Tag: Comedy

My first introduction to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was described as “Like, The Fault In Our Stars, but better!”

Well, shit. Because I liked The Fault In Our Stars. It felt realistic, well acted, was surprising, and of course I cried. So I guessed this one was another teenage romance about dying kid(s). Or at least, this time the girl is the sick one. And judging by the actress, I can guess her fate since she seems to be type casted.

Regardless, this movie has an excellent title. It has a nice flow to it. So that gets my loins revved up regardless of any other factors. BRING ON THE DEAD TEENAGERS.

I meant literally dead. Not bored brain dead.

The titular character here is Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) and he is a senior in high school. He is your typical high school movie loaner. You know, under the radar, tries to please everyone yet stay invisible. His best “friend” is Earl (RJ Cyler). Very similar despite their different upbringings. They like old classic films, are generally weird/antisocial, and have secret parody films of classics that they make together.

Nerd alertttttttttt.

And then there is Rachel (Olivia Cooke), the dying girl. She has leukemia now, and leukemia generally sucks. Greg and Rachel were never really friends, but their moms are, and Greg’s mom has DEMANDED that he hang out with Rachel and make her feel better.

Kind of awkward. Making someone hang out with a person just because they have got the cancer. But he has to do it. And this is the story of Greg, Earl, and a Dying Girl.

Don’t worry! There are more than just those three characters. After all, Greg has TWO parents (Nick Offerman, Connie Britton), and DyingGirl has a mom (Molly Shannon). There are other school kids, like Ill Phil the Drug Dealer (Masam Holden), Scott Mayhew (Matt Bennett) leader of the Emo kids, and Madison (Katherine C. Hughes) a hot girl whom Greg tends to get nervous over.

And everyone’s most hated actor from The Walking Dead, Jon Bernthal, plays the history teacher that everybody loves.

Fuck, that kid can’t smile in anything.

I guess the easiest way to describe this movie, after seeing it, is like The Fault In Our Stars, but better.

I kid. They are pretty different. They might fall under the same overall genre, but The Fault In Our Stars is clearly heavily romance based and this one is definitely closer to the discovery of friendship.

I cant even begin to describe all the things I liked about this movie, but I will attempt anyways because this is a review and that is the point of a review. Mann gives a great performance as the lead, his best yet. Cooke hasn’t been in a lot of films/shows, but she is usually decent and she gives a very raw performance here. This is the first real thing for Cyler and he was hilarious in this as well. But literally everyone is great in this movie. Every single person. Well acted all around, good unique characters, and a touching story.

But that’s not all! The cinematography in this film is great. So many well shot scenes, conveying emotion through just the character spacing alone. Because the two males love old movies, the parody films themselves are brilliant as well. It is clearly a movie that loves movies, and as a movie lover, your experience will be even more gratifying. And of course, my personal favorite, some long, one shot scenes with some intense arguments throughout.

At the end of everything, I think I am mostly surprised at how funny the whole thing ended up being. I laughed throughout, even just a bit during the very sad points. I love a good comedy. This is actually Mann’s second comedy/drama film dealing with intense subjects. I also suggest giving It’s Kind Of A Funny Story a chance.

I wanted to see Mortdecai. Really I did, when it came out. But something came up and I wasn’t able to go to the screening.

So I went home and waited. I saw as the pages and pages of reviewers and critics talked about how bad the movie was. What? How can this be? I liked the trailer. I thought it would be amusing. But I still find some of the more quirky characters that Depp plays to be quite endearing.

I was even more excited to find that the movie was rated R. So it wouldn’t be some just zany family movie, “Oh teehee, look at my moustache!” or anything. We might get more creative and raunchy jokes.

So I waited even further. Still with the hope that maybe everyone would be wrong about Mortdecai, in my head. Much like they were wrong about The Lone Ranger.

Rumor has it that Depp literally sexually assaults all of the viewers of this movie.

Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is an eccentric rich man. Or at least, he used to be rich. They are on their last legs and just putting up a false front now. He also has decided he wants to grow a mustache. It is a tiny thing. But all of his family in the past had them, and he wants one now! This mustache is more of the main plot than the art aspect of it all.

His wife, Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) hates the mustache and more or less refuses to interact with him throughout the film because of it.

A famous painting is stolen from a home by Emil (Jonny Pasvolsky), that is then stolen from another thief, and everyone is up in arms over it. So Inspector Martland (Ewan McGregor) comes to Mortdecai for help, due to his art knowledge. And yeah. You know. A comedy heist-esque movie about finding a painting and other secrets. Mortdecai also has a loyal man servant, Jock (Paul Bettany), who is great a sex and making sure Mortdecai doesn’t die.

And of course there is Jeff Goldbloom as an Art guy with his nymph daughter played by Olivia Munn. And Paul Whitehouse is in this movie, but I was sort of unsure of what his overall role was. Besides an art enthusiast/collector.

Ewan bringing back a pseudo mullet. I can’t say I approve. 😐

Fuckkkkkk. January movie gonna January I guess. Like I said, I thought it looked amusing. I thought it could have been great. I figured it would have earned the R rating, but it felt like a regular PG-13 by the end of it. Shit, outside of Mortdecai’s desire for sex and the sex references to his man servant, it felt like it oculd have been PG.

But that is also because I don’t remember a lot about it. At all. I just watched it and I am sitting wondering why I kept going. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t even too original. Art movies in general tend to e pretentious sorts of things, and I believe it was attempting to mock that pretentiousness, but fuck even that failed.

I think I am mostly disappointed in the all-star cast giving me this overall dud. Maybe one recurring joke throughout made me amused, which involved Jock continually getting injured. But that is it.

Mortdecai is 107 minutes long, making it roughly 115 minutes of your time wasted. Added in extra for bathroom breaks and time thinking about actually w atching it.

Hot Tub Time Machine came out in 2010, a time before I went to theaters a lot. I remember a lot of my friends liking it, telling me it was as good as The Hangover! Oh man!

And then I remember it being one of the first Blu-Rays I had ever bought.

This was pre-site, so I don’t have any review to point you towards to get my thoughts on it. So I can tell you that I no longer own that movie. I sold it or gave it away. I don’t remember. That should say everything about how I liked or disliked that movie.

But then they made a sequel. Hot Tub Time Machine 2. A super cheap, no John Cusack having sequel. Oh well. As long as it doesn’t look like it was made on a handheld camera, it might still be okay.

But cheesy hand held camera music video parodies are definitely okay.

After the first movie, our main characters are wildly successful. This is five years later of course. Lou (Rob Corddry) is a tech billionaire, not having any smarts, but having ideas early on and he had people make them. You know, exploiting the past. His son, Jacob (Clark Duke) is now his butler or whatever. I didn’t really catch why. And Nick (Craig Robinson) has sang all of his favorite songs that he could remember and is running out of material. Overall, they are all a bit sad too, thinking their lives would feel better.

Well, at a big ass party that Lou is holding, he gets shot in the dick. Not the best way to start to die in front of a bunch of “Friends” and coworkers and rich people.

So they have the quick thinking idea to go back in time again. Just a day, to find out who is going to shoot him and put a stop to it. But instead of going back a day, it instead goes forward ten years to the future. Ten years! That is weird. And Lou has his dick in the future. What zany alternative time line, multiple universe shenanigans is this?

And who fired the gun? Was it one of these three people (Kumail Nanjiani, Adam Scott, Gillian Jacobs)? Maybe it was even John Cusack pissed he was even in the first movie? Who knows.

I can only hope I have a combination of their good looks in ten years time.

Turns out I got to see an unrated version of this film, not the theatrical version of the film. Take from that what you will. There are only a few changes I heard from the two, but basically one notable one at the end. And hey, it is kind of funny!

Yet that was basically the only funny moment in the movie for me. 🙁

That’s right. Sad emoticon. That is the easiest way I can describe this movie. Because the humor isn’t there. It is like a bunch of side kick characters got together to make a movie and didn’t have a lot of funnier people writing it. It was obviously done on a super low budget, and was obviously done because the actors involved wanted to do it.

And that is fine. I assume they would also be fine knowing a lot of people might now have liked it. A crass boring comedy in my eyes. And if there is another, I might watch it and hate it too.

When I heard they were making a movie version of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, I didn’t have a good or bad impression. I was more indifferent about how the quality might be. Instead, I was worried about typing out the title, or getting the adjectives all out of order accidentally.

These are the fears that I run into most often in my daily lives. And getting imprisoned incorrectly. Just those two things.

But hey, technically I have read this book before. Technically I own it. But I think, for the most part, I won’t let the book plot line bias my thoughts on the movie version. There should be differences. Should be TONS of differences. The book is just a kid, maybe 8, complaining about his day, then it getting better. I think. Sounds correct, but it has been awhile. Very simple plot. The only difference is, it looks like everyone in Alexander’s family is about to get royally fucked up by a day. So if anything more slapstick shenanigans than the book.

But maybe also a few more life lessons on how to not be an asshat?

Lesson #1: Do not drug the peter pan cast member into believing the kids in the play are actually teddy bears.

Alexander (Ed Oxenbould) is about to turn 12 years old. He has a lot of shitty days. He is generally grumpy and complains a lot too, so it is a wonder no one wants to be around him. To make matters more Terrible for Alexander, his family is perfect. His dad (Steve Carell) is an Astophysicist or something, PhD and all, but currently being a stay at home dad. His mom (Jennifer Garner) is heading out to be VP of her publishing company if this new baby book launch goes well. His brother (Dylan Minnette) is a popular junior in High School, dating a babe (Bella Thorne) and heading to prom! And his sister (Kerris Dorsey) is the lead in the Peter Pan play and just generally successful.

So Alexander is grumpy. He also found out some dick kid is throwing a birthday party the same night as his, but better with blackjack and hookers, so no one will show up to his. And there his family stands. Perfect and happy. So at midnight, he has a tiny cake with a candle and wishes his disease upon his blood.

Seemingly, the little twat has devil magic in him or something, because sure enough the family have a Horrible Day. Car problems. Oversleeping. Very Bad. Sickness. Typos. Animals. Flames. Babies. Destruction of property. No Good.

But Alexander doesn’t have a bad day. So I guess he has that going for him!

And of course there are other people! Donald Glover, Megan Mullally and Jennifer Coolidge!

What a smug as fuck look Alexander has, despite wishing he could be his brother.

OH NO THIS MOVIE DOESN’T FOLLOW THE BOOK DIRECTLY WHAT THE FUUCUCUUCCUCCKKKKK.

Just kidding. But on a related note, there was one big huge problem with this movie. Alexander. Not just the actor, who I could ignore for the most part. He was completely average, bland and annoying. Probably an actual 11/12 year old. The more annoying fact is that in this movie, he doens’t have the bad day. Just his family. Does this make the title wrong? No. But he should be having a shitty day too. Instead of having a shitty day, he becomes a weird silent observer throughout the day, every once in awhile giving a shocked face, while the rest of the movie deal with their problems and have zany adventures.

In this way, it feels like Alexander is the 5th or 6th most important person in a movie about him, allegedly. So the family? They are all pretty good. There are some good amusing parts, good clean fun for the family. Well thought out disasters for them to conquer. And Alex is a smug motherfucker just existing. Unfortunately, it ends with the birthday, which is a good experience for everyone, the bad day basically over. So it also ends with a lame feel good fest and kind of a boring note.

I am just saying. This movie already barely features Alexander. Might as well cut his role out entirely. Makes the title shorter too. Instead, we get to see a movie about rich as fuck people having a bad day. Which I am pretty sure is the plot line for lots of films anyways.

I can say I was definitely not looking forward to seeing Paddington. When I first heard about it, sure, maybe. I vaguely remember child stories about the bear.

But then the film had drama. Colin Firth was supposed to be the voice of the bear, but then he left the project. They literally had movie posters with his name attached for a Christmas release at this point. But Firth left the project, mid production. Oh no. That can’t be good!

So I had a negative perception of the film. Turns out Firth left on his own because he just didn’t think his voice fit the bear at all. He was just too old. The bear had a youthful look and he didn’t feel right for the job. That’s fair I guess. Well, I saw it now damn it. And it is a 2015 movie instead of a 2014. And it is still very, very British.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear…

The titular bear, Paddington (Ben Whishaw) didn’t always go by that name. No, he used to have (bearsound) as an identifier. Also he can talk. He was found by a geographer with the rest of his family. The bear family was unusually smart, so he taught them English. They also really seemed to like marmalade.

Eventually, disaster strikes their home, and Paddington is forced to flee the jungles. He decides to head to London, as long ago, the geographer told him he would always be welcome in the Greatest Britain. So he makes it to London, but no one immediately takes him in, like he thought would happen. But then eventually the Browns walk by. Henry (Hugh Bonneville) is against taking in a bear, but his wife, Mary (Sally Hawkins) insists upon helping him out. So they take him in for just one night. Well, he is a clumsy bear who knows nothing about human stuff, so a lot of shenanigans occur.

Eventually they find out he is slightly truthful in his tale of the geographer, so they let him stay. Yay a pseudo-home! Too bad he is also being… hunted! That’s right. A crazy taxidermist (Nicole Kidman) has found out about his existence and really wants to stuff him. Not a euphemism. She gets the help of one of the Brown’s neighbors, a crockety old man Mr. Curry (Peter Capaldi) to help her get that bear!

Also featuring the kids of Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin, and Jim Broadbent. Because Jim Broadbent is the most British man I can imagine.

Who has two toothbrushes and is DTF? This bear!

Now, I’m not racist, but that bear had way more pizzazz than I thought a bear could have. Hooray for pizzazz!

I actually found the movie quite enjoyable. It was jolly good fun. Did you see the bear in the bathtub? Hilarity, my good sirs! Hilarity!

This movie was obviously British, but it was also super British. The only thing missing was the Queen herself. There might have even been a Constable.

Kidman’s character felt maybe too ridiculous for my tastes, but the filmmakers were going for a cartoon feel so it all made sense. The family versus the bear dynamic worked really good as well, and I am happy to say the bear never raged out and killed a baby or anything. Overall, it is a decently enjoyable way to waste an hour and a half with the family. I bear no regrets.

When I grow up, I want to be a cobbler. I don’t think anyone has said that in at least 150 years.

But at least it is a funny word.

Times are strange when you find Adam Sandler in a VOD movie with very limited theater release. His movies have practically printed money the last few years with the minimum amount of effort. Sure he sold out, but he can’t hear the complaints due to the hundred dollar bills falling out of his ears. And plus all of his friends get parts in his movies, and he uses the same crew. He is at least a good guy in that regard.

The Cobbler is about magic though. Or something. I dunno. Bring it on.

“‘Bring it on’ Adam said, as he slowly slid the red heels on for the first time.”

Max Simkin (Sandler) lives in modern day New York. He lives a boring life in down town, running the shop that his father (Dustin Hoffman) abandoned. He doesn’t really enjoy it, but he needs money. He also has to take care of his mother (Lynn Cohen), whom he lives with. There are protests lead by Carmen Herrara (Melonie Diaz), trying to protect the residents and store owners from higher rents, driving them from the area and forcing to sell their livelihoods for cash.

You know what. That sounds nice to Max.

But first he has to deal with some rude customers. Like this guy Leon (Method Man) who needs some shoes repaired that day to pick up that night. Well, Max’s main machine breaks. Shit. He finds a manual one hiding in a back and makes it from that. And wouldn’t you know it, eventually he finds out that machine is magical. SPARKLES AND EVERYTHING. Well, no sparkles. But in boredom, Max puts on the guy’s shoes waiting for him, and he transforms into that guy. Aw shit, shape changing powers. After all, Max is the owner of their soles.

How will he use this power? For good? For evil? For sex? To be a super HERO? No. Not the last one. Kind of all in between.

Also featuring Steve Buscemi as the neighbor barber, and a whole lot of other people, like Dan Stevens, Ellen Barkin, and Elena Kampouris.

For a guy who fixes shoes for a living, there are quite a lot of shots of him being shocked at having shoes.

Despite the movies flaws, I don’t think that they are the fault of Mr. Sandler. I know, that may sound crazy, but it is true. The problems must all lie instead with the directing, script, and whoever made decisions behind the scenes. Because honestly, Sandler was fine in this role. Disgruntled Jewish middle aged worker, poor and bored with life. He fit the bill really well. His character also made sense for his new powers. He isn’t a great guy. He uses his power for as many shenanigans as he can figure out, until his shenanigans run away with him.

But despite the decent enough pun/premise, the movie just fell completely flat.

The movie didn’t know what it wanted to be. A comedy, a drama, a dark comedy. Its indecisiveness rested on the main characters indecisiveness. Shit, it feels like a family movie for the most part, outside of some partial nudity, attempted sex, and murder scenes. Basically everything outside of that is extremely family friendly outside of a few moments. Kind of super awkward.

The movie also dragged. It only took 20 or so minutes before we got to both the power and realization of how to get said power, but everything else was extremely slow. Not to mention not really funny. At all.

Damn it! This movie could have gone to so many good places. And everything is just so damn drab and boring about it.

I could start this review talking about sequels that never had to be made. I could talk about the long time between movies (twenty years, or I guess, eleven if you count Dumb and Dumberer).

But no, I will just be the bigger man and realize why this movie was made. Jim Carrey wants to revitalize his career after a series of not great films, and Jeff Daniels is currently really hot, from The Newsroom, Looper and other dramas. Basically, it is identical to how it was twenty years ago, I guess.

So here we are! Dumb and Dumber To. It could always be worse. It could instead have been a sequel to something unrelated, like Cast Away.

Wait? What is this? Is there a Wilson as well? Fuck.

Again, this movie is set about twenty years after our friends began their trip back from Colorado. Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) has been in a paralyzed state since he didn’t get the woman, apparently, and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) has been kind of taking care of him. But now Harry needs a kidney, so he has to go find one.

Well, it turns out Harry has a kid. Yeah. Right? He apparently got Fraida (Kathleen Turner) pregnant decades ago but just found out about it now. Well, she gave the daughter up for adoption. Now they have to travel and find her!

Well, again, Penny (Rachel Melvin) lives in a big rich house. Her “dad” is Dr. Pinchelow (Steve Tom), a super famous smart dude, rich as fuck. She has to go to a tech conference to accept an award in his honor, because he doesn’t like going to them. Also, Pinchelow’s new wife (Laurie Holden) is trying to slowly poison him in order to get those fat stacks of cash for herself. You know, with Travis (Rob Riggle), who I honestly forget how he is related to anyone.

Yeah. So, road trip, murder plot, and trying to get with a lady or two. Basically the same movie, right?

This time it has cell phones! The thing that can solve most problems for everything made before the year 2000.

Dumb and Dumber To is kind of a hard movie to describe without hating yourself and feeling like you are giving too much away. But then again, so is the first one. But in some cases, if the description sounds terrible despite my best efforts, then again, it just might be terrible.

Maybe it is nostalgia. Maybe it is generally better. I have no idea, but some how Dumb and Dumber is good (is it?) and this sequel, arguably being of comparable humor, quality, writing/directing/acting, is not. Guys. Is Dumb and Dumber bad?

I mean it is of poor taste of course, but would people who didn’t grow up with it hate it if they saw it for the first time as an adult? Man, nostalgia can be a fickle bitch.

No matter what way I look at it, Dumb and Dumber To is just a boring movie, with old film call backs, and the occasional smile or chuckle. Rob Riggle felt terrible in this movie, but to be fair, he is terrible in most movies. It’s that douche face he has, forcing him to play douche characters. Any plot twists were boring as well.

And just…fuck. Fuck The Farrelly Brothers. Make them stop now. We are done with their work.

I don’t think you want to know what I do in the shadows. Usually it involves lurking, dodging sunlight, or cooling off.

Now that I think about that, two of those three descriptions are very vampire-like. Hey, what a perfect title. What We Do In The Shadows is, after all, about a few dudes sharing a flat in New Zealand.

And they are vampires.

And this is a true story. You know, because this story was definitely made, truly.

And they started the hippest band in New Zealand too!

Vampires! They sometimes need roommates. We have Viago (Taika Waititi) who set up this documentary, I guess. They all had to sign waivers to not eat the camera crew, but it should work out. He is only 317 years, so a bit of a late middle ages vampire. They have Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), 183 years old, a baby, and the most brash of these vampires and more of a pseudo ladies man. Let’s not forget Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), aged 862. He used to be a much bigger deal, but his age is getting to him and he is losing a lot more of his powers. He doesn’t impale people people as much.

And don’t forget about Petyr (Ben Fransham). He is about 8,000 years old. He has basically lost it, looks super un-human, very savage. He freaks everyone out but he has basically earned it.

And this is their life! They still drink human blood, they have some human groupies who help them do certain tasks, but they are incredibly behind times in terms of technology.

We learn of past loves, why they prefer virgins, their interactions with other supernaturals (zombies, werewolves, witches).

Also featuring Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stuart Rutherford, and Rhys Darby, because of course Rhys Darby.

“Oh. My. GODDDD! I LOOVVVEEEEE Rhys Darby!”

New Zealand and Flight of the Conchords. Although it looks like Bret McKenzie had nothing to do with this movie, it is easier to describe as vampires meet FotC. Because that type of awkward uncomfortable humor is very prevalent throughout the whole movie. This movie had a ridiculously low budget, I am sure most of the guys being friends working for next to nothing and splitting the profits. It is a great business model for them too, as with kickstarter and word of mouth, it has spread slowly throughout America for people to see.

Blah blah blah. You don’t care. Is it funny? Heck yes it is funny. I personally would have liked a lot more of Petyr, thought he was underused, but I guess you can’t tell an 8,000 year old vampire what to do.

I am also glad that with the different types of Vampires that Twilight didn’t make the cut. At first I thought I wanted it, but realized how quickly it would have just fallen into a a one trick pony to be referenced occasionally, and not had any real characterization or goals behind it.

Also, this movie has a lot of great quotes associated with it. I don’t remember a lot of them, but I do remember laughing.

Either way, if this movie comes to your area, give it a chance. You will probably have an enjoyable uncomfortable night.

I have written many times about how disappointing DreamWorks has been in the animation department. The TL;DR is that all of their movies are terrible, bad, or average, unless they involve Training Dragons or Fighting Pandas. They have two good series right now, but everything else has been pretty bunt or miss. I liked Shrek too, sure, but not really anything post Shrek in that series.

Going in to see Home, I was already biased. Mostly because DreamWorks made a short called Almost Home that wasn’t too exciting. It premiered last year, and was kind of shitty. They showed it before at least two of their movies too, so I had to see it a second time and go “Yep, still don’t like it.” So when I found out it was a tiny prologue to a movie coming out this year, I of course was not excited.

I definitely wasn’t excited when I found out about the voice casting. Well, one person was exciting. The rest seemed to be the now standard big names for big names sake in order to make money.

Seriously. This movie has almost nothing going for it ahead of time.

Can’t even give me a full mustache to be excited about.

The Boovs are known for only a few things: Their color changing based on mood, their tentacles, and their ability to run away. They are great runners. They run from any threat and go based on probability. If something has less than a 50% chance of a success, the run. Captain Smeck (Steve Martin) is their leader because he is the smartest and best at running away. He was even able to get them to run away from the Grok (Grog? I really don’t remember) alien race. But now they are running from this big bad enemy, and they think they have finally found a place to hide.

Earth!

So they put all the Humans in one big colony in Australia, leaving the rest of the planet for themselves! Unlikeable Oh (Jim Parsons) isn’t the same as all the Boov. He likes other things so he is weird and makes many mistakes. Including inviting the entire galaxy to his new apartment warming party. Including the evil alien race by accident. Whoops. So he is now on the run, having a big bad mistake.

And while on the run, he runs into Tip (Rihanna), short for Gratuity. Yeah. Apparently they were able to get every human except for one little (old? hard to tell) girl. She says middle school, but her voice screams 20 year old. She wants to find her mom (Jennifer Lopez), he just wants to escape and make things better.

So they work together! Traveling with a slushie based car hover craft and running away from everyone else, who also wants to run away. Especially when the big baddies come along too.

Jeez. What a mess they have made. Also there is Kyle (Matt Jones). Fuck you, Kyle.

Tip was named as such after her friends gave her a helpful hint on living life to the fullest.

Yeesh. So Rihanna didn’t fit that character at all. DreamWorks tends to have that issue though. The Croods was 100% awkward because of Voice Choices. So Rihanna made her girl sound way too old. Jim Parsons worked as our main character. It was pretty great. Jennifer Lopez was pointless as crap. She had very few lines, overall maybe three scenes technically. No reason to have a big name in such a pointless role. (Or, maybe that is the best place for a big role?). Martin did pretty good at his Captain, reminding me a bit of Sgt. Bilko, but more shitty of a character. And I am actually happy for Matt Jones, getting to be top listed as the only other character with any significant lines.

It is quite obvious why they brought in Rihanna though. She made a whole damn CD for this movie. Half the songs were song by her, J-Lo threw in one as well. And they all sounded kind of the same as a result. It became accidentally funny by the end, hearing the same different song, one after another.

And finally, I got really annoyed by some minor inconsistencies. They had some poor plot decisions to make the movie move forward, their reason for Tip not getting taken was silly, and then other small things like, taking all the pointless toilets away from the area, and then still having houses with toilets. Just minor, rookie movies at the end.

But guess what. This movie was actually still entertaining. It was funny on numerous occasions, and you really do grow to like Oh and Tip by the end. Odd voices aside, Tip is great in that she is a strong independent black woman who don’t need no Boov in her life, for the most part.

The animation was also spectacular at times. Dreamworks has always tended to make some pretty movies, and this one is no exception.

I am able to see through all the poor choices that this movie made in production and with the plot. The movie itself, as an experience, visually and character wise, is much better than the cover would make you seem. Yay for a movie changing my mind! Well done DreamWorks. Now I don’t feel so bad about having to wait so long to see Inside Out.

I wanted to see Top Five when it first came out to theaters, but I was busy that weekend, getting married and taking a vacation and all. Excuses, I know.

And with that, I have nothing left of an intro. I know nothing about this movie outside of who is in it and I am willing to be surprised.

Just a couple people on trains, goin’ places! Nothin’ to see here, move along!

Chris Rock is not playing Chris Rock, but Andre Allen. Totally different guy. This guy used to be a stand up comic, was super funny, then made a successful franchise of films about Hammy the bear, who was also a cop. People loved it. Hilarious.

Then he got off of drugs and alcohol. He didn’t feel as funny. He didn’t want to do those types of films anymore. He wants to make more serious pictures and branch out as an actor. Like his new film, where he is the star, about the Haitian revolution. It is coming out this weekend, and he is also getting married to reality TV star Erica Long (Gabrielle Union). Because of this, their wedding will also totally be live and aired on Bravo!

Yayyyy!…

His agent (Kevin Hart), who didn’t want him to do this movie, also set him up with a full day interview with The Times. The Times hates his movies, and their movie critic has been the meanest. But it isn’t that dude to interview him, it is Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson), who doesn’t want to do a full on fluff piece. She wants to find out real information, new things, she wants him to open up. He just wants people to accept him as a serious actor and person. Hah.

Also featuring Anders Holm, Cedric the Entertainer, Romany Malco and J.B. Smoove.

If I was a voice actor, I would try to imitate Chris Rock’s voice… I’d probably get fired.

As expected, this is a movie Chris Rock wrote and directed to speak from his heart. These are his thoughts and feelings on reality TV, the industry, drugs and alcohol, groupies, journalists and critics, you name it. It isn’t super about him of course, because Chris Rock isn’t known for some ridiculous comedy series where you only hear him and don’t see him. But you can really tell where he is coming from.

The best part of Top Five is the really real-ness of it all. It feels incredibly natural, as if it is actually just a few people or friends talking, depending on the scene. The scene where he went back to his old friend’s house and there was a tiny party is a great example of this.

But even more importantly, the film is also funny at times. I have probably always been a fan of Chris Rock’s work, whether it is his voice or delivery, I don’t know, but I would watch him in basically anything. Because of the realistic feel, Rock obviously fits the character pretty well and it doesn’t take too many leaps and bounds to consider these characters in their role. Shit, it really helps later in the bachelor party scene when we have other famous comedians just playing themselves.

At the same time, I am just a little bit disappointed with the ending. I wanted more. I know why it ended where it did, but I didn’t want my brain to have to do any of the work, I just wanted to be spoon fed.

Which, in a way, is the type of thing this movie was definitely against. Layers!