Tag: Comedy

Ah, LARPing. An easy subject to make fun of. I have never LARP’d, because actually LARPing involves having a character, having stats abilities and stuff, and doesn’t necessarily involve just hitting people with swords. I have done the thing where I hit people with swords though.

Movies that feature LARPing generally are just overall parodies of them, never really getting the actuality of it all (like anything nerdy in films). Recently I watched Lloyd the Conqueror and it didn’t trash on the subject. Still probably far off, but at least it wasn’t just making fun of it. I imagine this movie, Knights of Badassdom will do the same thing, but with a bigger budget and bigger stars.

There is an obvious joke here, but I will be the bigger man and not make it.

Some friends like to role play and have eventually elevated their play to the next level to involve LARPing. After one of their friends goes down with a paintball injury, Hung (Peter Dinklage) and Eric (Steve Zahn) need another member for their team before the big even this weekend!

Which is where they find Joe (Ryan Kwanten), their old friend, wallowing in misery. His girlfriend (Margarita Levieva) just broke up with him. He used to play D&D with them, but stopped. Using the power of drugs and alcohol, they convince him to join their band for the weekend. The rest of their team includes Lando (Danny Pudi), Gunther (Brett Gipson), and Gwen (Summer Glau).

But early in the weekend, Eric accidentally casts a spell from a book he found that unleashes a succubus upon the festivities. Weee, real demons!

Also featuring Brian Posehn for one scene, and Jimmi Simpson as the Game Master. Nerds, every single one of them.

In case you are curious, yes, the lightning bolt joke makes it here too.

Arguably, this is some sort of “horror comedy” or “black comedy,” I have heard it described as both. The only issue I have with both sides is the comedy element. I remember a couple amusing scenes, maybe, but most of it was sans chuckles. That sucks! I know most of the actors in this. All of them are amusing in their own way and definitely are “nerds” in terms of roles they play normally, so I believe that they are nerdy in real life as well.

But this film is just disappointing. Again, very few laughs. If there were more laughs, I could forgive the mediocre acting or plot or whatever. Kind of cool fight near the end but it isn’t enough to save it. Definitely a passable movie. I can’t even bring myself to describe it more than what I have done already.

Ah, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I will be honest. I wasn’t really looking forward to this movie when it was first announced.

I like the Captain, sure. But the next two movies are Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron. This one was just giving me more of an already established character. Still, I was excited enough about it to make a fake review for April Fools Day.

Being a comic book fan is sort of a double edged sword with these type of movies. On one side, it is great experiencing the comics come to life with large enough budgets to make every fanboy cry out in glee. But on the other side, we know the stories they are inspired by, so most likely the bigger plot twists and turns won’t be surprises to us.

Unless of course they create new unexpected ones like Iron Man 3, but that is a different story.

“Hey, stop moving so the camera can focus on your backside.”

The Winter Soldier begins by showing us what life is like for the one and only Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a national hero and now high up in S.H.I.E.L.D. He is doing missions around the world! But S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) have their secrets and Steve doesn’t really like secrets.

So when things start to get a little bit feisty at the headquarters in DC, Steve isn’t sure who he can trust. Can he trust the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) who is known for half-truths and deception? Can he trust Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) head of the World Security Council? How bout Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)?

Yeah, he is kind of in a sticky situation. The spy game sure has ramped up its deception since the 1940’s, so if he is going to protect the world from a hidden threat, he will need all the help he can get. This movie introduces a few future characters as well, like the titular villain The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Sam “The Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp).

Holy shit the Vult-err.. Falcon. Sorry. Good Guy Falcon, Bad Guy Vulture. Got it.

Being the fanboy that I am, I have been trying to be more critical of Marvel movies lately. Just because I squeal in delight over almost every one doesn’t mean they are perfect. They don’t all deserve perfect marks.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier deserves perfect marks.

Everything about this movie is so spot on spectacular that I have a hard time believing it is even real. Captain America: The First Avenger was a good movie on its own right, but one I have never really been in the mood to watch again. I can see myself watching The Winter Soldier many times once it releases, maybe more than I saw the first Iron Man. It literally might be my new favorite Marvel movie.

It is hard to find something that is negative about the movie. It is over two hours, but never drags. There is maybe only one scene I thought was a bit pointless, but it doesn’t affect the overall movie. There is a lot of action and all of it is so well put together, from the choreography to sound editing. The movie itself is a lot more serious than other Marvel films, but it still has the nice jokes and references throughout it to keep you happy.

Did I know the big reveal? Yeah. But knowing it didn’t take away from my experience at all in the movie. This excites me because it means I will likely enjoy future viewings.

My last point I guess would be about acting. Evans gave a strong performance as the lead, but the side characters as well were all quite good. Mackie didn’t have too big of a role, but he kicked its butt and I actually enjoyed the Falcon. Redford was great, Jackson was great. Everyone was great.

To me, this movie is like an Avengers 1.5. I don’t expect Guardians of the Galaxy to have too much impact on the current Marvel universe, so this is the perfect lead up to next May. This movie has made me beyond excited for the Marvel future, and definitely for the third Captain America in 2016. Although, knowing the comic plots, I kind of already know what is likely to happen.

Sometimes life is hard. I get that. Life is hard over here sometimes too.

But movies tend to be great escapes from life, telling great stories, increasing your imagination. But then we have documentaries that bring reality crashing back down. They remind us that things aren’t always easy in the world, or that things aren’t so bad.

Rotisserie Chicken is a Netflix original movie that was only available for one day through its services. Personally I think that is because people couldn’t deal with the truths that were being shown. It created such a broad range of emotions. Anger. Apathy. Giddiness. Confusion. Hysteria. Glee. Depression. I have never seen such a polarizing movie, not since Napoleon Dynamite or something by Terrence Malick.

Speaking of that, I heard Terrence Malick hates chicken. Get him!

The story itself is relatively simple. You have a cooked turkey, almost at the end of its journey in the afterlife. It is basically a retelling of the end of the journey, but in reverse, so you know the outcome before you begin. Never has a backwards story been so real (after all, a documentary), yet so relevant to the lives of almost everyone in the world.

The chicken, that was set up and forgotten in its prison, roasting.

You want character development/change? You get that in this movie! It is slow/gradual, but if you pay attention you can see the changes as they occur. If you look away, you might have missed a lot and are left wondering how you even got to that point in the first place. Definitely a film that commands your full attention.

For those unlucky enough to have missed this opportunity, I am not sure what I can say. I guess I hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass some day or cause you to live in regret. That would be terrible.

But really, you should feel regret if you missed it.

Alright, cool, Spelling Bees are still a thing. I never got into spelling correctly. You probably knew that from my reviews. But to be fair, I have enough problems with the English language as it is, which is why I kind of hate spelling bees. I just consider most of those words made up, basically.

So we have Bad Words, which for whatever reason got a limited release as if it was some po-duck indie movie. Took it a few weeks to come out in my town, up against Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so clearly they didn’t expect anyone to come see it.

I don’t know if the words are bad, but the sportsmanship definitely looks bad.

Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) seems to be an unreasonable asshole. He is mean, condescending, doesn’t want to talk to interact with others and is extremely vague. He also has been entered into the Golden Quill national spelling bee.

Making his way through the ranks, pissing people off along the way, he is finally going to nationals. He had found loop holes in their guidelines, and since he never finished the eight grade, he is eligible. Hell, he even has a sponsor, an online news paper who has lawyers at their disposal to help fix any issues. Jenny (Kathryn Hahn) is his personal reporter, who gets to have the exclusive interview/article after it is all over and done with the hopes of finding out just why this man needs to do this.

Is he just really bitter? Did he fail at spelling bees as a kid? Rough upbringing? Does he hate children? Well, you won’t know until the last third or so.

But there is a cute kid character of course, Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand) who seems to lack a caring home. So sad.

Also starring Philip Baker Hall as the president of the Golden Quill, Allison Janney as the also high up member of the organization, Ben Falcone as a reporter, and Steve Witting as the proctor.

If you missed it, he literally pisses everyone off.

If anything, I can definitely say that Bad Words was different. It was Bateman’s first time at the directing chair for a movie, so presumably he put a lot of himself into this movie and really made it his way. It was pretty short, less than 90 minutes, going for a simpler story to tell.

But there were times when I still felt like it was a bit too long. Strange, I know. They had a lot of him hanging out with the kid, doing crazier and crazier things, and I was just sitting there wanting the next stage of the competition.

There were definitely times I laughed a lot, but technically all of the jokes were the same. It was Guy Trilby being an asshole to the people around him. He was good at insulting, but there was literally no other outlet for humor which just kind of annoyed me.

The ending was chaos, had some technical issues from what I could see, but still ended basically the way I would have expected.

I guess aspects of this movie were a bit on the Black Comedy route, but they didn’t go too far with that either. Overall, I think the movie was just okay. Had some laugh out loud moments, a lot of technical errors or goofs, and just something that probably wouldn’t interest me the second time I tried to watch it.

Here we are. Jackie Chan‘s final big action movie.

You may have heard that before, but based on how this one ended, and the credits, I believe him. I guess he is willing to be in smaller action movies, or as a small role in action films, but this is the last one.

Apparently Chinese Zodiac (which was released in China a few years ago and made a shit ton of money) is also a sort of sequel to Armour of God and Operation Condor, neither of which I had seen. Oh well, whoops.

Holy fuck, a roller suit! How useful would that be in every situation??

This story is about a man named J.C. (Jackie Chan), who is kind of a bad ass. He and his team (Fan Liao, Sang-woo Kwon, Zhang Lanxin) seek out thrills and treasures and they are very good at it.

DO YOU SEE THAT PICTURE UP ABOVE? How badass is that suit? It opens the mood and puts you in a crazy feeling mood.

Anyways, after that, he gets word of another secret mission. There used to be 12 Bronze heads that represented the Chinese Zodiac that were stolen forever ago. A secret group wants J.C. to collect the heads for a big payday. He just has to find out where each one is, with some missing for dozens of years! Yes, this basically is a live action version of Jackie Chan Adventures, but no kids or old people.

They do have Coco (Xingtong Yao) someone who studies these things, and Catherine de Sichel (Laura Weissbecker), a French heiress who wants to help though. So that’s cool. Oh and Oliver Platt, which was a bit weird given the rest of the cast.

Never in my days have I seen so many heads.

Alright, Jackie Chan movie.

Was there a lot of action? I’d say so. Was the action unique to Jackie Chan’s comedic fighting style? Yep. So many items were grabbed and used to beat up people with. This movie also featured a volcano, sky diving, a jungle fight, some ship stuff, and, oh yeah, JACKIE CHAN ON A ROLLER SUIT. Which I can’t get over.

Especially since I know he actually was rolling down a mountain with it.

I will admit, some plot points were weak, and maybe I didn’t really understand what was going on all the time. But it was entertaining and funny, I laughed throughout.

Which is really all I can ask for. I, like most white Americans, could watch Jackie Chan fight off hordes of people for hours every day and never really tire of it. Incredibly interesting as always.

Yep, I am awesome. I got to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a special promotion over a whole week before it came out. They just told me I couldn’t release a review on it til April.

Fine by me, early movies are early. The first Captain America I really enjoyed, but didn’t feel patriotic enough. There was a severe lack of American flags throughout the movie and I just couldn’t accept it. There was a lot of Nazi stuff too, which is silly. I want America stuff, not Nazi German stuff.

Uniform looks diluted. Patriotism failed.

This movie takes place dozens of months after The Avengers. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is living a sad life. Sure, he lives in Washington D.C., a patriotic city if any, but is bored. He is still working for S.H.I.E.L.D., but he isn’t killing Hitler, so what’s the point of it all?

Which is when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) comes back. What a shifty character. Fury has some information regarding Rogers and his family. Turns out Rogers’ brother had a son a few years after World War II. That’s right, the Captain has a nephew. But the weird way time travel works, the nephew, Alexander (Robert Redford) is of course now much older than him. Hah, how silly.

But Alex also helps run the council that oversees the world in the Marvel Universe. Pretty baller. He is the one that lets him know about The Winter Soldier (Jeremy Renner). He apparently just came out of Russia, another classic enemy, has some robot parts and really wants to fuck some shit up.

Good. Steve doesn’t understand technology much anyways, so he is happy to do battle. Of course, when he realizes his true identity, he might have some moral convictions.

Or they might just stand there chatting about the good times a couple years ago.

Man, if people were upset by the changes to the lore in Iron Man 3, they would probably be even more furious at these changes. To change the identity of The Winter Soldier like that to Hawkeye? Man. Why do they keep making him the badguy? No one even really likes Mr. Renner.

There were far too many plot twists involving who was related to who. First Steve Rogers and his nephew, then Nick Fury and his son (Anthony Mackie) it kind of got ridiculous.

This movie was supposed to be a pseudo Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) movie as well, but if I had to guess, she probably had like 3 minutes of screen time, everything you saw in the trailer, all at the end too. Must have been too busy voicing sexy robots again.

I am pretty sure this is second longest Marvel movie too, after The Avengers, and a lot of it drags on. They kept introducing other side villains who got barely any screen time that it kind of took away from the overall plot, reminding me of Spider-Man 3. Hell, it even had a strange emo dance scene in it as well.

Overall, this movie feels like a big lie. Both to the Marvel continuity, through its advertising, through so much. I am glad I guess that they killed off Steve Rogers at the end, bringing in a different Captain America story. Can’t wait to see how they spin this for The Avengers: Age of Ultron. But that was about the only cool aspect.

Odd Thomas was definitely not on my original watch list. Not until I saw that it recently came out and had an young actor on the front who I tended to enjoy. Yep, then I dropped my plans, and decided I needed to see this movie instead.

Apparently it is based on a book series, but also it went under some legal trouble recently. According to the internet, it was delayed indefinitely for release due to funds not being spent as promised for ads or whatever. So they delayed it for over a year! I think other countries ended up getting it before us, because of that. I guess sucks most for the author, who was probably stoked his book was getting made into a movie, but then getting swept under the rug for legal reasons.

Oh well, I am still watching it author dude, don’t worry!

Well, that’s the most fucked up silver surfer I have seen.

Odd Thomas is not about a strange boy named Thomas. Nope. That is his first and last name, Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin). There is a story behind that, but I won’t get into it.

Let’s just say that Odd’s upbringing has made things a bit weird for the boy. He can see dead people, and they tend to point out who killed them so he can avenge them. He also has other minor supernatural/spiritual abilities when it comes to seeing dead entities. Like the Bodachs above, which only appear when a great death will occur.

Unfortunately, in his small town Pico Mundo, California, he has started to see not just one Bodach, but a LOT of them. They are following around this Fungus Bob Robertson (Shuler Hensley), a nickname, don’t worry, who now Odd has a feeling is going to commit some very heinous crime on his small town. His girlfriend, Stormy (Addison Timlin), who he is destined to be with forever knows about his powers and is willing to help despite having none of her own. He also wants to win the support of her father, Wyatt Porter (Willem Dafoe), the local police chief.

As Odd begins to follow Fungus Bob around, he finds himself somewhere darker and more sinister than he has ever experienced before.

Also featuring Arnold Vosloo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Kyle McKeever, and Nico Tortorella.

Man, this guy is just a cook. I want my spiritual advisers to at least be Maître D’.

Oh man, a lot of stuff happened in this movie. In particular, I really enjoyed the ending over all. There were twists and turns, everything falling into place, action, death, demons, you name it. But at the same time, the film had a lot of slower parts that I didn’t enjoy as well.

Here is what I can say. I thought Yelchin did a good job. He felt very believable as his character. Despite the mediocre feeling towards parts of the film in the middle, I am giving it a passing grade overall because of how much I liked the ending.

In fact, this would be the third ever movie I review on my website based on a book, that really makes me want to read the book after the fact. The other two were Warm Bodies and The Perks of Being A Wallflower. The main difference of those two and this one is that they got a 4 out of 4, but this one definitely wasn’t a good enough movie to earn that. However, it is certainly interesting. The fact that there are multiple books and most likely no more movies to be made from that increases my chances of reading them.

If you want a weird and unique movie, you might give this a shot, just don’t expect high quality art as you do.

Woo, a completely random movie! Not even remotely new. Looks at least 1-2 years old. Lloyd the Conqueror. You see, the first half of it, is a lame name for a person. Then we have The Conqueror. That sounds badass!

Ah, but then you realize this is a movie about Larping. Not many movies are about this subject and arguably is only a small portion of Role Models.

I guess I can just hope for a lot of intense role playing. Maybe a lightning bolt or two? Yeah, you know what I am saying.

And this is the man who is the bringer of the lightning bolts.

Alright, so this movie is about a guy named Lloyd (Evan Williams) and his two slacker roommates Patrick (Jesse Reid) and Oswald (Scott Patey). They get by in community college, rocking that C average, allowing them to get student aid. They play a lot of video games and not a lot more.

Well, their slacking gets them in trouble. They put together a last second report on Beowulf and it bombs. Derek (Mike Smith, of Trailer Park Boys Bubbles fame) fails them and it will ruin their average. They agree to do ANYTHING to give them a better grade. Anything. So they make a figurative deal with the devil.

You see, Derek is a LARPer. And a great one at that. He plays on the dark side, as an evil mage, and has gotten so good at LARPing that his army has grown strong. Too strong for the forces of light. Not enough good guys are signing up, so they are canceling the tournament this year, and he wants to win as he does every year. So if those three agree to sign up, he will give them a better grade should they beat him. He will give them an A.

What? LARPing is lame! They don’t want to. They won’t stand a chance at all. Unless Andy, the Good White level 80 Wizard (Brian Posehn) will come out of retirement to train them. They need more muscle too. So they also end up recruiting the local woman’s self defense class teacher, Cassandra (Tegan Moss) to join their side. Can the forces of light overcome the forces of darkness?

Is Harland Williams‘ cameo actually that funny? Is this most accurate depiction of a Unicorn ever featured in a live action movie?

Yes and fuck yes.

Let’s get this straight. This definitely is a low budget movie. Pretty B-movie status, without being super cheesy. Yet the characters are relatable, Posehn and Smith are great, and, as I said, Harland Williams had an amazing cameo.

There is a lot of LARPing in this movie, and a lot of it is inconsistent from what I can tell. But some of the elements are there. Some of them. Even if they are brought to extreme levels to make a more entertaining movie.

But really, that is what this movie ends up being. Really nerdy, with some entertainment thrown in. If I had to compare it to something as nerdy, I would say the movie Noobz, even though I hated Noobz. About the same level of quality and level of nerd-dom, but this one at least felt entertaining.

For what it is? It is decent! I mean. LOOK AT THAT UNICORN! SO MAJESTIC AND STALLION-ESQUE!

Hah. Wes Anderson. For those that don’t read every post I make, Wes Anderson is a strange guy for me. Every movie I reviewed for the site that he directed, I have love love loved. But that was only two movies. The other one I saw I just didn’t really get, and thought it was weird. Yet still, I was excited for this new one.

So excited, I am pretty pissed off that they forced The Grand Budapest Hotel to be a limited release. It broke some records for its release. Like, most money gained from a super super limited release. But only two cities? That is crap. There is no reason for that. I am lucky I even got to see it so soon as I had to drive three hours to see it, weeks after its “release date”. Maybe I am more annoyed because it wasn’t even advertised as a limited release, so I have to imagine it was just a last minute change.

But I guess I expected Anderson to be a dick if he could, so there is that.

This story in a story is about The Grand Budapest Hotel, as you might have guessed. It used to be a…grand old place, but recently, it has gone under some bad times. The clientele is no longer the elite, the staff is no longer extremely efficient, and really it is in shambles. That is why a young writer (Jude Law) is so interested to meet its current owner, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), to hear his story about he acquired the hotel and his vast fortune.

M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is a man amongst boys. He used to be the concierge, a god amongst men. Working morning to night, every day, he made sure the rich guests felt welcome at the hotel and would do anything to please them. Including the extremely rich Madame D (Tilda Swinton) who stays at the hotel for weeks every year.

Well, she dies, mysteriously. Also, her will was changed last minute as well it seems. Apparently M. Gustave was left her priceless painting, pissing off the ungrateful and evil family. Now, they also think M. Gustave killed her!

It is up to the help of his Lobby Boy, Zero (Tony Revolori) to help prove his innocence, get him out of jail, and in general, save the day!

Also featuring a shit ton of people. Here they are, roughly, in order of importance: Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldbloom, Saoirse Ronan, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson.

This scene represents birth.

Ahhhh, quirky Wes Anderson movie!

This one took a little bit to get going, trying to figure out just what the movie would be about. It takes place over three time periods, technically, so the story needs time to get started.

But when it does? Man. This movie was hilarious. Ralph Fiennes, although I don’t know how to say his name, is a terrific actor and a charismatic character in this film. You can’t take your eyes off of him whenever he is on the screen. And it works so well. Much laughter, much ridiculousness.

This film has a lot of Anderson standards, with his camera work and use of colors.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is also a bit more crass than his other recent movies. Some nakedness, some death scenes, all a bit extreme. But I think that made it a little bit better.

Definitely as good as the trailer made it seem to be, and one of the best early movies of 2014.

Hello there kiddos!

Remember my last review of The Muppets? No? Well, there it is if you want to click on it. If you don’t want to, I gave it a 2 out of 4. I never watched The Muppets as a kid, so I had no sense of attachment. It was an okay movie on its own.

So when I heard that it was getting a sequel with even more cameos, even more Muppets and an even more ridiculous plot? Well, sure, why the fuck not? Muppets Most Wanted. We got a spy movie folks.

Walter from teh first film still not necessarily important enough to make it into this shot.

So, the Muppets gang has been given a sequel. That must be true. Why else would the cameras still be rolling? They are still voiced by their normal people who voice a shit ton of them, so here they are in a list: Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, and Matt Vogel.

They decide that the plot of the movie should be the Muppets going on a world tour! The idea is actually suggested by Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), who might have ulterior motives for getting The Muppets around the globe. At the same time, the world’s most dangerous frog, Constantine, has broken out of his Siberian Gulag and has a plan. If he covers up his mole, he looks a lot like Kermit. He can make Kermit look like him, allowing Constantine to steal more treasure and live a rich life.

Mwhaha! The perfect plan! Especially when Kermit is back in Siberia, with a mean old guard Nadya (Tina Fey) watching his every move and a bunch of evil criminals (Ray Liotta, Jemaine Clement, Danny Trejo).

Oh, and they have an Interpol agent on their trail kind of. He is played by Ty Burrell.

Is all the celebrities? Oh fuck no. We got a lot of them. Hell, some of these guys I didn’t even recognize before. A lot of them are only up for a second or two. So I would list them, but that would ruin some of the surprise.

Man, this plot was super simple.

It is impressive how well they sing in those frigid temperatures!

Smiles. I had a smile on my face more or less the entire movie. Everything about it felt cute and wonderful. I only remember one of the songs from the last movie, while this time, a bunch of the songs will end up sticking with me. I mean. I really really enjoyed the movie.

Then the credits rolled and I saw that Bret McKenzie wrote it all! That’s right, we got the entire Flight of the Conchords crew working with this movie. Jemaine as an actor, Bret as the song writer. Last film he was only the music supervisor, not the writer. Also, the director James Bobin directed like, half of the FotC episodes. That’s a lot of quality humor going into this movie.

Which is why I smiled the whole film. It was completely ridiculous but it just seemed to work. The cameos were great and plentiful. The plot was absurd, but interesting. And shit, it was funny.

The last movie, again, I thought was okay and admitted I never really grew up on The Muppets. This time, some how, I loved the sequel and want more Muppets in my life.

Definitely go see this quirky movie, a new clear favorite of mine for the month of March. At least, for the films that came out as wide releases.