the same, so it will probably suck.

I am a bit annoyed that this will probably make so much money, especially if it makes more than Inside Out, a superior film in almost every conceivable way. The success of the film just means that minions will still appear everywhere. Yes, that includes the strange memes going around that have the minions as the main picture, and then some random joke text, that has abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with the franchise at all that old women and dumbasses share on your facebook page.

If you want a movie in production hell, then you want Ant-Man. Sure, Iron Man was technically in development since the 1990s, but those were with different studios before Marvel got it back in 2006. If you didn’t notice, they then pushed out the movie just two years alter.

Ant-Man, however, was also in development since 2006 and took just nine years to finally get released. That is a long time of trying to make a movie work and never giving up. Well, they technically gave up a little bit. Edgar Wright who was signed on to be the director since the beginning was fired early 2014 from the project which scared a lot of movie fans. Wright is well liked and has an awesome style. And the movie was roughly a year away! How could they do this? And with script re-writes as well!

I will admit that I too overreacted, expecting that Ant-Man would unfortunately be Marvel’s first real disaster of a movie in a long time, possibly meaning bad news for the other new franchises coming down the time lines. But as a not so secretive fanboy, I was also of course hoping for the best.

Thumbs up, seven new franchises up!

The movie starts in Taylor Swift’s favorite year, 1989, where some dude named Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is upset over S.H.I.E.L.D. turning his science into weapons! He made a Pym Particle, but he refuses to let them have it for warfare, so he quits and starts his own company. It should be noted we get to see Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell), an older Howard Stark (John Slattery), and a random tool, Mitchell Carson (Martin Donovan).

Now, in the present day, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is just getting out of prison. He stole from his corrupt company who took millions from customers and gave it all back. He has a masters in Electrical Engineering, but he is also a pretty great thief it turns out. He has tried getting a regular job, but his crime history makes it hard. No job means no money, which means he can’t pay child support to his ex (Judy Greer), and thus he can’t really see his daughter (Abby Ryder Fortson). To make things worse, the ex is now dating a cop (Bobby Cannavale) which is all sorts of awkward.

So Scott gets with his friend, Luis (Michael Peña), who has a heist for them. With a few friends (David Dastmalchian, T.I.), they are going to rob Pym’s house who has the biggest safe ever. Unfortunately, the only thing in it is an awkward suit.

Turns out it was all a test. (I swear I am not spoiling the whole film). Pym’s company is no longer in his hands, and his protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) is about to discover the shrinking secret. Once he gets the formula right, he is going to sell the Yellow Jacket suits to the highest bidder, making an unstoppable army at whomever’s disposal. Their only person on the inside is Pym’s daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly).

So it is simple. Break into an extremely secure facility, destroy the science and the suits, save the day. A nice heist. Perfect for someone who can shrink and control ants, right? Also Wood Harris! Fuck, I couldn’t fit him in naturally!

Super powers are overrated, you da real MVP!

Again, it looks like I told too much, but I think I told the basic motivations of our main characters and also threw in most of the side players as well. You got to see the two good guys, where they are coming from, and of course the bad guy.

And I fucking loved it.

Ant-Man had everything I wanted in a Marvel super hero film. It wasn’t ever super drama serious, but it had its touching moments. It was funny, and then it was also hilarious. Many characters brought the charm in. And the action was exciting. The CGI ants I thought would be cheesy, but they worked really well in the context of the rest of the film. Going back and forth between small and large to fight everyone was very slick. There was a wonderful montage and we even got a pretty significant Avenger cameo.

I really need to acknowledge Michael Peña, who was the best part of this movie and for all I know, not based on any comic book character. He was hilarious and I hope he gets to be in future Marvel films.

There was a weak part though. The relationship between Pym and Hope was supposed to be strained, but the actors didn’t act it well and it instead kind of just sucked. I am more incline to place the blame onto Lilly, but it could be that she was just given a weaker character with terrible lines and development.

Ant-Man has it all. It even has a villain who seems realistic and isn’t just a dark brooding figure. He has his own real motivations and a backstory and his arc makes a little bit of sense. Their fight scenes were wonderful. And on paper he may seem like a minor bad guy, but I think he is the best villain since Bucky and Loki.

Bring me more Ant-Man.

If I had a nickle for every time I decided to not yet watch The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I’d probably have at least $1.50 by now. I remember seeing it in the movie rental store Family Video, back when rental stores existed where I live. I would walk by the B section, glance at it, and mumble “Not today.”

And then they announced the sequel. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I saw a trailer, not actually knowing what the first one was about. Then I realized I had to hurry and watch the first one by early March, or else I wouldn’t get to see the sequel in theaters!

And here we are in July. I can say not getting to see the sequel in theaters was apparently a perfectly acceptable decision!

Much like my stereotype of the characters in the film, I would get to it when I get to it, dagnabbit.

Sonny (Dev Patel) has an idea. He is going to take his inherited family hotel and turn it into a lush amazing retirement home for Americans and British people to come to, to die. He is the third son and no one expects anything of him. His mom (Lillete Dubey) just wants him to come home for an arranged marriage, and doesn’t want him to marry Sunaina (Tina Desai). Too bad. He has dreams.

And this group of old people are his guinea pigs. That sounds sadistic, but really the film is about these gentle people ready to die.

Like Jean (Penelope Wilton) and Douglas (Bill Nighy), who have lost most of their money due to investing in their offspring and need some cheap place to go. And Evelyn (Judi Dench) who needs to sell off her house to pay off debts left by her late husband and needs somewhere cheap to go. She also is our blogger and narrator! And Muriel (Maggie Smith), who actually hates India but needs somewhere cheap to go for hip replacement surgery.

The theme here being people who want to go someplace cheap and far away for reasons.

Unless you are Graham (Tom Wilkinson), who retired suddenly and went back to India where he grew up for secret reasons. And finally we have Madge (Celia Imrie) and Norman (Ronald Pickup), looking for love and youth. But not young love, don’t be creepy.

This could be the most exciting falcon punch warm up.

The best part of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is that it went exactly as I expected and thus, my delay of watching the film seems justified. Sure, one could argue I forced the movie to be as good as my brain let it be, but I gave it as fair of a shake as I would give most films I know nothing about.

At times, the film was touching, at times I smiled a bit, but I didn’t find it to be great in either the drama or the comedy regards. Tom Wilkinson has the best plot, hands down, and some of the plots don’t feel like I should have even mentioned them in the plot details. But that would be harsh to ignore a couple of the main cast members. After Wilkinson, I enjoyed Patel’s story line and thought the Nighy/Wilton plot was unique enough. Everything else was closer to a miss than an barely hit for me.

If anything, this movie just has too much going on in it. There are eight residents of the hotel, only a couple that have overlapping plot points for their own journeys, AND the owner of the hotel with his own story. So much going on, crammed into two hours, and I couldn’t connect with all the characters. Having so many people makes it feel like they are shooting with a shotgun, hoping the spread would hit enough people to make enough people love the film.

I do think a sequel can be better though. We will have established characters, some with finished plot lines from the first film, so they are easier to understand allowing for even newer characters to take the spotlight. The movie finishes pretty damn average, but it does lay down enough foundation for better films down the line.

There comes a time in every reviewers life when they have to watch a movie about Male Strippers. It isn’t a common topic. We got The Full Monty in the 90s, and then Magic Mike a few years ago, so we all just assumed it would be another decade and a half before a new one came along.

But Magic Mike was certainly popular and certainly made a lot of bank. And for good reason! It was the beginning of the Matthew McConaughey road to greatness. And it was directed by Steven Soderbergh! And yes, sure, some good dancing.

That doesn’t mean I am not worried about the sequel, a continuation that is loosely inspired by Channing Tatum‘s real life story. No McConaughey for one. And instead of having the director of Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen, we are instead stuck with the ASSISTANT DIRECTOR of Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen.

And to top it all off, Soderbergh is only the Executive Producer, Cinematographer, and Editor of this movie.

Yep, clearly Magic Mike XXL is going to be a wildly different film.

This scene is like an even more male focused erotic 80’s metal music video.

Three years have passed since the dangerous and deadly events of the first film. Mike (Tatum) is no longer magical, after leaving the world of Male Entertainment behind and focusing on starting his own business, making things with wood. After these few years, he has one employee and times are still tough. But at least he gets to keep his clothes on, and only has to dance in his workhouse, alone, late at night.

But then the gang is stopping by the city. I’m talking Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias), and of course Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello). No, not Dallas or the other guy. They apparently closed shop and moved over seas for that foreign money, leaving the rest of the gang jobless and forced to find new passions in life.

However, before reality sets in, they are going to the Male Entertainment competition conference thing in Myrtle Beach, where groups of men dance and strip for hundreds of ladies. It is a big event and they want to go out with a bang. And you know, tons of dollar bills.

They just have to get there first. And this road trip will have them stop at a few different types of clubs, meeting new people for their crew/team, and maybe even having the men discover what they want to do after they are done male entertaining.

Also featuring Stephen Boss, Donald Glover, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Andie MacDowell, and Elizabeth Banks.

I didn’t actively avoid shirtless pics, but the one group shot the internet has sans shirts is terrible!

Let me start this out by saying that Magic Mike XXL is a better movie than Magic Mike. And I have quite a few reasons too!

1) The sequel has more dancing. That is fantastic news, because that is one of the main focuses of the film. The worse Step Up movies are the ones that try to have too much plot and not enough booty shaking. I want to see awesome dances to hot beats, damn it, and there is a whole lot of that in this movie.

2) There is no Cody Horn in this movie. None. Not even a picture. Just a few references. She is out of the picture and was by far the worst part of the first film. And the film elevates because of it.

3) The other dancers have personality. This could be partially true about the first film, but I don’t remember that much at all about our other male dancers. It was all about Magic Mike and that new guy. The other dancers all feel like real people, and it was fascinating seeing them all get their moments, have their own unique dances at the end, and really bond with them. The male bondage in this film is extraordinary. They all feel like real friends and they have great chemistry.

And really, that is all I need. Sure, some parts of the movie get really awkward, and maybe some of the dancers are far far too sexual for my tastes, but I am able to forgive most of that. The romance in this film was bad, but not as bad as the first.

This film actually left me wanting more from these dudes, seeing how their lives turn out since they are more than just background characters now. Especially Big Dick Richie, who had the best subplots in the film.

There are a few “indisputable facts” to comedy.

1) Women aren’t funny. It must be true. Just last year there was a documentary called Women Aren’t Funny, so I assume its title/conclusion was found to be true, right?

2) The life of a comic is hard. Making people laugh all the time and not getting to laugh yourself can be a lonely life. Which leads to.

3) Misery loves comedy. It must be true. I am reviewing a documentary called Misery Loves Comedy, so I assume its title/conclusion was found to be true. After all, no one goes to see a comic who is happily married, with kids, talking about how wonderful life is. We want the guy who has to masturbate in his basement like a troll.

So the documentary heads decide to interview 50 or more comedians to find out the truth! And you know, hear their experiences and hear their stories.

I have never seen a more miserable group of people in my life.
And yes I am including Mr. Tom Hanks.

The documentary doesn’t jump straight into the misery portion. No, that would be boring and probably a bit sad. Instead, we start with where the comedians got their influences. For the most part, every single person said it was from their father (Rule 1???). How they then grew up, realized people thought they were funny and they could put on an act. And how comedy became sort of an addiction, better than drugs!

Another common theme amongst the comics was their need to be loved, how they would all bond over terrible bombs on stage, when they first got paid to make people laugh, hanging with other comics and doing it for a living.

Then we tackle the miserable question. After you get to here dozens upon dozens of stories of growing up, all through amusing anecdotes!

It is hopefully not a surprise that the reason this documentary was even made was due to the tragic suicide of Robin Williams. It made people wonder why someone who laughed all the time could be so sad. So if we can understand where they are coming from, we can laugh but also maybe…help?

Nah, probably not help, but at least we won’t be surprised should something happen like that again.

But let’s talk about the people. There are a lot of comics here, and some of them are surprising stand outs. Like Freddie Prinze, Jr., who I guess was in comedy, sure, but one guy I never really considered to be a comedian. He was awesome in this documentary and his stories were heartfelt. Martin Short talked about one of his breakdowns. I learned far more about Samm Levine than I ever thought possible.

The only real issue with this documentary, which is again wonderful and full of stories, is that it feels like not enough A list talent was interviewed. Where are our biggest stand up comics right now, all of them too busy?

Still a good use of 90 minutes of your time, and I bet there was tons of unused footage that would make an good movie on its own.

reddie Prince, Jr.

Danny Collins is a movie that sort of just sneaked into theaters. It wasn’t heavily advertised, it didn’t have more than 1 screening, and I honestly had never heard of it.

I might have even watched it when it came out, if it didn’t come out against Insurgent. Come on. Teen high school dystopian dramas > everything, am I right?

My biggest concern for this movie is actually Al Pacino, once a great actor, now a guy in a lot of bad movies, like Jack and Jill and Stand Up Guys. He is becoming a bit of a box office turn off for me, just like Robert De Niro. For the most part, they seem to be just showing up to do their scenes and not putting any heart to it, getting their easy pay checks. That is the one thing I will mostly look for in this film. Can Pacino try harder?

This guy fucks.

Danny Collins (Pacino) used to be a big star. He was wildly famous in the 70s, with lyrics that compared to John Lennon and he was on top of the world. Now, 40 years later, he is still rich and famous and touring, but playing all of his old hits to old fans and kind of just going with the motions and never giving it his all. Huh, sounds a lot like something I talked about not to long ago.

Either way, his long time manager Frank (Christopher Plummer) let’s him know for his birthday that he found a 40 year old letter, written to him by John Lennon that never made it to him. A letter that basically would have changed his life and told him that money and fame aren’t everything. Well fuck, now he is old and feels useless. But there is still a chance. He should just leave his young cheating wife (Katarina Cas), check himself into a hotel and no longer worry about music but instead worry about his life.

So he is going to live in a Hilton hotel, to constantly hit on their manager (Annette Bening), and try to hook up the main receptionist (Melissa Benoist, who is in everything now) and the main valet (Josh Peck). But that isn’t his main goal, no of course not! He actually has a son, Tom (Bobby Cannavale, who is in everything now), whom he has a rocky relationship with. So he wants to fix that up real soon before someone dies and ruins it all. This means he also will have to befriend his wife (Jennifer Garner) and finally meet his granddaughter (Giselle Eisenberg).

Good. A man with a mission. A man who might go back to money fame drugs and playing for old people if he can’t fix his real life before it is too late. Also featuring Brian Smith as a booty call, and Nick Offerman, who has like, a minute of screen time only at the start, but looks cool enough to mention in this review.

At least the casting department got something right. Cannavale could totally be Pacino’s son.

There you go Al Pacino! If you play a part that in some way mirrors your own career for the last five years, you might put some effort into it!

From Pacino I saw passion and I saw an actor who cared about playing his character. Great! And his own enthusiasm made me enjoy the performance and overall, enjoy the movie.

I thought the relationship aspects between Collins and his family felt realistic and avoided tons of cliches. The most unfortunate part about the family was Jennifer Garner though, who had a character that didn’t do a whole lot in the film, so it felt odd for someone of her talent to be used in such a way. This happens a lot with the mom role in films, for whatever reason, but since they had her, one would guess her role would be more substantial.

I was also very impressed with Bening, playing a hotel manager or something. She was able to pull off the professional/dealing with a huge celebrity/not caring about said celebrity really well. And of course, Cannavale was great for many reasons as well.

Danny Collins, a movie that I was afraid would be a bad VH1 made for TV movie, ended up having quite a few strong characters and a unique enough plot to really enjoy. Based loosely off of a real story, but I don’t care about that story, so I didn’t feel like talking about it.

Get Hard has an immediate issue with its title. No, I am not saying that I have an issue with what it references. That is fine. But because it makes people think about erections, dick jokes become very easy to make with it. And that isn’t creative. That isn’t clever. That is boring.

If I want to make dick jokes, I’d rather craft them with something unexpected, like Paddington or Shame. Get Hard falls into the same category now as Good Dick.

I personally will do my best to not go for the lowest common denominator jokes here. No dick jokes whatsoever. I just hope I don’t get shafted with any accidental puns.

Exercising with a little prick? Clearly in training for prison.

James (Will Ferrell) is a little bitch. He has risen to success by being white and in the right place at the right time now. He is a stock broker, which means stuff a lot of us don’t understand, but also that he is filthy rich. Which is why he is now engaged to his hot wife Alissa (Alison Brie), who is totally in love with his money.

Speaking of money, James is great at making money. So great that his boss, Martin (Craig T. Nelson) is going to promote him to a partner level player in his company! That is crazy sweet. Also, Martin is Alissa’s dad, so now he can be his dad too! I guess!

Things come crashing down when James is in a scandal. Apparently he was a dirty broker, stole lots of people’s money for bad deals and was getting away with it. James loses everything in the trial. His fiance, his money, his dignity, all while maintaining his innocence. He has 30 days to get his affairs together before 10 years in a “pound me in the ass” prison. His only recourse now is to go to the one black man he knows to help prepare him for jail.

Which is why we have Darnell (Kevin Hart), a family man with wife (Edwina Findley Dickerson) and daughter, living in a rough part of the city but hoping to eventually get her in a good school. He has never been to prison, but for $30,000, of course he will attempt to train Darnell for prison. Twenty some days of lying, won’t be too bad, especially since James is scum anyways.

Also featuring Erick Chavarria, T.I., Paul Ben-Victor, and John Mayer (as John Mayer!).

The main reason anyone watched this movie was to see Brie in skimpy outfits.

Will Ferrel for the last few years has gotten really disappointing. I blame his hair. It is ugly. I am judging him right now for ugly hair. He had sweet hair in A Night At The Roxbury, but it has been all downhill after that, with the occasional bump ups with Anchorman movies. Could also be thanks to no John C. Reilly. Either way, his humor has lessened.

Kevin Hart, on the other hand, has been pretty stagnant with his films. They range from bad to mediocre, with occasionally some excellent moments popping out. And honestly, some of those moments are what saved the movie for me. These moments that you can’t help but smile because of the ridiculous going on and the banter between our leads, with Hart doing most of the work.

Everything else about the film is a drag. The plot is incredibly simple and easy to figure out where it is going. So instead of making that better, they mostly just ignore it until the end of the film. Yes, James was indeed framed and yes, you can figure out what happened reading a one paragraph description of the movie.

But again, instead of making it at all compelling, they just push it to the side. And that is boring.

Instead of being a great comedy, this movie unfortunately landed in the average comedy category. Those comedies tend to quickly be forgotten about, neither to be hated nor to be loved. Just sitting there, collecting dust, right next to the other Hart movie this year, The Wedding Ringer.