Tag: Comedy

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.

Another day of Musical Week, another musical!

This is the third day of Musical Week and I am bringing you a British musical that came out this year as well, just no one ever heard of it. When I was first looking up musicals this year, I saw that this one came out in the summer and was pretty apathetic about it. But that was when I thought Jersey Boys was going to be the best musical of the year. Given the weaker field overall, I figured I would give Walking On Sunshine a second chance.

I had watched the trailer, sure. It was cheesy and terrible, exactly what the most famous musicals are supposed to be like, right? It is a jukebox musical, so I was happy I wouldn’t have to learn or judge new songs. The vague theme of this jukebox is just popular songs from the 1980s. Kind of boring. I feel like that is too big of a spread to choose from, so perfect songs for each moment should be easy.

But we shall see!

Especially if we are forced to by someone holding our head towards the screen.

This is your typical summer lovin’ type of film. Namely, Taylor (Hannah Arterton) and Raf (Giulio Berruti) have what feels like true love. But stuff happens, they cannot stay together.

Now, three years later Taylor is returning to Italy to visit with her best sister Maddie (Annabel Scholey). Surprise! Maddie is actually getting married in Italy, and not to her on again off again ex Doug (Greg Wise). Nope. Some mysterious Italian guy she has only known for five weeks.

I think you see where this is going.

The new fiance is Raf! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

What a crazy random happenstance. Either way, she doesn’t want her sister to know, despite all her old friends knowing (Leona Lewis, Giulio Corso, Danny Kirrane).

And now she has to keep it a secret until she can understand her feelings. And understand Raf’s feelings. And figure out what to do about this wedding mess without ruining her sisters life. Also Katy Brand.

But don’t forget about the singing and dancing.

Walking On Sunshine is everything a musical should be. Cheesy. With some love. Featuring non main characters as back ground dancers. But also, and most importantly in this case, the songs they decided to use in the musical sound unique and aren’t just carbon copies of the original.

Thank goodness.

For the most part, that is what I care about for jukebox musicals. It is one of my top twenty complaints for Glee, when they “sing a song” and it sounds identical to the radio version on the radio with no unique elements.

The story though is incredibly week in this musical. It is like a lot of romcoms or even other musicals. It felt like Mamma Mia! and Moulin Rouge! with other shitty elements rolled in. Also they have Leona Lewis in this movie, a real singer! And she doesn’t have any great singing parts or songs to her self or anything. What the hell is the point of that? I mean, this is a completely original musical, technically, so it is not like the only role she looked like had to be so minor and pointless. What a waste of talent.

It’d be like having Idina Menzel in a musical and not letting her sing. Oh wait.

So, shitty plot, waste of talent, but kept the songs at least somewhat unique and fun. Could have been better, could have been worse.

2 out of 4.

Welcome back to Musical Week!

The realest reason for Musical Week is that this December had two musicals coming out only a week apart, which meant I only had to find 3 more. Into The Woods was yesterday, and Annie is today!

When I first heard there was an Annie remake, I was mostly indifferent. I didn’t know if we needed a new one, but hey okay. But when I heard she wouldn’t be a tap dancing ginger, but a BLACK GIRL? I was still mostly indifferent. At least there was a change for the remake so that it wasn’t just rehashed material. It would allow them to do a more modern version, not one set in the way back early times.

But then I saw the first trailer. I knew something was weird and different and off from it. And it is an unfortunate change. But one I will clickbait tactic and wait to talk about at the end of the review.

And it isn’t just that when I do this dance, I always look like I have to take a pouty poop.

Little Orphan Annie (Quvenshane Wallis). No, wait, fuck that. She is just a foster kid, not an orphan. She has parents, she just doesn’t know who they are or when they will be back for her. She just knows that maybe, one day, she will see them on a Friday night at a local Italian restaurant eating cannolis.

But while being chased one day by some jerks, she falls in the street and almost gets run over! But thankfully, a man is there to pick her up and chastise her. That man is Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), the owner of a NYC based phone company that is hugely successful, so he is totally rich, and he is also running for mayor! He isn’t doing that great though. He is super behind. Well, footage goes out of him saving Little Foster Girl Annie on the internets, which gives him a bump up. His campaign manager (Bobby Cannavale) convinces him that if he temporarily takes Annie in and make him seem more charitable.

Annie is a free going individual who understands this is just for publicity, and she is cool with that. Getting to live in a rich house for a few weeks? Hells yeah. She doesn’t want him for a dad anyways, she wants her real parents, who will totally come eventually. Maybe tomorrow even. Or the tomorrow after that.

What could go wrong? Also featuring Rose Byrne, Cameron Diaz, David Zayas, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Stephanie Kurtzuba.

No, trust me, I counted them. Definitely 76 trombones.

Let’s talk about…pop music. Some of it is good, a lot can be bad, even more of it is catchy. That is what this version of Annie is, for the most part. Just pop music broadway. And that is my major complaint. The songs don’t feel as natural as musicals usually strive for. It didn’t have that extra bellow or personality behind the notes that made me care about the lyrics and not just nod my head to a tune. Kids in general like all kinds of music, so a different sound to all of the sounds doesn’t feel warranted.

This is the second thing I have seen Wallis in, the first being Beasts Of Southern Wild, which I kind of hated. She is fine as Annie. She really is. She has charisma and she is charming and she carries that strong independent feeling with her the whole movie.

Everyone else? Ehhh. Byrne did decent. Diaz only annoyed me.

And Foxx. Come on, Foxx. I know you can sing. I remember Gold Digger quite vividly. Was your role in that song fake? I am starting to believe it. You had passion in your lines and feeling in your voice. Every song with Jaime Foxx is terrible. His voice is ridiculously soft for most of them, so I felt like I had to strain to hear him and there is just nothing of substance behind any of them. I kind of felt he was just talking his lines. Maybe they accidentally put in the mumble take? They are just down right terrible.

But you know what bugs me the most? The finale, when they re-did Tomorrow? Despite how terrible I thought the music was in the movie and thus how bad the movie was, it still made me tear up. Just a little bit. Great lyrics can do that. Balloons help.

So who is to blame for this? Will Smith and Jay-Z. They are producers, must be their fault.

1 out of 4.

Yay yay musicals! If you are a long time reader, you know I really like musicals. Which is why I am finally having a musical theme week. Yay Musical Week!

Into The Woods decided to be a musical coming out on Christmas Day. The last time that happened was two years prior for Les Miserables which I absolutely loved. It was also my first real attempt at watching it, outside of listening to a few songs ahead of time. I loved the shit out of Les Mis.

But going into Into The Woods, I knew a lot more about it ahead of time. I saw a performance of it from college actors, which I guess is above community theater and high school actors, but still not great professional people. And you know what? I down right hated it. It took a lot of familiar stories, intertwined them, gave us their endings, and that was the halfway point. The second half was all new material, it felt super awkward, it got darker and more metaphysical, and it dragged on an on. So yes, I thought it was too long. I thought there was only four or so unique sounding songs, everything else kind of melded together and by the end, it was as if everyone got a long slow ballad, one right after the other.

I guess you can say I was not at all looking forward to this movie. But hey, the fact that it was only a little bit more than two hours definitely helped ease it in.

One of the biggest changes is that the cow was played by a real cow. Boooo.

Classic fairy tales go into the dark woods, because the woods were the scariest parts of Germany. This was Pre-Nazis, post Lutherans, I think. So it makes sense.

Like who? Well, Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) needs to bring food to her grandmothers house, in the woods. Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) was told by his mom (Tracey Ullman) to sell their milkless cow in a nearby village, on the other side of the woods. Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) wants to go to the three day ball on the other side of the woods, but she has to get past her step family (Lucy Punch, Christine Baranski, some other chick).

And there is also the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) who cannot bare children. Turns out, a neighboring witch (Meryl Streep) put a curse on them. So now they have to go into the woods to get ingredients over the next few nights to fix that with a potion!

And surprisingly, that is most of the plot you need to know. We’ve got princes (Chris Pine, Billy Magnussen), girls with long hair (Mackenzie Mauzy), and wolves (Johnny Depp)! Shit, I bet the woods even have more secrets than the Library of Alexandria.

The biggest secret is what is real name of the baker’s wife? Can she not have an identity outside of her relationship?

So for those big fans of the musical, there were changes made of course. This is a PG movie because Disney is involved, you aren’t going to see everything you saw in the musical. Like most of Rapunzel’s story line. The second Agony song. No sex is had in this movie. And the sexy times are subdued.

But the only thing I really was sad to see missing was the Agony song reprise, because like the college school production, it was my favorite part. In the movie, it is probably even better as the two princes ham it up and I was laughing hard the entire time.

I do feel like the beginning of the was extremely quick and just kind of threw you into all of the plots far too fast. (Some of these complaints would be complaints with the actual broadway version. I am not reviewing how close they are, just how I feel watching the movie). So that was awkward. I thought I saw some sound editing mistakes, which is one of the hardest parts about a musical to make sure to get right. I also have a problem with the ending, that seems to just whimper and finish instead of an awesome musical bang.

But throughout the film it is definitely entertaining. My favorite would be Blunt (who had an excellent year). I didn’t know she had such singing chops, but she played a great character. I have heard Corden sing before, and it was okay. He was better in this movie than his other recent roles. I was also surprised with the singing voice of Chris Pine, so much that I don’t trust it. And Lilla Crawford, a little girl, had a surprisingly powerful voice as well.

Overall though, Into The Woods is a decently good time. Still has its bleak and sad moments and it may be one of the best musicals of the year, but this year was a bit weaker in that genre. At this point, I would say I enjoyed Muppets Most Wanted more, and probably Begin Again had better music. Despite that, the music has now been stuck in my head for several days, so I will most certainly get a soundtrack as soon as I can and listen to half of it over and over again.

3 out of 4.