Tag: Comedy

It took awhile, but You’re Next is finally in theaters. Originally premiering in a film festival in 2011, for some strange reason it took two years to hit theaters.

Maybe in 2011, the world wasn’t ready for a movie like this. Maybe we needed the Scary Movie franchise to officially drive itself into the ground before people were willing to accept a horror movie with comedic elements in it. Or they made dozens of changes and had legal issues to deal with. Who is to say, really?

Blood is the new make up.

Paul (Rob Moran) and Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) are about to celebrate their 35th Wedding Anniversary. They also just happen to be rich. Paul used to work for a defense contractor, so he left the company with a very snazzy severance package, and now they live in the lap of luxury. They decide to host their entire family to a nice dinner in a mansion in the middle of the nowhere. Because that is what rich people do.

Usually the 35th anniversary is coral/jade, not gore and violence. Oh well, the times they are a changing.

They also have four children, all in relationships. That just means there are plenty of people who can die. The main son is Crispian (AJ Bowen) with his girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson). He often butts heads with his younger brother Drake (Joe Swanberg) and Drake’s wife, Kelly (Margaret Laney). There is also the only sister, Aimee (Amy Seimetz) with her film making boyfriend Tariq (Ti West), and the youngest son Felix (Nicholas Tucci) with his girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn).

During dinner, an argument breaks out. Then suddenly, one of our poor house guests finds a crossbow bolt through their head. Ouchies.

Panic ensures, as bolts continue to rain into the dinner room. The family knows only one thing. People are outside (and maybe even inside) the house and looking to kill them. They don’t know why or who set it up. What the three masked killers did not know, is that Erin grew up on a survivalist reservation until she was 15, so she knows how to handle herself in emergency or life threatening situations.

Yep, looks like we have an blood bath on our hands.

Animal masks haven’t been cool since the 70’s. They’re bringing ’em back.

The weird thing about calling You’re Next a comedy/horror film is that it is not a parody or a spoof. I’d say that You’re Next is unique, and almost its own new genre of film.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of death, a lot of gore, and a lot of creative deaths. It is just that some of the deaths happen to be humorous. The banter between brothers is humorous. The inability for certain characters to die (and instead just get hurt over and over) is humorous.

If you have never heard the song Lookin’ for the Magic by the Dwight Twilley Band from 1977, then you will find it stuck in your head by the end of the film. Who says upbeat music can’t be in horror?

What I enjoyed most about this film is that I really couldn’t guess what would happen next, and believe me I tried. I would say I had a 30% success rate at actually predicting how certain characters would die, what the traps would do, and who was responsible for it all.

The movie itself isn’t too long and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is doubtful you will recognize any of the cast members from other acting roles. The brother Drake was great, and our leading lady Erin was incredible. It is refreshing to see such a BAMF actress kick so much butt. I could be wrong, but I think only one character actually fell down while being chased, a normally overused horror staple.

You’re Next might not scare everyone, but I think it is a refreshing take on the genre, with high levels of slasher and gore thrown into the mix. Above all else, it is certainly entertaining.

 

3 out of 4.

Video on Demand is a wonderful service, for indie movies. In my area at least, we never get them early on, it will take many many weeks later, perhaps months. At that point, I might as well wait to watch it in the comforts of my very small apartment.

But video on demand lets them complete the indie circuit and let me still get to watch the movie relatively early in a movies theatrical release. I feel like a celebrity, watching a movie before it comes out.

Thankfully, Drinking Buddies, stacked with a pretty famous cast and an indie comedy, has chosen to VOD UP, and let me get my review on. Thanks guys!

Wow, they really do look like buddies!

Ugh. Chicago. Okay, I won’t judge the movie by the city. But still. Chicago.

Our heroes work at a craft beer company in Chicago! Hero is a strange term. Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson) are both high up the ladders, so they have extra time to have fun while on the job. Their boss (Jason Sudeikis) is fine with it all, as long as their work gets done.

But life is a playground when you work at a beer company! They’d be the perfect couple too, with all their flirting and shenanigans. Too bad they are both in long term committed relationships. Oh yes, what a bummer.

Luke is with Jill (Anna Kendrick), and they are even in marriage talks. Kate is with Chris (Ron Livingston) and he doesn’t get to hang out with Kate’s coworkers like ever. UNTIL NOW. That is, until they go to a cabin in the woods (not a horror movie) as two couples to experience nature and infidelity.

Whoops. That’s no good.

Say one of them breaks up with their significant other anyways. The chances are not high that the other one will break up too, and even lower that it will lead them to each other. Right? Right!?

Fuck. This movie title is so aptly named.

Most important thing to note about Drinking Buddies is that I did not laugh once. Not a single time. The characters laughed, quite often, but there was nothing ever inherantly funny about what they were saying to make me laugh too. It was just friends goofing off with each other, shooting the shit. Character laugh, doesn’t mean comedy. Shit, the term comedy doesn’t even really mean happy ending.

Drinking Buddies ends up being just another strange “comedy” drama indie movie, that tells part of a story, without a real conclusion, and a lot of very real situations. Just this one stars four relatively famous people. That is it.

Okay, sure, you can see Olivia Wilde’s boobs in this one, but only briefly, and that is just because sometimes you just NEED to go skinny dipping. But that isn’t a good reason to watch a movie, is it?

Sure, things happen in this movie, but it doesn’t feel like a lot when it is over. The acting is okay, but the story itself just doesn’t seem like one that needs to be told.

1 out of 4.

Author Note: This review has been censored by the Author himself for hilarity sake, not any entity running this review.

Kick-[Butt] 2 is the sequel to Kick-[Bottom], that much is obvious.

What is not obvious is why Jim Carrey started acted strangely this summer, so I think we should discuss it first. In June, he tweeted that he could not support the level of violence in Kick-[Rear] 2, which was shot a month before the Sandy Hook incident.

However, his actual character in the movie, while violent, happens to be a born again Christian who refuses to use guns or swear. Yes, he actively protests gun violence with his character, yet won’t support the film? Ridiculous. Needless to say, his cast members had some choice words to say about the incident, and the sheer silliness of it all probably will lead to more people seeing Kick-[Posterior] 2 than before.

Thanks Jim. Gee whiz. This movie takes place a few years after the events of the first film. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has now given up crime fighting, but we all know that isn’t going to last long. Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz) is going to high school for the first time, and as a 15 year old girl, she has a lot to learn about real world teenage girls. She eventually gives up Hit-Girl, as a promise to her passed away father and new caretaker, Detective Marcus (Morris Chestnut).

It doesn’t take long for Dave to go back to his superhero roots, but finds fighting crime alone to be a bit daunting. He decides to team up with Dr. Gravity (Donald Faison), who introduces him to the vigilante group, Justice Forever! Lead by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Carrey), it also features Battle Guy (Clark Duke), Insect Man (Robert Emms), and Night [Female Dog] (Lindy Booth).

But evil is lurking. Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is upset over his fathers death (understandably), and wants to get revenge. In order to do that, he has to start his own evil organization. He is no longer The Red Mist, that was his hero name. As a super villain, he is now The Mother[Fornicator]. He recruits a few sociopaths, including Mother Russia (Olga Kurkulina), The Tumor (Andy Nyman), Black Death (Daniel Kaluuya), and Genghis Carnage (Tom Wu), and calls his group The Toxic Mega [Very Bad Insult Name For Women]. They plan on bringing down NYC and all the masked vigilantes. Especially Kick-[Gluteus Maximus].

I already tagged a lot of people, but lets tag a few more. John Leguizamo plays Chris’ Bodyguard/Butler like person, Augustus Prew plays the “other friend” Todd, and Claudia Lee plays Brooke, the high school drama queen.

Wow, he is wearing Big Daddy’s armor. That is all sorts of [Sexed] up. In a lot of ways, Kick-[Buttocks] 2 is a lot like the first movie. There is over the top violence (involving teenagers) and a lot of people end up dying. But in a lot of ways, it is also different.

It is hard to describe, but something is missing in this sequel. I think it lacks the heart of the first film. In the first film, you could definitely tell Dave wanted to be a good guy, to do good things, and help save the world. In this movie, he felt like almost an entitled jerk, and he certainly felt selfish. Sure, he said he wanted to just help people in the movie, but it all felt superficial.

The film also has far too many plot lines, lessening its potential. You know what is boring? Watching a movie about “Superheroes” not fighting crime. This is unavoidable if it is the first movie in a series, because we need to get an Origin story. This movie had our heroes away from their costumes many times throughout and gets in the way of a lot more fisticuffs. The comedy and violence is the only thing this franchise is going to have going for it.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse, however, played the self entitled super villain really well, especially when his super power is being rich. It was amazing.

Overall, the movie is just not as good as the first, it isn’t as funny, and it spends too much of its 100 minute run time lollygagging.

2 out of 4.

Come on. Look at Vamp U. Look at it.

You know exactly why I got it. The same reason anyone gets these type of movies. I was bored and wanting to see something ridiculous, when I had a spare afternoon. I can’t always watch super dramatic or actiony movies. Sometimes you just want something that has a chance of having some cheap laughs. A good old fashioned college sex comedy. This one just so happens to be about vampires.

And the dashing young gents who have to bring em down.

Hey now this movie stars a guy named Wayne Gretzky (Adam Johnson). No, there is no relation to the hockey player. But he does have the nickname “The Great One,” so I guess that is something. He teaches history at some nondescript university. It is typical if not small. There is at least on fraternity and one sorority. Wayne is very popular among the students. He also happens to be a vampire.

He is rather unique in that he doesn’t kill humans. Why not? Because he is impotent where it counts. No not there, his teeth. His teeth just don’t want to come out, so he can’t feast. It might have something to do with killing the love of his life 300 years prior. Since then he hasn’t really had the ability to get it up. His teeth.

That is until Chris Keller (Julie Gonzalo) walks into his life and reminds him oh so much of his former lover. Yeah. That gets his gears back in motion. But after a series of flings, he does the unthinkable and makes her a vampire too. Well that’s just great. Now she is going to terrorize the campus, turning them all into vampires. First her sorority, then the campus, then…the world?

Gary Cole plays the horn dog dean, Alexis Knapp (from Pitch Perfect and Project X) plays a sorority girl. Maclain Nelson plays a love sick guy who really wanted Chris, and Matt Matson (What) his best friend, blogger, and soon to be vampire hunter.

I swear that this is a relevant picture.

College sex comedies!

Well this one is definitely comedy. The other two thirds are doubtful though. Well, in terms of sex, I guess the professor and the one girl. They for sure have sex. Off camera. Implied. Then that is it. No naked people at all, that is the closest naked part. Alexis Knapp in a bra.

Alright so that is lame, and yes I will base my rating off of that.

As for comedy? Well, it is obvious that is what they were going for. And I probably laughed at least twice. But so many of their attempts were just miss after miss after miss, it got a little bit depressing. Matt Mattson’s entire point is comic relief, but he can only do so much. The other main male college student spends half the movie whining that his favorite professor got to his girl first, even when she is a vampire.

Honestly, it took an actual okay idea (vampire sorority?) and just did nothing with it.

Obviously the main jokes were going for sexual inadequacy with the vampire in regards to not extending his teeth. But they just didn’t work.

I’d probably rather see Twilight again.

1 out of 4.

Watching the trailer for We’re The Millers, it is clear that it could be hit or miss. There are moments in there that make me laugh every time I see it, and those that make me think it will be the worse film ever.

I like Jason Sudeikis as a comedy actor. The problem is, he hasn’t proven himself yet as a leading man in a comedy movie. He is fine as a side kick, or part of a trio, but his only real venture as leading man was in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, which ended up being less than stellar.

If anything, this film might just cement Eustace from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a young comedic genius. Stranger things have happened.

“We’re not even a real family. She is just a washed up actress from a 90s Sitcom!” Whoa, Jason. That’s cold.

David (Sudeikis) is a guy in his mid thirties, still dealing pot. It’s a good life for him. But when he gets robbed of his stash, cash, and back up cash, he finds himself in a pile of trouble. His boss Brad (Ed Helms) doesn’t care and sort of wants to kill him! Unless he heads down to Mexico, grabs a shipment of drugs for him, smuggles it across the border. Sounds easy when the other option is death. Plus, he will earn an extra $100k. Nice!

The problem is, he looks like a drug dealer and in no way can smuggle it across the border on his own. Until he realizes that white middle class families on vacation never get searched! He just has to rent and RV and a group of people to play his family.

He hires the weird kid downstairs, Kevin (Will Poulter), the homeless girl on the street, Casey (Emma Roberts), and the stripper down the hall, Rose (Jennifer Aniston) to play the various roles of the Miller family. Nothing could go wrong!

Sure they get to Mexico, and find out that they are actually stealing the marijuana from a Mexican drug lord (Tomer Sisley). Sure, the amount of drugs is several thousands of pounds worth. But they can probably still pull it off.

Hitmen, spiders, engine failure, dogs, DEA, and another RV family (Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Molly C. Quinn) are just some of the other problems they will face on the road.

I’d let Nick Offerman sexually wet willy my ear any day. Even Tuesday.

After viewing We’re The Millers, I think that Jason Sudeikis was able to run this movie like the comedy veteran I always knew he could be. It works. It really does.

Yes, this movie has a lot of foul mouthed humor. Cursing, sex jokes, genitalia jokes, incest jokes, it has them all. The unfunny scenes I alluded to in the trailer mostly turned out pretty decent, which is a big relief.

Almost every time Will Poulter was on camera, I found myself laughing. He used to be an annoying asshole kid in a bad Narnia movie. But now he plays the awkward teenager so well, that everything the put him through just tickled my gills.

It wasn’t a perfect movie. Sitting there, a lot of character actions and decisions seemed illogical. If the script was stronger overall, they could have avoided those type of moments. I don’t think they really knew what to do with Emma Roberts as her role in comparison was really limited. Such a shame.

Now if you excuse me, I am going to go blast my old TLC records up and start planning my own fake family vacations.

3 out of 4.

This just in. The director of Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters is named Thor Freudenthal. What a bad assname.

He has done a few kids movies before (Hotel For Dogs, Diary of a Wimpy Kid), but that is it. Hopefully directing this movie is a sign of changes for this man. With a name like that, I want him involved in most action movies from now on.

Back to the movie, I am pretty excited for this sequel. I actually enjoyed Percy Jackson, The Lightning Thief. As an undergraduate, one of my majors was Ancient History, which of course gave me a love of mythology as well.

No, I don’t hate that these films change the Greek Mythology meaning and stories around. Because this is just another case of a movie not being identical to the source material. If I am fine with what happened in Iron Man 3, I will be fine with whatever they can throw at me here.

Besides, these mythologies are basically dead. I love it when anything can attempt to spice them up a bit. This one is promising to add a whole sea of monsters! Hooray!

Look! There is one right now! It looks nothing like a rainbow version of The Water Horse, either!

Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is no longer a big deal in the demigod camp after the first film, as teenagers are fickle. Who cares if he just saved Olympus/the world. What has he done for them lately? For fucks sake, Percy.

His friends, Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover the Satyr (Brandon T. Jackson) believe in him, but everyone is else is obsessed with Clarisse (Leven Rambin), daughter of Ares. She wins all the events and challenges at camp.

Don’t remember her from the first movie? Well, presumably she was there somewhere. Maybe she just sick the two or so days that Percy visited in the first film, since at that point, Annabeth was the best warrior in the camp. Maybe they can’t handle two great female fighters at the same time.

Well, it turns out the protective barrier around their camp is falling, and it is all thanks to Luke (Jake Abel), son of Hermes, villain from the first film. Of course! He wants to do the unthinkable, and resurrect Chronos, the Titan, so that he can kill all the gods and ruin the world.

Classic villain strategy.

But that is not as important. They just want to restore the barrier to their camp, and to do that they have to find the Golden Fleece! Anything else is just gravy.

Oh, Percy also has a new half-brother Tyson (Douglas Smith), a young cyclops. His dad Poseidon just gets lonely sometimes, I suppose. Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades do not make any actual appearances this movie, but we do get Hermes (Nathan Fillion, technically a recast), and Dionysus (Stanley Tucci), who for some reason didn’t get to drink wine. Chiron is also back in this movie as the camp mentor, but he is played by Anthony Head (of Buffy fame), and not Pierce Brosnan. Boo recasts.

I would have raged the hardest if Brandon T. Jackson was replaced.

I would say that overall, Sea of Monsters is not as good as The Lightning Thief. But one major improvement was getting rid of the “& The Olympians” part out of the title. That title was long enough to be comical.

Here is one of my biggest issues. Luke as a villain doesn’t make a lot of sense in this movie. To resurrect Chronos, he also needs the Golden Fleece. Unless he didn’t think he could get it himself with his band of mighty demigod soldiers, it is silly to break the camp barrier, causing them to go after the fleece as well. Instead, he could have not done that, and succeeded in his plan as no one even knew he was alive.

Instead we have a movie where there is a ton of buildup for the great and powerful Chronos, who then gets easily “defeated” in a matter of minutes. It happens in a lot of fantasy films. I am surprised more people don’t get angry when they are teased about the destroyer of the world coming, but when he finally does, its a whimper. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is another recent example of that.

It does have a lot of cool effects still. Caribdis was gorgeous and they had a manticore! However, the manticore went out in a single hit. Caribdis ended up being comparable to the whale from Pinocchio. I didn’t feel scared for any character, because the solution was always immediate or obvious. Plus, you’d think there would be more monsters in the sea of monsters. At least more than one. Maybe.

They did have some good attention to detail for the minor mythologies though. I loved the gas in the Oracle scene. There are many references to The Odyssey. Just showing Caribdis without bringing up Scylla is unique. Tyson the cyclops seemed like a horrible addition early on, due to the awkwardness of his CGI’d eye, but I got over it, and he became a funny/sweet character.

Overall on its own, it is a decent family movie. Minor continuity issues arose, but they can be ignored easily by most movie goers. The ending was cliffhanger-ish, which generally feels tacky when used in movies.

I mean, what if we started allowing cliffhangers in everything? Like songs, movie reviews, and

2 out of 4.

Do not go see the movie Planes.

Fuck Planes

This won’t be a typical movie review, thus the use of quotation marks in the title. Normally I do a little bit of research about a film before I watch it, just so I can lay down some fun facts in these reviews. But what I discovered about Planes I found to be so unacceptable, I didn’t feel right telling everyone about it. But first, a little bit of back story.

For the main poster and Trailer for Planes, we see that it takes place “From Above the World of Cars.” Remember Cars?

Cars came out originally in 2006 as a Pixar movie. I linked to my original review of it, but if you are lazy, basically I describe how the movie is bad morally for children. In Cars, your job in life is based solely on what car type you are. The only exception is if you want to live below your means.

Cars 2 came out five years after that, also made by Pixar. This time they changed the main character and turned it into a strange Bond parody. More importantly, we should look at the villains. The main villains for Cars 2 are lemons, aka cars that were built badly and break down all the time. These cars only wanted more equality, but instead they are the butt of everyone’s joke.

This is all even more twisted when you realize that these cars were all created somehow. These cars age and live a life, so presumably more and more cars are created every day. These lemon cars in particular were created with the sole purpose of being lesser quality than their peers. Yeah, I’d be pissed off too.

No matter how you look at it, Cars 2 was a cash grab movie, made almost solely to sell merchandise.

So now, only two years after Cars 2, we are given Planes. One notable difference (that few people realize) is that this movie is no longer done by Pixar, but instead just Disney. You might be thinking, “Hey! Disney CGI isn’t that bad, they just did Wreck-It Ralph! This one might be awesome too!”

Yes. I too am a plane.

Well, Wreck-It Ralph was done by Walt Disney Animation Studios, their normal big movie company. Planes was done by DisneyToon Studios, who are most known for making the lame sequels to popular Disney movies. You know, Cinderella II: Dreams May Come, Cinderella III: A Twist In Time, Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World, and more. The last time they had a theatrical release was in 2006, with Bambi II, and that was only in theaters in Europe. Their last five movies that went direct to video were all based around Tinkerbell.

So why were they given Planes? Well it turns out, Planes originally was going to also be a direct to video release. However, Disney liked the animation enough to let them have a theater release. Great. Since Planes was meant to be direct to video release, it almost implies that they didn’t put a lot of work into it.

The budget for Planes was only $20 Million. To put that into perspective, Cars had a budget around $120 Million, and Cars 2 around $200 million. Turbo ended up at $135 million, and Wreck-It Ralph was at $165 million. CGI animated films are very expensive to make because the technology is expensive and they take years to produce. With a budget that low, either the film was rushed, or the CGI quality is low.I believe the evidence point towards both of these facts being true, since production of Planes didn’t begin until a few months after Cars 2 came out and was originally coming out Spring 2013.

If you want more evidence, they have already announced that Planes will be a trilogy. The first sequel has already been named, Planes: Fire & Rescue. The sequel also already has a release date set for July 18, 2014. Next summer! Less than a year after the first film, I can only assume that it is being rushed out.

To recap, in great detail I have explained why the Planes movie is just a huge cash grab. It has a low budget indicating lesser quality animation and less time spent for polishing/developing. It happens to be a spin-off of another cash grab movie. It is made by a studio who is only known for their low quality sequels to all of our favorite Disney movies. It is also banking on the fact that most people who see it will assume Pixar made the movie.

Unfortunately, by now, Disney has already profited on this film. Why? The same reason Cars 2 has made so much money. Merchandising. With a budget that low, they don’t have to care about quality when the merchandising alone is just pure profit.

So I plead with you, do the right thing, and do not go see this movie in theaters. Do not buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray. Don’t buy any of its toys for your families or friends. Disney should be punished for trying to pull this type of crap on us, making almost a mockery of the entire idea of movies as an art form.

Something something something planes.

Just to keep this legitimate, here is a quick synopsis and review.

Dusty (Dane Cook) is a crop duster from the midwest, who dreams of being a great racer, and joining the race around the world. Unfortunately, he is afraid of heights, which totally makes sense. Well, he qualifies barely and makes it to the race around the world! But certain other planes don’t like him, because he isn’t a racing plane. So with a little bit of can do spirit, he hopes to prove everyone wrong, and he can succeed despite being created for one purpose!

Also featuring the voice talents of Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, John Cleese, Cedric the Entertainer, and more.

I’d say that this movie did a good job of breaking the morals given to us by the Car movies. After all, it is a plane doing something beyond its design and achieving greatness. But in the film, in order for him to achieve his dream, he literally has to change everything about himself first. It really brings up the philosophy question dealing with the Ship of Theseus. Can we really say a crop duster has won a race, if he removed his crop dusting ability and replaced all of his parts?

The movie itself offers nothing new. It is incredibly inaccurate in terms of geography, despite making it clear that it takes place on some strange human-less earth. There are plot holes that a jet could fit through. They even showed scenes of planes during World War II, which accidentally makes this film incredibly dark. Is this really a world where planes go to war with other planes, and hundreds of machines die? Well, I guess it makes it more human-like in that regard.

Now remember, please do not support this movie.

0 out of 4.

I almost saw Frances Ha two months ago. For real. I was going to drive an hour to see it and do some other things in the capital city.

It was the only movie at the indie theater that I hadn’t already seen, or knew I was going to see shortly after. It was all going according to plan.

Then I ran out of money and said nope. Also, the prospect of watching the movie didn’t appeal to me. I knew it had Greta Gerwig, who is in like, every indie movie now. But it was also in black and white. Ehhh, black and white…

Frances Hi!

Frances (Gerwig) is a 27 year old woman living life in the NYC! Yah! She lives with her best friend, Sophie (Mickey Sumner). They are basically the same person in different bodies and hair colors. Good times are had by them all. Until Frances has to leave her boyfriend and also can no longer live with Sophie.

Shit.

This movie takes place roughly over a year. It is her trying to survive in NYC, without her confidant, as they drift farther, and closer, and farther apart. No one likes losing a friend. But she is getting less work at the dance company, and times are tough.

She ends up finding a room with two men, Lev (Adam Driver), who tried to sleep with her and every other woman, and Benji (Michael Zegen), who would describe Frances as undate-able. She lives temporarily with a fellow dancer Rachel (Grace Gummer, currently on season 2 of The Newsroom). She also will have to move back to California, live in another country, and live in the woods and her old university before she gets back on her always dancing feet. Maybe.

At the same time, Sophie is getting very serious with her boyfriend Patch (Patrick Heusinger) who may be a good guy. Not really sure. We see everything from Frances’ point of view.

Frances Ho?

Fun fact. Greta Gerwig cast her parents as her parents! Ahh! What fun!

Description for the movie was hard. A woman in NYC. But the plot moved really fucking fast. The movie itself is under 90 minutes, so it has a short time frame, but it feels even shorter than that. It flies by so fucking fast.

Why is it fast? The way the movie was cut. Many short scenes, all spliced together to show a passing of time. That’s right. It is basically a shit ton of montages. Without the sports. Whether it be awkward dates, or awkward dinners, everything is quickly paced, and still conveys the appropriate emotions to the viewer.

You will feel awkward, uncomfortable, and sad. Which is great.

It didn’t end up being super artsy. The art direction and black and white was some sort of love song to Woody Allen probably. More importantly, I think that most people who watch this will find their time well spent.

3 out of 4.

To answer the first question on everyone’s mind, yes I did dress up like a Smurf for the premiere of The Smurfs 2. It was smurftastic!

Initially, watching the trailer, I was enraged at the plot. In a nutshell, Gargamel (Hank Azaria) tried to create a couple of Smurfs, but they turned out grey and evil. He needs to know how to make them blue, to extract their essence and then become a powerful sorcerer. But they can only get the formula from Smurfette (Katy Perry), who they have to convince to be naughty and join their force.

NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY.Why does that upset me? Because I know that Smurfette was a Gargamel creation in the first place (Despite the first movie contradicting that statement). He wanted to create chaos in an all male Smurf society, by introducing a woman. That makes sense. So why did he have problems creating more Smurfs? Oh, because the movie changed things up a bit. More importantly, they explained it all and made it completely reasonable.

In this world, Smurfette was also originally gray, until Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) turned her true blue and into a happy go lucky Smurf. Yay! Now everything is okay! Only her and Papa Smurf know the formula, which is why they steal her back into the real world to beat it out of her…with kindness. It is also Smurfette’s birthday, and as the Smurfs tried to keep the party a secret, she assumed no one remembered and felt quite sad. Poor Smurfette.

Due to some miscalculations, the rescue team consists of Papa Smurf, Vanity Smurf (John Oliver), Grumpy Smurf (George Lopez), and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin).

Oh, but they aren’t alone. No, they have human friends from the first film! Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays), their son, and Patrick’s step-dad, Victor (Brendan Gleeson).

Can this rag tag group of Smurfs find and convince Smurfette they love her before time runs out? Or will the Naughties, Vexy (Christina Ricci) and Hackus (J.B. Smoove) get to her first?

But let’s not forget about dat cat.I actually left out a lot of the minor plot points in this one. You’re welcome, that means the movie will be a bit more surprising if you head out to see it. Honestly, it might be worth it if you have a family.

You don’t have to see the first film to understand this film, you just need to know that they have some human friends. Pretty standard for a family film.

What can you get out of the Smurfs? A lot of smurfin’ puns. Smurf this, smurf that, puns everywhere. Hank Azaria continues to be a smurfing excellent Gargamel. The work he puts into the voice and that character is beyond phenomenal. It is smurfing nuts!

I laughed quite a bit at some of the jokes. The fact that the plot made sense in this universe only made it better. However, there were a few smurf problems.

Vanity Smurf? I wish they killed off some Smurfs. As one of the three main personalities on the trek, being narcissistic, he ALWAYS talks. Unfortunately, everything he says is the exact same vain pun, over and over again. It got smurfing real fast. At least Grumpy Smurf had an interesting plot line. Clumsy Smurf was ignored completely. They had the chance to branch out and give us some newer Smurfs to highlight, but they didn’t.

Really, if they make another Smurfs movie, I hope they keep them in their own world. If they want, bring NPH and the other humans to them this time. Their world has plenty of lore, magic, and fun to be a great setting. Most of all, it has more than a handful of Smurfs, so everyone can fight for the metaphorical spotlight.

 

2 out of 4.

I miss Twilight. Twilight made everything easy. I knew what I would do for my Milestone Reviews, and everyone would get why they received the extra attention. It made sense.

I worry a bit, just a little bit, you guys don’t see why these things are a big deal.

So for milestone #850, I knew I had to do Journey To The Center Of The Earth. This 2008 remake was an early use of the 3D craze that hadn’t yet fully formed in American cinema. In fact, it may have been in red/blue 3D, but I can’t confirm that.

But more importantly, I am a graduate student in Geophysics, if you missed that in other reviews. Or you know, you are someone reading this who actually doesn’t know me in person. So examining movies that I know will be very nonscientific is something that I just can’t resist! Especially those about the Earth.

And with that, let’s trash the fuck out of this movie.

Yep, that face is just asking for some movie fucking. This movie is not a remake of the book or movie. No, it takes place in a universe where those movies and books exist. Fucking Jules Verne meta up in here. But we will get back to that later.

Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser), is some sort of Volcanologist. Like a legit one, works at a university, (college?) teaches geology, and has a shitty lab to measure seismology. Only three sensors still work. He is continuing his brother’s work, but he hasn’t been seen in 10 years. Sucks to suck.

Even worse, his lab is going to get shut down and turned into someone else’s lab. Someone higher in the university, someone played by Seth Meyers! Oh no, life sucks!

This photo doesn’t fit anywhere. But hey, good clean family fun is upcoming.Speaking of his life sucking, he forgot his sister-in-law is bringing her kid over today. Fuuu. So messy. Sean (Josh Hutcherson) is there for ten days and about to be bored shitless. So Trevor looks for child toys to entertain Sean and finds an old box in his attic. What is in it? Why, Journey to the Center of the Earth of course!

But it is all covered with notes. Huh? Crazy. This must have been his brother’s. Strange strange. Apparently he thought the book was real and a guide to go under the Earth! Where crazy shit is, yo. That’d be surprising. Fuck it, let’s go to Iceland to check it out!

Still not at the part for cool pictures. So here is a big fucking plant. Iceland! They try to meet an old professor. Nope, he ain’t there no mo’. Just his Icelandic, hot daughter, Hannah Ásgeirsson (Anita Briem). Nice. Apparently her dad is gone too, he went with Max into a Volcano. Seems silly. Because it is silly.

Turns out they were “Vernians”, people who thought his books were real, all of them, not fiction. Huh. Okay. So that is enough reason for them to go check out a volcano.

“Yep, this is definitely a hole! Trust me, I know holes!” – TrevorFuck yes. Volcano. Abandoned caves. MINE TRACKS. Abandoned mines? Yes, abandoned mines. Mine cart racing. Yes. All this stuff. Eventually they find a shit ton of diamonds and jewels. Hurrah. But then they fall down a hole. A really long hole.

Seriously, he really knows a lot about holes. Aw shit, even though they fell for miles and miles, they didn’t die! Because water started to appear and that eased their fall? Who cares how fast they were falling. Water doesn’t hurt when you fall on it, not a bit!

But the good news is, the book was right. They found a completely different mini-earth where life is thriving and stuff exists at the center of Earth. Literally, at the center. Wait, they made it to the center? That is like, 4,000 miles down. How fucking far did they fall and not die?

Never fucking mind.

Just stare at the pretty looking mini planet or whatever the fuck is going on here. Well, they think it’s awesome, but they don’t want to die down here. Like assholes. So they want to escape and thankfully have a map like thing to get out. They just have to wait for an eruption and another giant tube. They will make a boat and ride the steam to the surface. Which is very, very doable. Why the fuck not?

They also have to sail across a giant underground ocean to get there, during a storm, with killer giant fish coming at them!

Just thinking about it all is getting me really wet.Well, in the ocean they lose the kid, he flies off. But thankfully they all somehow still meet up somewhere. WHILE GETTING CHASED BY A GIANT DINOSAUR WHAAT AHHHH! What the hell is it eating down there? We’ve only seen plants, fish and small birds. Da fuq?

They escape, but get to the tube too late. Oh no, water is gone. And no boat!

Thankfully a dinosaur skull can make a boat. And they can crack the wall to bring down a stream of water to the magma, to force them up before the volcano explodes to safety!

Safety? Fuck that.

Evolution worked almost identical to the earth thing. I guess. Just bigger everything else. And glow birds. They escape, life is good, and eventually we get another and another movie.

Yeah! More movies! But they won’t let Brendan Fraser be in them? That seems fucked up. Who let Josh Hutcherson stay?

The first few scenes in the movie made me realize I wasn’t going to have a good time. Trevor seemed pompous and elitist, with no reason to back it up. He gets lucky and thinks he is the hottest shit ever. He probably works at a community college, not a distinguished University.

Well, hey I don’t care for pompous people. He makes us look bad.

Okay, I am pompous too, but I feel like I deserve it. I run a successful movie review website!

If you have to watch any movie, watch the one from the 1950s. It is actually a lot better and not super fucking meta.

1 out of 4.