Tag: Comedy

Although the circumstances are quite rare, every once in awhile I review a made for TV movie. The last few I did include Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story and Liz & Dick. The former I did as an accident, as I actually thought it was a documentary going into it. The latter I did only because it stared Lindsay Lohan as Liz Taylor, which just sounded hilariously bad so I had to give it a gander.

I generally avoid them if possible, because one of the best insults I can give a poor quality movie is comparing it to a made for TV movie. Their budget is lower, they usually have a shorter production window, and the tend to feature overacting and bad editing. After all, if it is on TV, you can’t show or say a lot of things to keep the rating down. If you wanted to be even more insulting you would refer to something as worse than a Lifetime TV movie, often considered to be bottom of the barrel, along with Hallmark films.

So why am I knowingly reviewing A Deadly Adoption, a few days after airing for the first time on Lifetime?

Well, that is because they are adding all the bells and whistles for this movie! They are celebrating 20 years of Lifetime movies, of overly sappy movies about women getting hurt, by making a parody film of their own films. It takes a lot of gumption to see you are a laughing stock and decide to run with it.

Speaking of gumption: facial hair.

Life is wonderful for the Benson clan. Robert (Will Ferrell) is a successful author and kicking butt, Sarah (Kristen Wiig) is pregnant and going to start selling organic vegetables to other cool kids, and their daughter Sully (Alyvia Alyn Lind) is well, a child. Everything is like a 1950’s white American suburb home, until Sarah falls off the dock and starts to drown in the water. Sure, her heroic husband saves her, but they lose something else in the process. The pregnancy is terminated. Oh noes!

Now, five years later, things are different. Robert still writes, but he is afraid of boats and leaving home. Sarah has her successful shop, but is sad that her husband won’t get over it. And Sully is older, but still a little girl and who cares. But they decide they should adopt a child, that might help everything! After a lot of searching, they find Bridget (Jessica Lowndes), who is pregnant and looking for a kind family to take in her child. However, she is living in a shelter and doesn’t have a lot of money. So they decide to bring her in until the baby comes out letting her stay in the guest room.

Everyone is happy! Unless. Of course. Bridget is not the nice girl she appears to be.

Also with some dudes, Jake Weary and Bryan Safi. They are not pregnant nor are they adopting.

Now where they pregnant and adopting, which is a rare but probably real category of people.

If there is anything the last 15 years of terrible movies have taught us, it is that the parody film is a hard movie to get right. It is very easy to make a movie full of references to popular culture while none of it is remotely funny. You know those films, so I won’t talk about them. But then there are very good unique parodies that are also celebrating the genre they are mimicking, so you can tell there is real heart behind the content.

A Deadly Adoption ends up being a mix of both. No, it is not full of pop culture references, thankfully. But it also doesn’t go to the extremes necessary to drive its point home. It is definitely aware of itself, and things are over acted with scenes overly dramatic. But it still lacks a huge amount of humor, despite its attempts. Outside of the intro and the last ten minutes, most of the film dragged on. Because it is a parody, it can be hard to differentiate between what is bad and what is supposed to be bad, to be funny. For the most part, the jokes just didn’t land.

Again, I will note the beginning and ending were fantastic though. They just didn’t know how to make the middle live up to its ends. The film would have been funnier if it was more outwardly aware of itself, instead of giving for all intents and purposes, an actual lifetime movie.

Every few months, a new indie movie starring a few people from popular TV shows comes out and we are supposed to watch it, eventually, on our own time. Because these movies rarely hit theater and are more of a VOD type situation.

The good and bad news with these sorts of movies is that they are non consistently bad, average, or good, but all over the map so you never know what to expect. Last year we got Drinking Buddies staring that girl from House and that dude from New Girl, and it sucked. But we also got The One I Love starring that girl from Mad Men and that guy from The League, and that one rocked.

So how will Adult Beginners go? The one starring the other guy from The League and the guy from Community and the girl from 30 Rock? Well, anything goes in TV star VOD movie land!

“Ugh, more people from The League? I would not watch that movie.”

Jake (Nick Kroll) is going to make a shit ton of money. And with his money and your money and everyone else’s money put together, he is going to make a shit ton more and make everyone rich. And maybe even make them a little bit sexy. But then something goes wrong, right away with his company, and sure enough, he loses everyone’s money. He is now broke and useless and his friends hate him. Even Hudson (Joel McHale) hates him a bit.

So now Jake is homeless and alone, so he decides to go move in with his sister, Justine (Rose Byrne). He hasn’t seen her in a couple years because he has been “busy” so sure, it is a bit awkward. You know, cause he son is like, 2 or 3 now. And she is pregnant again! And he barely even knows her husband, Danny (Bobby Cannavale). He just knows it is a hectic time in their lives. Unfortunately, the only way they let him live with him long term is if he basically becomes their full time nanny, so they both can work and save up money for new baby and maybe a new house!

Jake of course is an irresponsible adult, and doesn’t know anything about kids. But he accepts, mostly because he has nothing else he can do at that point.

And that is about it. Jake needs to learn how to be an adult, for real. He is a beginner at being an adult. He also can’t swim. Jane Krakowski is a swimming teacher for adults and babies and dances with babies in water. It isn’t super weird, don’t worry. And Jason Mantzoukas is in here, because he is crazy and Nick Kroll’s friend.

“I didn’t invite Jason, did you invite Jason?”
“No I didn’t invite Jason, did you invite Jason, Nick?”
“Yeah I totally did, suck it.”

Rose Byrne is becoming a relatively big name now, which is great for her. She is appearing in all the genres right now: Horror, Drama, Comedy, Action and generally being great in each one of those roles. Most surprising is comedy because it seemingly came out of nowhere with Neighbors. The problem with Adult Beginners is it is one of those classic comedies that doesn’t end up being actually funny.

Hopefully the positive buzz that has surrounded Spy is enough to make everyone ignore this movie. Ignoring it shouldn’t be an issue, because no one will really watch it when it is VOD. I just want to make sure her career is not affected by the dullness of this film.

As for everyone else? Cannavale is a likable dude, even if he always plays mostly douche-y characters, but he hasn’t had any nice break outs yet. Likewise, Kroll always plays douches, but occasionally has comedic sparks that do not go on display during this movie.

A comedy that doesn’t end up being funny, with serious moments that also aren’t too dramatic or emotional. Yep, this is a classic indie film in that regard, which most of the time would garner a 2 out of 4 or something, but they usually have one or two unique moments in them to warrant a bump. I am willing to say Adult Beginners offers nothing new and leaves me with a bored taste on my mouth.

In case you are curious, boring taste is like cardboard.

Sometimes when I like to pretend that I am cool, I use words like Dope and Chill. I will admit, when I first saw the screening listing for Dope, I honestly got it confused with the Straight Outta Compton movie coming out, figuring they renamed it for some reason. (How White am I? I spelled that first “Straight Out Of Compton” because I really didn’t know).

I mean, could there really be two movies about black youth in California, despite being very very different topics, in the same summer? It is strange to say but it is actually hard to believe that.

But I am excited. I am all for diversity in my movie watching. And since I know absolutely nothing about Dope going into it, I feel kind of excited at what it might be about. Hopefully the references aren’t too hip for me.

The trio is basically a themed gang from The Warriors.

When the movie started, I knew I was immediately wrong with any preconceptions I had. I honestly thought it would be set in the early 90’s on the poster alone, but it is actually a modern day movie about some kids who just really liked the 90’s music scene.

Malcolm (Shameik Moore), Jib (Tony Revolori, of The Grand Budapest Hotel fame) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) are loaner geeks who have banded together to form a friendship. They are from a generally poor neighborhood and don’t really want to become gang bangers selling dope and going to jail. So they start a punk band and avoid getting into trouble to get into college!

That is until the night of Dom’s party (Rakim Mayers aka A$ap Rocky (I don’t know what to call him?)). Sure it may seem strange for them to go to a party of a thug dope dealer, but they want to live a little bit during their senior years before it is too late. Plus, Nakia (Zoe Kravitz) promised to dance with Malcolm if he showed up.

I don’t know what they expected, but the party of course was full of drugs, booze, and hot tunes (I could rap, probably). They have a pretty awesome night! Until the cops show up, raid the place, and the next thing Malcolm knows, his bag is full of drugs and a gun that he doesn’t notice until the next day at school. Yeah boyyy. Now he has to deal with this dope, not knowing who to trust with the information. Sketchy phone guys? Some mysterious AJ? Sell it on his own? Shit, he has Harvard to try and get into. And he doesn’t want to go to jail so dang close to getting out of the hood!

Also featuring the talents of Chanel Iman, Quincy Brown, Roger Guenveur Smith, Blake Anderson, and some narration by Forest Whitaker.

Please be a punk song about donuts. Please be a punk song about donuts.

Dope is the first movie I have seen from director Rick Famuyiwa, who also was the only writer of the movie, and if his past films are of any comparable quality then I should probably check some of them out. It should also be noted that the main producers was also our narrator, Whitaker, and an executive producer was Pharrell Williams. So despite its relatively unknown cast, it had some star power behind it. Although it should be noted, the narration was only at the beginning and felt quite excessive and unnecessary. Didn’t match the rest of the film.

But let’s go back to that cast. I was personally happy to not recognize any of the main characters (outside of the Lobby Boy). For our lead, the only movie or show I would have seen him in was Joyful Noise, where his character name was “Our Lady of Perpetual Tears Choir Master”, so I can’t even tell you if he had a speaking role. Moore blew me away, in all honesty. Everything about him felt sincere and real. Moore conveyed so much throughout the film through facial expressions alone, which is especially helpful since he didn’t play a smooth talking confident character for the most part. He was relatable and he was awesome.

The film was also surprisingly up to date with current technologies and they do a good job of introducing concepts that not a lot of people know about. Dark web stuff. It makes a lot of sense that this is the first movie that is allowing tickets to be bought via bitcoins.

Favorite part about the film would be just how realistic the portrayal of modern hood life is like. It isn’t just gangs, just drugs, just poverty. There is a lot of hope and a lot of people just trying to fit in. None of the characters were extreme stereotypes, providing some slightly thought provoking conversations despite the urban language throughout.

Overall, Dope is a surprisingly funny, realistic and a feel good movie that came up out of nowhere. I am not going to listen to MC Hammer today out of respect for that.

Kill me once, kill me twice, kill me deadly, as Lita Ford kind of almost once said.

Ms Ford couldn’t count to three, much like Valve, but it is for good reason. Kill Me Three Times? That is definitely excessive. Two is usually excessive as well, unless you believe in resurrection, but most cultures don’t have double resurrection as far as I can tell.

Now, this could be some strange Beetlejuice situation, where the only way to die is killing the entity three times. Maybe the person in question is a third cat and two thirds human (how to genetics work?), so they only were given 3 lives instead of 9.

Actually, yes, that is my official answer going into this movie. A movie that must be about a man who is one-third cat. And no, I hope it isn’t anything like Catwoman.

Although wearing all black and having a sexually awakened pose does give me pause.

In the Australian action thriller comedy (?) we’ve all been waiting for, we get to see Simon Pegg play a hit man! Sure, Charlie Wolfe is a bit eccentric, with a mustache and all. And maybe he doesn’t take out his targets in one well placed sniper kill. But you know, he eventually gets the job done! And right after getting the job done, he gets a call to do another job! Ha ha! Life is good, plenty of work, people to kill.

It is simple, Jack Taylor (Callan Mulvey) wants his wife, Alice (Alice Braga), killed and he wants Charlie to do it. A nice lump of sum for the job too. He wants her dead for the reason anyone would, getting cheated on. She cheated on him with a MECHANIC, Dylan (Luke Hemsworth), which makes sense, given that he is the third (and oldest) Hemsworth.

However, the issue is that Charlie wasn’t the only one who was hired to kill Alice! Enter mild mannered dentist, Natahn Webb (Sullivan Stapleton). He has a bit of a gambling addiction and owes some powerful people a lot of money. His wife and receptionist Lucy (Teresa Palmer) is going to help him out, and they are going to be awkward about it.

Also featuring Steve Le Marquand and Bryan Brown. And other shenanigans and twists occur of course, but if I told you them, you’d have no reason to watch the movie.

Like, omg, how did that knife get in his hand?!

Kill Me Three Times was actually a bit harder of a film to describe for two reasons. One, the story isn’t told in standard chronological order. It jumps around a bit. Why? Just to see things in different points of view, and get some flash backs. That is why. It could be fine, but in this case it didn’t enhance the movie at all.

Two, the movie was boring as fuck. I am so disappointed by how uninterested the film went as it dragged along. This element of course made the scenes where we were able to see events again from a different point of view even more dull. I was bored the first time they showed it to me, now I get to be bored from a new angle!

I don’t remember laughing at all. I thought some scenes may have been amusing, but no outright guffaws bellowed from my diaphragm. Was it a bit dark? Sure. And there was technically a little bit of action to make it interesting.

Pegg wasn’t terrible, but his character also felt underutilized. There was a bit too much advertising his character for how much of the movie was about all the other characters as well, if you know what I mean.

Overall, I would describe Kill Me Three Times as a bad cluster fuck. A movie that wanted to be a Tarantino film and dropped the mark a few yards before a first down.

It has been awhile since Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb came out, but I am finally now ready to talk about it. Why did I wait so long?

Well, I had never seen the first two movies, Night at the Museum and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. I have owned the two Night at the Museum movies, which came out out in 2006 and 2009, since 2012. I just haven’t “found the time” to see them. Never in the right mood.

A few things helped put me in that mood. One, Robin Williams died, very sad, I really needed to see more of his movies. Two, the kids were about to go home for the summer and we had a long Memorial day weekend where I didn’t have anything to show them. So it was easy to watch one, then the next a few days apart, and finally, FINALLY, the third and last movie.

Fair warning, I thought the first movie was kind of terrible, and the second one had its moments, but was overall okay.

But those movies lacked a dreamy knight in shining armor.

Years later, that museum is still popular! Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is opening up more cheating night things. This time, constellations. Well, shit goes badly and he gets fired. Why? The magical tablet is acting all fucky. People are freaking out, getting meaner. Who knows what is going on?? Well, apparently the parents (Ben Kingsley, Anjali Jay) of Ahkmenrah do! Yes, but they are in a museum in London.

So the gang gets together, tablet in hand, to go to a new museum at night and find out how to fix the tablet. Pretty simple plot actually. His son, Nick (Skyler Gisondo), played by a new guy, is also going to come. For reasons. You know, get him back on track and shit.

Oh hey, and we also have Rebel Wilson playing the London night guard. And Dan Stevens, yes, that Dan Stevens, as Lancelot. Sure, he is a fictional character, apparently in a museum, but go with it, assholes.

And there are all the returning characters of course. We still have Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), Octavius (Steve Coogan), Jedediah (Owen Wilson), Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek), Attila the Hun (Patrick Gallagher), Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck), and even Dr. McPhee (Ricky Gervais). Hell, we also have the old geezers back played by Dick Van Dyke, Bill Cobbs, and Mickey Rooney (who also is dead now).

Just a bunch of eccentric Americans and killers hanging out, riding a bus.

The overall problem with this franchise are the inconsistencies. And the inconsistencies are all shrouded behind a mysterious Egyptian tablet and magic, so that any of them can just be written off. But no, it is incredibly annoying.

For instance, why do some things come alive and others not? Statue and wax people? Fine. But in this movie there is a display of Pompeii, and it even explodes and has its own lava and everything. What? The things are supposed to be alive people or animals or creatures. They are just making things up as they go.

The tablet was losing its power and so people were slowly reverting back to their original forms. Apparently people who get transformed for the first time didn’t turn back slowly because it was their first night. They are apparently just making up rules on the fly because why not. In this movie, they say people act a lot weirder right when they transform and get used to the change eventually. This wasn’t true at all in the second movie, as we saw tons of people come alive and go straight into character and being fine with it.

A more structured, less clusterfuck, is all I ask.

Now this one has some interesting jokes and I laughed a few times. Despite the fact that the main new character was a fictional person who makes no sense to be a museum exhibit, Lancelot was killer. Rebel Wilson also did a good job. But the issue with the tablet was lame, as was the “threat” behind it all. It all seemed poorly done, where conflict continued to be created for the stupidest reasons.

As this is my intro, instead of talking about Inside Out (and how sad I was there was no 2014 installment), I will just talk about the intro to Inside Out, a short called Lava.

Lava is about love, volcanoes, and tectonic shifts with hot spots. HOT SPOTS.

Obviously some liberties are taken, but it tells a wonderful love story, to great ukulele music, featuring real Hawaiians, and it will win Best Animated Short this year. You are hearing it first. It is better than Frozen Fever. It is better than Feast and Paperman.

It united all of my emotions into the orgasm phase of existence.

Fine, fine, back to the movie. Inside Out is really about a girl named Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), growing up and trying to find her place in the world. She has a loving mother (Diane Lane) and father (Kyle MacLachlan), and enjoys the long winters in Minnesota where she can play the greatest sport ever made: Hockey. But all of that is about to come to a comical screeching halt, when suddenly they are moving to San Francisco for some “work reason” that is stressful and new and different.

To find out what is really going on inside Riley’s head, we have to go inside her head. Heyy brain stuff! That is where her emotions live! Right when she popped out of the womb and opened her eyes, she giggled and laughed, because Joy (Amy Poehler) was her only worker. It was almost instantly followed by gloomy as fuck Sadness (Phyllis Smith). As she got older, she gained more emotions, including Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling).

Together, working in harmony, they can make a fully functional girl. An honest girl, with friends, and family, and hockey, and a goofy side, all making up her core memories. They also work on putting her memories into long term and bring back appropriate memories when appropriate.

But with a half cross country move to a smaller house, no friends, no frozen lakes for hockey, whats a girl to do? Well, apparently have her emotions go all crazy and bad things start happening to her right when she needs them to work together the most. Of course!

And where the heck is her old imaginary friend, Bing Bong (Richard Kind)? He is important, damn it!

“Bing Bong is dead now, sweetie, so eat your imitation Chinese food please.”

Did I mention how good Lava was? Five out of four stars. I want to buy a Blu-Ray with it on it, just so I can get a digital copy and watch it with ease wherever I go.

The good news is, Inside Out was also awesome! Given its subject matter, it should come to no surprise that my emotions were all over the place. Thankfully Anger didn’t really show up, but maybe I did have a little bit of Disgust and some Fear. But hey, the Sadness came into full fruition too. I cried three times during this screening. Once for Lava, twice for this movie. Using literal emotions, it did a fantastic job of controlling my own emotions to make it an overall wild ride.

The film starts out cute, gets happy, stays happy, then gets into the sadness/fear territory, but by the end, it returns you back to the cute/aww feels by the end. A perfect journey, basically. The voice actors did a wonderful job, Lewis Black and Mindy Kaling in particular felt perfect for their roles. And of course Phyllis Smith, a wonderful choice for Sadness, who I assume they also based her design around.

The “hero” of our story in young Riley is a nice change of pace. She is a normal girl and one that most people can probably relate to. Not to mention she plays Hockey, which I must again note plays a significant role in this film. Hockey is slowly creeping its way more and more into mainstream, and I thank Pixar for doing something different.

Last but not least, this movie is for everybody. There are plenty of jokes and fun parts for the kids, but also of course a lot of higher concepts for the adults out there. When dealing with the brain, you should be prepared to use yours, for at least a little bit.

Whenever I read the title of this movie, I imagine the adds for The Dump furniture store. And I put it in the voice of Duffman from the Simpsons.

Hopefully you just did that too.

The DUFF might be the final January movie of the year for me to watch. Sure it came out end of February, but you can tell by looking at the poster that it wanted to come out in January, but too much suck existed in that month so it got pushed back.

Who would delay us from watching this cheaply made porno movie for so long?

Bianca Piper (Mae Whitman) is a DUFF, but she doesn’t know that and doesn’t even know the acronym. It stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend, which every group of girls and guys has. You don’t have to be literally fat or super ugly, you just have to be less than all the other friends. This way your group of hotter thinner friends have a sort of gateway to them. If you are DUFF, you are easy to talk to and can give information about your better friends, for hook up purposes or whatever. Steven Lynch sang a song about them before they had a fun acronym.

Either way, Bianca has Casey (Bianca A. Santos) who is good at computers, hot, and good at sports and Jess (Skyler Samuels) who is into yoga, smart, and journalism. Well, they are all into journalism. Although they are totally real friends, they are also so totally DUFFing her.

She learns about the term from her next door neighbor, Wes (Robbie Amell), who is now totes max hunk but still talks together since they have been friends for so long. So once she finds out, she bails on her friends and decides to change things. She is going to be awesome on her own. She is going to unDUFF herself. But she doesn’t know how. So she works with Wes. He will help her get better and be able to talk to Toby (Nick Eversman), and she will help him pass Chemistry (so he can get scholarships, go to college, shit like that).

But wait! There is also Queen Bitch, Madison Morgan (Bella Thorne), who wants to be a future reality star and is working on being a youtube star first. She wants to ruin things and muck things up. That seems like an important plot point.

What is not important are the parents and teachers. Allison Janney is Bianca’s single mom, who is now a self help guru about getting over divorce! Chris Wylde and Ken Jeong play teachers and Romany Malco the principal.

The DUFF, in all reality, is a made for TV movie that for some reason someone put in theaters. There is nothing exceptional about it in any way. It is a comedy, but it doesn’t make you laugh. It is a high school movie, but it doesn’t offer anything new. Here is the IMDB description:

A high school senior instigates a social pecking order revolution after finding out that she has been labeled the DUFF

Social pecking order revolution? That means she is going to turn the school on its heels, probably with her sweet journalism skills, to make the DUFFs the cool kids? What? No where close? It is literally her just trying to make herself seem cooler to talk to a boy? Oh. Okay. Well that is kind of…two thirds of every high school story. Fuck.

I mean, the social pecking order revolution story line would have been just some angry kids wish fulfillment fantasy in real life, but at least it would have attempted to do something not normally done outside of Revenge of the Nerds. Instead this was just…boring if I had to say anything. And it had a couple of people involved I actually know of. I liked Mae in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Parenthood. She just doesn’t do much of anything in this movie.

Fuck. Yes. Entourage.

When the TV Show ended four years ago with its shorter season there were rumors aplenty that the gang would all come back for a movie. We thought it would happen sooner than four years, but hey, whatever.

Did the TV Show need more? Honestly, I don’t remember. The show is extremely easy to binge watch due to both season length and show length. I remember doing the first four seasons in only 2-3 days when I decided to start the show. I remember actually very little about the show in terms of where any of the characters are at the end. I remember Matt Damon was there, and Toto too!

Well, let’s just say that if this movie ends up being any amount of good, I will have to rewatch the show.

This is their last hurrah to make me think Piven can actually act again.

The boys are back, as this movie takes place literally 9 or so days after the end of the TV show. So hope you remember what is going on.

Vince (Adrian Grenier) is already divorced, Johnny Drama’s (Kevin Dillon) show is cancelled, Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) made some ungodly amounts of money from his tequila business, and E (Kevin Connolly) is still…an agent or whatever.

But not everything is the same. Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) did what everyone expected of him. He came out of retirement and took the job. And he has a new movie for Vince. The only issue is, Vince wants his next project to be something special. He wants a part in it for his brother of course. But he also wants to direct it.

So now, months later, Vince is directing and starring in a very expensive futuristic movie. It is Ari’s first potential groundbreaking moment as a head of a company. It is Drama’s chance at an…Oscar? Only way anything good happens is if they can actually finish the dang thing with budget and time constraints. But you know the gang. They got this, just like they got Medellin.

But it isn’t just about them. We have new comers! Like Billy Bob Thornton playing a Texan financier of movies and his young asshole son played by Haley Joel Osment. And and we have Ronda Rousey and Emily Ratajkowski, both playing themselves. So this is probably an improvement for Ronda’s past roles.

Of course we have a slew of returning cast members. Rhys Coiro, Alan Dale, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Perrey Reeves, Debi Mazar, and of course, Rex Lee. And more! But half the fun is finding out, isn’t it?

First Tusk, now this? Call the Facial Hair Police, we got a repeat offender!

The Entourage movie feels like it is an extension of the TV show. Same level of quality, same style of jokes, same characters. If I had to describe it differently, because you asked, I would say it is like a 4 episode mini season, smashed together so you don’t have to wait 3 weeks to watch it all. And frankly, that can be considered a good and a bad. Because if it doesn’t feel like a movie, why make it a movie? Why not actually just give us a new season? Because it is already a pretty raunchy HBO show, it isn’t like there is more they can do in a movie that they couldn’t do in the TV show. I doubt the budget was that different for this movie either.

So, why the movie? I don’t know. Probably because why not.

All of the characters are the same, including the mostly useless Turtle, whose arc in this film is pretty significant. No, this is about the other 3 members of the Entourage and Ari Gold. And also about how amusing Haley Joel Osment is playing a Texan with an accent and an attitude. He made me giggle like a school girl.

Basically, I would say this movie is worth it just so you can get even more Ari Gold time, clearly one of the greatest television characters ever made. And maybe a little bit of Johnny Drama redemption.

Overall, this has been a lot of words about something you already figured out. If you liked the TV show, you are going to like the movie and probably like that too. If you watched the TV show and didn’t like it, you probably won’t like the movie. And if you never watched the TV show, you have no reason to watch the movie.

Anyways. Fuck. I think I have to go rewatch the show now.

With the Penguins of Madagascar, every major animated release in the US in 2014 should now be reviewed on Gorgon Reviews. Hooray! Exciting!

Unfortunately it is the sequel/spinoff series to Madagascar, which I found to be very mediocre or bad. However, this one at least also had a TV show before it came out, so there is a lot of back stories with these characters and their adventures that I am wildly unaware of.

Bring on the penguins! They are cute I guess.

Holy, shit, we also get an Octopus? I am now ecstatic.

Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Rico (Conrad Vernon), and Private (Christopher Knights) are all penguins who make up a pretty unique fighting team. Or at least they think they are. Going on adventures, using code words, what have you. Recognize the voice actors? Exactly, because this movie isn’t sold on celebrities, it is sold on characters and people who are real voice actors, damn it.

Either way, while celebrating the 10th birthday of Private, directly after the events of Madagascar 3. While getting some sweet ass Cheezy Dibbles, they get kidnapped by Dave (John Malkovich, bring on the celebrities now!), an Octopus! Apparently Dave has had a shitty life of living in zoos all around the world, where he is always second fiddle and ignored thanks to cute animals like the penguins. PENGUINS.

So he wants to get rid of them all. Or make them ugly. Something like that. ALL THE PENGUINS MUST BE PUNISHED.

That should be enough plot for you. Spy movie guys. Lot of things happen. There is also another agent group, the North Force (Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Jeong, Annet Mahendru, and Peter Stormare).

I will let you decide which voice should go with which character.

Shit, if you like Octopuses in movies, you are going to love this movie. Yes, Octopuses, mother fucker. It is the right way. They all reminded me of Octodad a little bit, especially since the main octopus is wearing a human costume sometimes.

In all reality, it was just an okay movie. I am glad that the penguins all had personality, but they didn’t really make me laugh all that much. I thought North Force was underutilized and the big bad guy plot was pretty lame as well.

There was one ongoing joke throughout the film, involving celebrity names and puns. They were fantastic and clever. Well done on that department.

But comparing it to other animated movies, the quality is definitely lower (although in line with the Madagascar animation, so at least they are consistent). It probably feels like an extended episode of the penguin TV show, so if you like the show, you will probably like the movie.

It could have been worse. It could have featured Firework over and over.

Oh hey, so apparently Courtney Cox has directed a movie. She wants to go the David Schwimmer route now.

I didn’t know she was the director when I watched it though. I wanted to see Seann William Scott. I repeat, I watched Just Before I Go because it was starring Seann William Scott.

Scott isn’t a terrible actor, he is just terribly typecasted. Most of his characters are not smart, but they are all generally different. And fuck, Goon was the best. Fuck you if you think otherwise.

Look at him, breathing underwater. That is acting folks!

The film opens with out main character, Ted (Scott) drowning. See above. Yep, he is narrating about his death at the start of the movie, much like the very recent review of mine of Catwoman. Man, having a Catwoman comparison right off the back is not a good thing.

Let’s back up, of course. Ted had a decent life growing up, until his dad died. Then he was full of grief and his life went to shit. He started getting picked on by bullies, both teachers and classmates alike. So he eventually moved away from his family and started a new life far far away. He had a boring job and a woman, Penny (Elisha Cuthbert), who accepted him. Until she left him because he was boring, safe, and stagnant.

Well shit. So now Ted wants to go back home, make amends with a few folks, and then kill himself. Poetic. Kind of. He has to beat up the local bully (Rob Riggle), berate his old teacher (I don’t remember and IMDB doesn’t want to tell me), and also thank a cute girl (Mackenzie Marsh) who was nice to him in high school.

Pretty simple. He even gets to stay with his dick cop brother (Garret Dillahunt), who has a wife (Kate Walsh) who doesn’t love him, and a son (Kyle Gallner) who has to hide his gayness. Woo, gayness. The actual plot of this movie comes when Ted goes to yell at his very old old teacher and ens up meeting her grand daughter, Greta (Olivia Thirlby), who ends up wanting to document his final days before suicide after hearing his story. Very sweet.

Also featuring another high school kid (Evan Ross) and his mom (Cleo King).

Picture chosen because I didn’t want too many of Ted drowning.

Again, no idea Courtney Cox was involved in this project until I looked up picture for the movie, and instead, got a lot of her walking the red carpet. It was quite odd and I was worried I missed her somewhere in the film. Maybe she was secretly the old lady?

Unfortunately for Cox, I think a lot of the blame lies on her side of the movie field. The story has elements that seem interesting. Some of them, sure, they are common, but there were some more unique elements as well. It just doesn’t feel cohesive. The film’s different subplots and stories don’t mold in a way that is pleasant to the mind. It doesn’t know if it wants to be funny, serious, or maybe even a dark comedy. By the end, it mostly just feels cheesy/Hallmark-y. It is all over the place, which can be a good thing, but in this movie’s case just falls flat. Scott doesn’t do great either. He feels like such a bland character, it is impossible to root for or against him. Like if he was an actual jumper, you would turn away apathetically not caring if he fell or not. You would go and wait in a long line at Starbucks instead.

For whatever reason, this movie is rated R. There is about one risque scene that happens about three times, but they don’t even show any nudity during them, making it one of the more tame R rated movies of recent months.

I have nothing more to say. It is a movie that tried to reach some deep and interesting subjects, but felt flat and just left me bored.