Tag: Comedy

Horrible Bosses 2 came to theaters in November, and I didn’t get to go to a screening because I went to see Rosewater instead.

I actually wanted to see this one more, but I opened it up to a vote, and it was something ridiculous, like 15-1 in favor of Rosewater. Too bad Rosewater wasn’t that special.

I really liked the first Horrible Bosses, despite its ridiculousness. But I also liked at least 2 of the 3 main actors, so it made a bit of sense. However, when I heard about this sequel, I definitely thought that it didn’t make a lot of sense. They had a potential of making it like The Hangover 2, where they told a very similar story and it just felt like a bad rehash. But at the same time, if it has nothing to do with with Bosses being Horrible, then why is there a sequel at all?

And can they make everything sexier this go around? I doubt it.

Nothing sexier than showcasing your package in a business meeting. I’ve heard…

Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), and Dale (Charlie Day) are now in a business together! They made some sort of Shower Buddy item, that not only is a new nozzle for your water to come out of, but also automatically dispenses the shampoo and conditioning when with a timer or something. Yeah it sucks.

Either way, a big company has took notice. Rex Hanson (Chris Pine), CEO or something, wants to buy it all from them for a lump sum. But they don’t want to sell their company. He is a dick to them. Then his dad shows up, Bert Hanson (Christoph Waltz), and offers instead to buy 100,000 units, they just have to get their company off the ground. Hire workers, make the product, and they have a deadline.

And guess what, they do it! But of course shenanigans occur, and they might lose their whole business for nothing instead and get screwed out of all their product. What dicks, these pseudo bosses have been! So they eventually get a plan. Kidnap the son, ransom him for a ton of cash to the rich as fuck dad, save the company, and get away with a new crime. Yay!

Oh hey, and of course, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, and Jamie Foxx return as their old characters too. For various humor intended reasons. And Jonathan Banks as the FBI guy trying to solve the crime! Life has been decent to him post Breaking Bad.

I assume the telescope is innuendo.

I think Horrible Bosses 2 found a nice balance between keeping to the theme of the series, but also giving us something new. Last time they all had different people that they wanted to “kill”. This time, they are united against the same two guys and they don’t want them to die. Killing is scary business. So instead a very complicated plan with many moving parts is the real ideal.

I will admit I haven’t seen the first Terrible Supervisors film since it came out, but I think I enjoyed that one more than the sequel. This one wasn’t necessarily bad, as it definitely had quite a few hilarious moments, but I also think it didn’t as great of a plot behind it. There were scenes that produced no laughs at all.

But the most important aspect of a buddy comedy is the chemistry, and it is pretty darn good between these guys. I have talked before about Bateman fatigue, but even he wasn’t too terrible, although it was clearly Sudeikis/Day’s movie for the maximum lols. You might not trust my word on that, because I love almost everything Sudeikis does. I think he’s the best part of SNL the last few years.

Also, I practically died laughing every time they used their fake voices. Just it is probably more forgettable unlike the first movie where they did the…things. And stuff.

2 out of 4.

It feels good to be out of my weeks of Oscar/award related movies. Now I can watch anything I want! Shitty comedies, shitty sex comedies, shitty sex romance movies, shitty dramas. Literally, the sky is wide open.

So many shitty movies I had to ignore for weeks!

But instead I watch Rudderless because it was requested of me. Sure, I saw the cover once and wanted to watch it. Why not do that before the shit storm.

The only thing that can scream out “indie” more than this scene would be a couple of gay cowboys.

Sam (Billy Crudup) has hit rock bottom. He has been living on a boat, a drunken mess, for the last two years. You see, his son (Miles Heizer) died as a result of a campus shooting, and his life kind of crumbled.

But things change a little bit, just a bit, when he is given a lot of his son’s journals and cds. Turns out he was writing songs and recording demos of his feelings. The material was really good, emotional, dark, and all sorts of just real.

Looking to get over his death, or honor it in some way, Sam plays one of his songs at an opec mic night. It is met with mixed reviews. But Quentin (Anton Yelchin) loved it. He worshiped Sam and his song writing playing and wanted him to do even more and put more out there. He kind of wanted him to start a band.

But that is weird. Sam is old and living on a boat. He can’t start a band with young kids. His life is a wreck. Even if he has a full notebook of material. I am uncomfortable.

Also with Selena Gomez, Kate Micucci, William H. Macy, Laurence Fishburne, and Ryan Dean.

Don’t worry, she only has like, two scenes max. Completely forgettable.

Another movie I can’t describe well without giving it all away or making it sound like shit. My bad.

Because in all honesty, I friggan loved it. All of the music, all of it (except maybe the last song) was enjoyable. The bringing together of the band and creating a sound, it was great as well.

I can’t say normally I am a fan of Crudup’s work, but he was tolerable as the lead in this film. Yelchin was really good, but I always enjoy him. Also, this might be Fishburne’s best role in years and he was just a side character.

William H. Macy did a fantastic job his first time directing a film. He told a powerful story, full of good music and good conflict, about a hard to discuss subject. Reminds me a bit of Beautiful Boy, but of course more music.

4 out of 4.

This Is Where I Leave You is one of those movies that I really didn’t care about seeing right away. I knew I could wait for it, despite liking quite a few members of the cast.

What was my beef? I call it Jason Bateman fatigue. A lot of people in this movie, but his character gets to be the main character, and for the most part, his last several years of roles have been very very similar. The Switch, The Change-Up, Identity Thief, Bad Words, Horrible Bosses. He is generally an asshole character who likes to make fun of others and has bad things happen to him. Sure he is a dick, but people are usually bigger dicks, so his dick-ness is justified.

Either way, I am super tired of him because he always gets lead guy status, thanks to Arrested Development I guess (which is also the same character).

I am tired of what feels like him lazily acting on the screen. It was fine the first few times, but now I really don’t know why I expected anything other than the dead dove.

But we have female on male violence, so I guess it can’t be too bad.

Can we look at that image closer? I think I got a stunt double in here or something, because man, that looks nothing like Tina Fey or what I would imagine Tina Fey looks like mid punch.

Mort Altman is dead. He is survived by his wife (Jane Fonda) and four kids. He was an athiest, but apparently he wanted a Jewish ceremony at his death and have his family sit shiva. That is an older tradition where the family literally sits for a week (outside of food/sleep/etc) to talk and honor the dead. People are meant to visit them throughout the week as well, to allow the stories to be said in a more natural way and to pass on the legacy of the individual. I learned about it at first from Weeds.

So we have Judd (Bateman) who is about to get separated from his wife (Abigail Spencer) because he found her in bed with his boss (Dax Shepard). Wendy (Tina Fey) is upset over her husband (Aaron Lazar) for being too busy with work, not able to stay, but also having to deal with kids and former lovers. Paul (Corey Stoll), the oldest, who wants to take over the family business cannot seem to get his wife (Kathryn Hahn) pregnant. And Phillip (Adam Driver) is younger, reckless, and dating a much older woman, a psychiatrist (Connie Britton), who actually was inspired by their family to go into her field.

What? Oh yeah, their family was written about by their mother in a book, so people know all about their lives. In a way, this makes it very similar to Peep World, but no one watched Peep World.

And yeah. Shenanigans. Also with Ben Schwartz, Debra Monk, Rose Byrne and Timothy Olyphant.

Shenanigans I say!

Overall, This Is Where I Leave You is a typical dysfunctional family comedy film. Maybe with more physical punches between and from siblings, but nonetheless, a lot of this is pretty typical.

TIWILY does attempt to do some things differently. With Bateman’s story line, there are unexpected elements behind it and they were a bit refreshing. But Driver’s plot was incredibly standard, Fey’s seemed like filler, and Stoll’s was underdeveloped.

The best part of the film is actually Jane Fonda! Her character is hilarious and really helps mesh the whole movie together. If you needed a reason to check this movie out at some point, Jane would be your reason.

A lot of it is predictable, a lot of it is okay. Overall, it just feels like too much. None of it feels realistic, to have so many things happen this way in a week, so it is hard to relate to any of the characters, at least from my point of view.

Shh. Go away. Review is over~.

2 out of 4.

I am definitely really late getting to see Dear White People. Hell, I didn’t even know what kind of movie it was going in to it. I literally thought this was a documentary.

Well, despite being a real movie and not a documentary, it took me too long to see it because clearly this movie was made for me. As a white person, having this title means that it is like a letter to me and other white people. That’s good. Gives me something to relate to right off the back.

Basically, this is almost the exact opposite of For Colored Girls.

If they think that review is terrible, they should see my review for Jane Eyre!

Dear White People takes place at an IVY league school that is undergoing some change. There are specific houses that individuals can live in and some have developed themes. Some are party houses, some are for business type folks, and then there is the Armstrong/Parker house, predominantly black.

The administration (Peter Syvertsen) wants to make houses a random process and mess up these themes to induce diversity throughout their mostly white campus. Sam White (Tessa Thompson) believes it is just an attempt to quell the social rustlings of the black students, making it harder for them to organize and protest. Sam also runs a radio show called Dear White People, calling out race issues along with appropriate music, and wrote her own book. She is pretty good at race issues.

She surprisingly wins the election for House Head against her ex Troy Fairbanks (Brandon P Bell), son of the dean (Dennis Haysbert). The elitist type.

Our other main characters are Lionel Higgins (Tyler James Williams), a gay black man journalist/writer who doesn’t feel like he belongs to any group, Coco Conners (Teyonah Parris), a student video blogger who is willing to create drama to rise to the starlight, and Kurt Fletcher (Kyle Gallner), son of the President who feels untouchable and organizes the hip-hop/blackface party.

Also featuring Brittany Curran, Marque Richardson, Malcolm Barrett, and Justin Dobies.

I found him. I found the white person!

Dear White People is an increasingly rarer satire comedy drama. Although the film is clearly fictionalized, it is inspired by actual parties around the united states and actual discrimination that people go through. It presents a lot of good arguments, including lots of social science theory at almost every opportunity. It also showcases clear examples of how the world works in the film.

But also, also, it makes it very clear this is a complicated issue with no clear solution. The entire world is not just black and white (heh). Every person is different with different experiences and what they think and say in public might not reflect their actual feelings. Sometimes people do what they are expected to do.

As for the acting, Tessa Thompson does a great job carrying this movie. She was very believable in her role and is clearly knowledgeable on the talking points. The other lead, Tyler James Williams? Well shit, his fro was so distracting I couldn’t even recognize him as the best part of the short lived Go On. His journey in this movie is the most interesting, followed closely behind Tessa’s, but more importantly is that they are both different and very realistic.

The only thing I could really want more out of this movie is even more issues brought up, or even more perspectives thrown into the mix. But hey, they might need material for a sequel.

3 out of 4.

Normally when movies get pushed back, I wonder and worry. Sure, sometimes it is as simple as not being able to compete with a bigger movie coming out that same day. Sometimes it is due to a production company not wanting to compete with its own product.

I have no idea why Kingsman: The Secret Service got moved from November 2014 to February 2015. February/January are generally deader months where a lot of shit goes, so it feels like the studio just didn’t think it would be good enough to make it. So they put it at the beginning of the year to hide it.

That is clearly what is going on with Jupiter Ascending, which got pushed out of Summer to February, which means they don’t think it will succeed as a blockbuster.

But this is Kingsman, and the trailer actually looked interesting. Damn it. WHY DID THEY MOVE IT?

I can only hold on to my butts so long in anticipation!

Back in the day, Great Britain decided it needed to protect the world. That is a bit of paraphrasing. Either way, they made a secret service, based on the Knights of the Round Table. Each soldier is incredibly well trained, combat, spy gadgets, code names, Gentleman as FUCK, and lives a thankless life as they can never let their existence be known.

Galahad (Colin Firth) didn’t notice a bomb one time, and one of the new recruits died saving his life. He wanted to help out his family, so he gave them a medallion with a number on it to call if he ever needed help.

Now, seventeen or so years later, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is in trouble. Sure, he is a smart lad (British terminology), but he has wasted his life living on the streets. His mom never got over his dad’s death and is now dating an alcoholic. He is involved with gangs. He runs from the cops!

And guess what, he needs help. Quite obviously, Galahad thinks he has what it takes. They need a new member as one of their own was slashed down by rich tech billionaire Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) and his assassin Gazelle (Sofia Boutella).

So you know, training, spy stuff, gadgets, a shit ton of action, and everyone talking super funny.

Also with Jack Davenport as Lancelot, Mark Strong as Merlin, Michael Caine as Arthur, Sophie Cookson as the female main lead/training rival, and Mark Hamill as a professor. I normally wouldn’t even bring him up, but I mean, come on. Mark Hamill.

“I came here to drink tea and give someone a good going over, and the Americans dumped all of my tea.”

Right before the movie started, I found out it was 129 minutes and thought it was way too long. Now that it finished, I found myself only wanting more.

Kingsman is based on a comic by Mark Millar, the same man who wrote Kick-Ass. Hey. Matthew Vaughn, the director, also did Kick-Ass! How quaint! Matthew Vaughn had to leave Days of Future Past to do this movie, and that is fantastic, because it made it so we got two pretty awesome movies instead of maybe two terrible ones. I can’t believe how entertaining Kingsman ended up being. The action was high octane and firing on all cylinders, and the movie built a bigger body count than you would probably expect.

Samuel L. Jackson was in it, and of course he kicked ass as the villain. He had so much personality, I was almost rooting for him by the end. Colin Firth is usually fantastic when he isn’t in a super serious role as well, and I wonder if he backed out of Paddington to build up his R-Rating persona. Another movie with questionable things going on.

I mean. Honestly, the only thing I found super disappointing, was some really awkward stuff that happened at the end. It just felt so forced and childish. It felt like a 13 year old wrote the last minute, almost. It will be very off-putting to people, even if they enjoy it.

Kingsman may be truly the first very entertaining movie of 2015, and it helped kick start my hope for some unique things to come through the pipeline this year.

3 out of 4.

The Wedding Ringer seems to fail at the most basic level, having an interesting title. A lot of movies begin with “The Wedding” and end with some noun. Ringer is really only associated with The Ringer and that is a weird movie to be kind of associated with. Or it might make it sound like a shitty horror, if you think about it hard enough.

Oh well. I will note that Sony Pictures really wanted people to see this film a head of time. I think I could have first gone to a screening in October or so. And then roughly 2 a week until it finally came out (exaggeration, but barely). I am normally a bit more weary about films that show too many screenings, because I think they don’t think they will be successful without a lot of positive word of mouth. Like, a lot a lot. And that means it is probably shit.

Not that I am judging it or anything. But Kevin Hart has been on a downward spiral in terms of film quality, with me hating the last few of his movies outside of About Last Night. But hey, despite all these negatives maybe I will be surprised.

This movie probably will taste better with copious amounts of alcohol.

Doug Harris (Josh Gad) is super rich. Like, parents died, took over their business, gained a lot of wealth, and makes a lot of income. He is also kind of fat and awkward and has no friends. But when the daughter of one of his clients suddenly gets interested in him and finds him interesting, he runs with it. Now he is marrying Gretchen (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) and it is expensive. She wants everything and he agrees, this includes a big bridal party. Now ten days away, all she knows about the bridal party is their names, weird things about them, but no pictures and none of them around. Shit.

So Doug finds out about Jimmy (Kevin Hart), who runs a Best Man for hire business. With the time line and the number of people needed, Doug needs The Golden Tux package, costing him another $50k, but he is doing it because he totally knows lying is the best option to make his soon to be wife happy. Inventing fake friends ftw. He just stills has to impress her much smarter sister (Olivia Thirlby) and angry dad (Ken Howard).

And we also have the 7 hired groomsmen. Jorge Garcia, Affion Crockett, Dan Gill, Corey Holcomb, Colin Kane, Alan Ritchson, and Aaron Takahashi. Also Ignacio Serricchio as a gay Hispanic wedding planer. And Jenifer Lewis as Hart’s assistant and advice giver. I think I got every one in there.

The most eclectic group of friends since All In The Family. Errr.

One of the most annoying parts of this movie is it just is an impossible service to imagine. Doug has to pay $50,000 for the service he offers, and the only other price we see is about $20,000. Some people apparently have a lot of money on the side that their soon to be spouse know absolutely nothing about. So it is not only a huge breach of trust, spending that much extra before you share things, but the other breach of trust about lying about someone in your life. It is crazy.

So after I get over that fact, there are quite a few amusing moments in the movie. I could tell how the whole thing would end after about 20 minutes, so they never really stray off of the beaten path. That is a bit disappointing.

The cast of extra characters was entertaining. Kevin Hart was his usual self. Gad was never really anything funnier than “That fat guy”, so his character needed a lot of work. They gave me a Lost joke, which is all I really cared for.

The Wedding Ringer is okay, and not the giant shit show I thought it would be. After all, Kevin Hart’s last January movie was Ride Along which failed to live up to its potential.

2 out of 4.

Ah, I do love a good controversy to start a review off.

This movie is called Pride. For most of you, you can take a good guess at part of the subject matter of the movie. For others, it might come to a shock to you that this film deals with gays and lesbians.

In fact, it is about a true story in the 1980’s in Britain! But the US distributors of this film don’t want you to know that. Which is why they have seemingly gone out of your way to mention the gay/lesbian presence in the pictures and description of the film, despite being the main point.

Welcome to 2015, bitches.

And shout it from a megaphone!

1984, and Great Britain was under attack against the scary Iron Lady. Or at least that’s how I picture it.

Movies tell me nothing but bad things about Thatcher, and this one is another one of them. 1984 had a Great Britain Great Miners’ Strike. Thatcher was super anti-Union and so the miners went on strike to make more money. Well, this thing lasted a long time, with whole communities having no income. Kind of harsh, but they had to fight for what they believed in.

Which is what the gays and the lesbians were doing too. Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) decides that they should support the miners openly. They even want to start an organization LGSM, Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners. Sure, the Miners stereotypically would be people who used to beat them up for being “perverts” but Mark knows that a group who people hate should partner with other groups that people hate in order to make bigger noises towards bigger and better changes.

So it is that simple. They will start collecting money for them so that they can afford food and pay the bills, as long as they will accept their money first.

Starring as the perverts, George MacKay, Faye Marsay, Freddie Fox, Andrew Scott and Dominic West. Starring as the pits, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Paddy Considine, and Jessica Gunning.

The stereotypes are entirely true. The gays dance better than the miners, every day.

A feel good story about overcoming differences between two groups of people to kick ass together! That is what Pride is about. Not just one side or the other, but both.

I’m sure you could tell all of that from reading the description, no matter what country release you had. And hey, sure, it felt a bit standard at times. There were moments that felt like a made for TV film, and then other moments that made sure you knew it was rated R. I wasn’t sure what I would give it rating wise until the very end, when sure enough, they messed with my emotions enough to give me a little bit of a tear or two. Dicks.

And we had a few stand out performances, namely Dominic West/Andrew Scott, and Bill Nighy/Imelda Staunton. Both play couples and both amazing in different ways. Namely also that Dominic West looks like some strange version of Richard Branson in this movie. (I say that about anyone with an accent and long man hair).

Of course, more importantly, I learned a lot about one year in Britain. I have more reasons for movies to tell me why I should dislike Thatcher. And I got to talk about a controversial movie but not in the way it should have been controversial. Diary, today was a good day.

3 out of 4.

Sharknado 2: The Second One — Because people think that the first Sharknado was a bad B Movie.

That isn’t true of course. It was just a bad movie, worse than a B movie, and it tried too hard to make itself be funny bad, and instead was just terrible.

But forwhatever reason, the internet decided to run with this as a joke it definitely needed, and it got way too popular for no reason.

So now we have Sharknado 2.

Reviews of this are pointless, because I am under the impression that anyone who was going to watch this movie, already did. I do in fact believe I am the last person to watch this movie.

And if not, uhhh, spoilers.

The last movie was set in LA and starred some people. This time, it is set in NYC and the idea of a Sharknado is an actual thing. Hell, even the book How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack is in this movie, though written by one of the main characters from the last movie, April Wexler (Tara Reid).

April and Fin (Ian Ziering) are no longer together, but they are flying to NYC to visit family and friends, when, of course, a bunch of crazy weather shit happens. Huge storm, winter icy blast, and for whatever reason, a shit ton of Sharks, means NYC is about to get fucked up and a whole lotta people gonna die.

And that is all you really have to know. A lot of cameos of random people, but if I told you who, you’d know they would probably just end up dying.

The non cameo real roles include Vivica A. Fox, Mark McGrath, Kari Wuhrer, Courtney Baxter, Dante Palminteri, Judah Friedlander and Judd Hirsch.

Another maybe spoiler, but this one is cooler.

And there it is, a bad sequel to a bad movie. HOWEVER.

And it hurts me to say this. It hurts me so much.

Sharknado 2 > Sharknado. Sharknado felt like I was getting hit in the head with a shovel for an hour and a half. Shaknado 2 merely felt boring and you know what? I laughed occasionally.

The beginning of Sharknado 2 was just as bad as Sharknado, but it got a little bit better. Their jokes are bit funnier. Especially one Shark hopping scene, I down right smiled.

It is still just as cheesy, just as poorly conceived, but you know what. Just a tad bit better.

And thus, I do declare, that Sharknado 2 is not the worst movie of 2014.

1 out of 4.

Day after Christmas, and you know what that means… Boxing Day! The day I don’t pretend to understand but could easily look up. I think it involves even better shopping deals and when people presumably box up their trees for the trash or the attic.

Screw that though, let’s say it is about some secret day to worship some other saint. After all, Christmas is about Saint Nick. There are presumably a whole lot of Christmas days (12? 25?) that people just seem to accept but not question when they are. So now we can say Boxing Day is for St. Vincent.

Sure, some people may say this is one of my more ridiculous openings to a review, where I am clearly just being stupid. And to that, I say, okay.

Legally obligated to show this picture whenever talking about this movie on the internet.

Vincent (Bill Murray) is old, and thus, mean and grouchy. He lives in a run down place, all dirt, nothing growing but a tree in his front yard. So when neighbors move in and their moving company somehow manage to ruin his car, fence, and tree, he is a bit displeased. Not the best way for Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) and her son Olvier (Jaeden Lieberher).

Maggie is going through a divorce. So she has to spend a lot of her time at work making extra money, so she needs someone to watch Oliver sometimes. Vincent is nearby and willing, for a price, because Vincent has gambling debts and other costs that are just racking up. He even has a wife in a nursing home who doesn’t remember him, but he still makes sure she can live in luxury while he lives in filth.

See, Vincent is swell. Even with all the drinking and gambling and care free attitude. Oh, and the pregnant prostitute/stripper (Naomi Watts) that is in his life. Another vice, I guess. But when he is isn’t sexing or getting beat up by an old Terrence Howard, he can sometimes teach Oliver to fight. You know, the important skills.

Oh hey. Chris O’Dowd plays a Catholic Priest teacher, a role I feel like he keeps getting shoe horned into.

This is the best McCarthy movie since Go from 1999, which is saying a whole lot.

I have a pretty weird relationship with Bill Murray. He once gave me a wedgie and ran away yelling “No one will believe this!” the bastard. But also I don’t have the deep appreciation of all the 80’s/90’s comedies he starred in. I like him more in his cameo roles.

But his drama roles are usually pretty top notch. Even in the pretty disappointing The Monuments Man he had one of the better parts in a shower scene (uhh…). And in this role, it felt like Murray was actually acting and not just playing an old man. He had a different persona/character about him and he did it really well.

McCarthy was also really well in this role. I didn’t hate her character in the slightest which was a nice change. I didn’t even recognize Watts at all.

The only issues I really have with this movie is how predictable the whole thing is. Nothing really deviates from an expected path and everything seems to fall into place.

So, it is a well acted and interesting movie? Just not as amazing I had hoped, but still pretty good and worth a watch or two.

3 out of 4.

1250.

Welcome to my 1250th review! This Milestone Review is actually a bit cooler than the last few. Something about a “250” is sexy. A quarter of a thousand. That means I am slightly closer to 1500!

Now I know what you are thinking. Freddy vs. Jason? That movie came out like, ten years ago? What in the actual fuck are you doing?

Well, my goal for a lot of these milestone reviews is to pick a specific sort of unique movie. A lot of the times they are well known movies that are critically panned and hated, which allows me to write to a specific audience and laugh at it with them. It also allows these “bad movies” to maybe get a fair shake, should they be great.

Unfortunately with my criteria, I feel like I basically got all the movies in my time frame. I mean, Twilight and all? After all the other movies, I kind of have to branch out more.

The reason I picked Freddy vs. Jason is because it was a pretty intense movie when it came out, putting together two horror icons who have been in pop culture for decades. And I never watched it! I only thought about it thanks to the review of the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. I realized this would be perfect for my next milestone, and I hope it combines the best elements of the two franchise with plenty of death and laughs.

I guess this scene falls under a plot element that both franchises tend to include in their repertoire.

Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is a sad evil little nightmare. His power came from fear. He was getting back at the youth of a neighborhood that killed him, because he had it coming. Well, whatever the town did, they seem to have forgot about him. If they aren’t afraid, he has no power. If he has no power, he can’t invade their dreams. If he can’t invade their dreams, he is forgotten and will live an eternity alone.

So he finds Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger). Resurrects him, pretends to be his mother (Paula Shaw), and tells him to head to Elm Street for some revenge killing. If Jason does it right, they will think it is Freddy, and he will be back to kill again!

Especially her. They should make her their main goal and focus mostly on her. Definitely definitely her.

Hey look at that. Freddy’s plans work perfectly. Right after some teen sex, Gibb (Katharine Isabelle) is taking a nice shower, and her boytoy gets stabbed a few times and folded in half in one of those bed things. Man, fucked up! Since he died in a bed and in a weird way, this gets some of the older folks talkin’. They think somehow, despite all their prep, Freddy has come back and is again, going after their kids.

The kids don’t know that yet though. They have been sheltered and hidden from the horrible past of this area. They do know that somehow, some people are getting murdered. And you know what, it isn’t just in their dreams.

Sometimes a weirdo in a hockey mask shows up.

And Jason sure does know how to make an entrance.

Shit, one dude was even in a nightmare with Freddy who was too weak at the time. He woke up and escaped, but then was just straight up murdered by Jason. Everywhere seems to be terrifying.

Outside of the vague nightmares, they wouldn’t really know about Freddy if it wasn’t for Will (Jason Ritter) and his buddy Mark (Brendan Fletcher). They were at the local Psychiatric Hospital. Aka, they were being terrorized by Freddy and the town put them there to keep it away from the untainted youth! They even had a non-FDA approved miracle drug that would suppress dreams. Huh, how handy.

Either way, Will used to date Lori (Monica Keena), our main heroine pictured above. No bad blood between them outside of the fact that she had no idea what happened. He says he saw her dad (Tom Butler) kill her mom. Oh, that’s awkward.

With two supernatural entities, everyone agrees that is the most fucked up part of this.

Wait a minute. Everyone right now has to realize that Jason and Freddy share a universe. So some of these guys have heard about Jason before, and they know that this Camp ClearWater is a haunted area that people don’t go to. They know the stories.

So who is the biggest threat? Should they focus on finding a way to get their dreams to stop, or finding a way to make Jason leave first? They figure they want to get their sleep on, so they should probably go to the Psych Hospital and get that miracle drug so they can sleep with ease.

But even more importantly is that Freddy is really fucking pissed off. Jason on numerous occasions keeps killing, but he doesn’t want that anymore. Jason has killed people in their sleep, right before Freddy can do the job. That isn’t cool man. That is totes uncool.

Yeah man. Why can’t you be chill, man?

So, thanks to the help of young Deputy Scott Stubbs (Lochlyn Munro), they are able to break into the ward! Their team is young stoner Freeman (Kyle Labine), Lori, Will, Lori’s black best friend (Kelly Rowland), and a nerd!! (Chris Marquette).

Well, Freddy decides to possess one of the kids, because now seems like a good idea. He uses the stoner, because he can get him high first.

Stoner Freeman ends up getting rid of all the drugs. Not only that, but he also is able to tranquilize Jason who is still chasing the kids everywhere they go!

That’s right. Now Freddy can fight Jason in the Dream World and finally take him down.

I know, I can’t believe the two iconic characters actually get to fight either.

Well, given it is home turf for Freddy, the nightmare realm, he really starts to fuck Jason over good. So many torture devices to show him the business. But guess what? Jason seems invincible. Nothing is hurting him.

That is because Jason isn’t afraid. It isn’t until Freddy realizes he has one fear, water, that he knows what to do. He takes Jason back to the time when he was young and he drowned at the lake.

Meanwhile, back in the real world. The kids have a plan. They are continually tranquilizing Jason to make sure he doesn’t kill them and driving him back to the camp where he normally lurks. They also tranquilized Lori to go into their dream battle.

They figure if they can bring both of the entities to the camp, Jason has a better chance of beating Freddy. If he wins, then they might leave them alone because he is home. If he loses, well, they still have a Freddy issue, but at least Jason is done.

Lori’s job is to make sure Jason doesn’t die in the dream and to bring Freddy back to the real world with them. Yay more violence!

In this scene, Kelly Rowland calls Freddy a faggot. Not really funny, just awkward 2003 moments.

Needless to say, their plan only kind of works. Eventually Freddy is in the real world too, but more of them keep dying in the process. But at least Freddy and Jason are fighting again. And maybe, just maybe they can escape if one of them wins.

I bet you want to know who wins. Well, neither win of course. They both attack each other with each other’s weapons. But Jason does decapitate Freddy! Just. Freddy still winks by the end of the movie.

That lets us get more sequels that refuse to exist, including the very rumored Freddy vs Jason vs Ash movie that would be very sexy. I don’t care how old Bruce Campbell is.

Oh and Garry Chalk is in this movie as main police chief guy. I couldn’t find a good time to talk about him.

More fight scenes than you can shake a machete at.

For review 1250, I think I picked a really good film. 1300, 1350, 1400, and 1450 might suck, but this one is a decent one and a good one to break my yearly limit for.

I actually found Freddy vs Jason to be very entertaining. It took the extremely campy and scary moments from the Nightmare franchise and combined them decently with the senseless stabby violence of Jason.

I am clearly more of a Freddy fan of the two, but I think both of them were represented in positive lights for their respected franchises. Neither side of this fictional battle should feel slighted by what occurred in this cross over.

And they didn’t even skip out on the fight scenes. They made sure the two main battles between the two were unique, long, interesting, and true to characters. It wasn’t just 2 minutes tacked on to the end. No, we got a lot of it and the build up felt natural.

Well fucking done, guys. Well fucking done.

3 out of 4.