Tag: Drama

Although the circumstances are quite rare, every once in awhile I review a made for TV movie. The last few I did include Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story and Liz & Dick. The former I did as an accident, as I actually thought it was a documentary going into it. The latter I did only because it stared Lindsay Lohan as Liz Taylor, which just sounded hilariously bad so I had to give it a gander.

I generally avoid them if possible, because one of the best insults I can give a poor quality movie is comparing it to a made for TV movie. Their budget is lower, they usually have a shorter production window, and the tend to feature overacting and bad editing. After all, if it is on TV, you can’t show or say a lot of things to keep the rating down. If you wanted to be even more insulting you would refer to something as worse than a Lifetime TV movie, often considered to be bottom of the barrel, along with Hallmark films.

So why am I knowingly reviewing A Deadly Adoption, a few days after airing for the first time on Lifetime?

Well, that is because they are adding all the bells and whistles for this movie! They are celebrating 20 years of Lifetime movies, of overly sappy movies about women getting hurt, by making a parody film of their own films. It takes a lot of gumption to see you are a laughing stock and decide to run with it.

Speaking of gumption: facial hair.

Life is wonderful for the Benson clan. Robert (Will Ferrell) is a successful author and kicking butt, Sarah (Kristen Wiig) is pregnant and going to start selling organic vegetables to other cool kids, and their daughter Sully (Alyvia Alyn Lind) is well, a child. Everything is like a 1950’s white American suburb home, until Sarah falls off the dock and starts to drown in the water. Sure, her heroic husband saves her, but they lose something else in the process. The pregnancy is terminated. Oh noes!

Now, five years later, things are different. Robert still writes, but he is afraid of boats and leaving home. Sarah has her successful shop, but is sad that her husband won’t get over it. And Sully is older, but still a little girl and who cares. But they decide they should adopt a child, that might help everything! After a lot of searching, they find Bridget (Jessica Lowndes), who is pregnant and looking for a kind family to take in her child. However, she is living in a shelter and doesn’t have a lot of money. So they decide to bring her in until the baby comes out letting her stay in the guest room.

Everyone is happy! Unless. Of course. Bridget is not the nice girl she appears to be.

Also with some dudes, Jake Weary and Bryan Safi. They are not pregnant nor are they adopting.

Now where they pregnant and adopting, which is a rare but probably real category of people.

If there is anything the last 15 years of terrible movies have taught us, it is that the parody film is a hard movie to get right. It is very easy to make a movie full of references to popular culture while none of it is remotely funny. You know those films, so I won’t talk about them. But then there are very good unique parodies that are also celebrating the genre they are mimicking, so you can tell there is real heart behind the content.

A Deadly Adoption ends up being a mix of both. No, it is not full of pop culture references, thankfully. But it also doesn’t go to the extremes necessary to drive its point home. It is definitely aware of itself, and things are over acted with scenes overly dramatic. But it still lacks a huge amount of humor, despite its attempts. Outside of the intro and the last ten minutes, most of the film dragged on. Because it is a parody, it can be hard to differentiate between what is bad and what is supposed to be bad, to be funny. For the most part, the jokes just didn’t land.

Again, I will note the beginning and ending were fantastic though. They just didn’t know how to make the middle live up to its ends. The film would have been funnier if it was more outwardly aware of itself, instead of giving for all intents and purposes, an actual lifetime movie.

Every few months, a new indie movie starring a few people from popular TV shows comes out and we are supposed to watch it, eventually, on our own time. Because these movies rarely hit theater and are more of a VOD type situation.

The good and bad news with these sorts of movies is that they are non consistently bad, average, or good, but all over the map so you never know what to expect. Last year we got Drinking Buddies staring that girl from House and that dude from New Girl, and it sucked. But we also got The One I Love starring that girl from Mad Men and that guy from The League, and that one rocked.

So how will Adult Beginners go? The one starring the other guy from The League and the guy from Community and the girl from 30 Rock? Well, anything goes in TV star VOD movie land!

“Ugh, more people from The League? I would not watch that movie.”

Jake (Nick Kroll) is going to make a shit ton of money. And with his money and your money and everyone else’s money put together, he is going to make a shit ton more and make everyone rich. And maybe even make them a little bit sexy. But then something goes wrong, right away with his company, and sure enough, he loses everyone’s money. He is now broke and useless and his friends hate him. Even Hudson (Joel McHale) hates him a bit.

So now Jake is homeless and alone, so he decides to go move in with his sister, Justine (Rose Byrne). He hasn’t seen her in a couple years because he has been “busy” so sure, it is a bit awkward. You know, cause he son is like, 2 or 3 now. And she is pregnant again! And he barely even knows her husband, Danny (Bobby Cannavale). He just knows it is a hectic time in their lives. Unfortunately, the only way they let him live with him long term is if he basically becomes their full time nanny, so they both can work and save up money for new baby and maybe a new house!

Jake of course is an irresponsible adult, and doesn’t know anything about kids. But he accepts, mostly because he has nothing else he can do at that point.

And that is about it. Jake needs to learn how to be an adult, for real. He is a beginner at being an adult. He also can’t swim. Jane Krakowski is a swimming teacher for adults and babies and dances with babies in water. It isn’t super weird, don’t worry. And Jason Mantzoukas is in here, because he is crazy and Nick Kroll’s friend.

“I didn’t invite Jason, did you invite Jason?”
“No I didn’t invite Jason, did you invite Jason, Nick?”
“Yeah I totally did, suck it.”

Rose Byrne is becoming a relatively big name now, which is great for her. She is appearing in all the genres right now: Horror, Drama, Comedy, Action and generally being great in each one of those roles. Most surprising is comedy because it seemingly came out of nowhere with Neighbors. The problem with Adult Beginners is it is one of those classic comedies that doesn’t end up being actually funny.

Hopefully the positive buzz that has surrounded Spy is enough to make everyone ignore this movie. Ignoring it shouldn’t be an issue, because no one will really watch it when it is VOD. I just want to make sure her career is not affected by the dullness of this film.

As for everyone else? Cannavale is a likable dude, even if he always plays mostly douche-y characters, but he hasn’t had any nice break outs yet. Likewise, Kroll always plays douches, but occasionally has comedic sparks that do not go on display during this movie.

A comedy that doesn’t end up being funny, with serious moments that also aren’t too dramatic or emotional. Yep, this is a classic indie film in that regard, which most of the time would garner a 2 out of 4 or something, but they usually have one or two unique moments in them to warrant a bump. I am willing to say Adult Beginners offers nothing new and leaves me with a bored taste on my mouth.

In case you are curious, boring taste is like cardboard.

Sometimes when I like to pretend that I am cool, I use words like Dope and Chill. I will admit, when I first saw the screening listing for Dope, I honestly got it confused with the Straight Outta Compton movie coming out, figuring they renamed it for some reason. (How White am I? I spelled that first “Straight Out Of Compton” because I really didn’t know).

I mean, could there really be two movies about black youth in California, despite being very very different topics, in the same summer? It is strange to say but it is actually hard to believe that.

But I am excited. I am all for diversity in my movie watching. And since I know absolutely nothing about Dope going into it, I feel kind of excited at what it might be about. Hopefully the references aren’t too hip for me.

The trio is basically a themed gang from The Warriors.

When the movie started, I knew I was immediately wrong with any preconceptions I had. I honestly thought it would be set in the early 90’s on the poster alone, but it is actually a modern day movie about some kids who just really liked the 90’s music scene.

Malcolm (Shameik Moore), Jib (Tony Revolori, of The Grand Budapest Hotel fame) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) are loaner geeks who have banded together to form a friendship. They are from a generally poor neighborhood and don’t really want to become gang bangers selling dope and going to jail. So they start a punk band and avoid getting into trouble to get into college!

That is until the night of Dom’s party (Rakim Mayers aka A$ap Rocky (I don’t know what to call him?)). Sure it may seem strange for them to go to a party of a thug dope dealer, but they want to live a little bit during their senior years before it is too late. Plus, Nakia (Zoe Kravitz) promised to dance with Malcolm if he showed up.

I don’t know what they expected, but the party of course was full of drugs, booze, and hot tunes (I could rap, probably). They have a pretty awesome night! Until the cops show up, raid the place, and the next thing Malcolm knows, his bag is full of drugs and a gun that he doesn’t notice until the next day at school. Yeah boyyy. Now he has to deal with this dope, not knowing who to trust with the information. Sketchy phone guys? Some mysterious AJ? Sell it on his own? Shit, he has Harvard to try and get into. And he doesn’t want to go to jail so dang close to getting out of the hood!

Also featuring the talents of Chanel Iman, Quincy Brown, Roger Guenveur Smith, Blake Anderson, and some narration by Forest Whitaker.

Please be a punk song about donuts. Please be a punk song about donuts.

Dope is the first movie I have seen from director Rick Famuyiwa, who also was the only writer of the movie, and if his past films are of any comparable quality then I should probably check some of them out. It should also be noted that the main producers was also our narrator, Whitaker, and an executive producer was Pharrell Williams. So despite its relatively unknown cast, it had some star power behind it. Although it should be noted, the narration was only at the beginning and felt quite excessive and unnecessary. Didn’t match the rest of the film.

But let’s go back to that cast. I was personally happy to not recognize any of the main characters (outside of the Lobby Boy). For our lead, the only movie or show I would have seen him in was Joyful Noise, where his character name was “Our Lady of Perpetual Tears Choir Master”, so I can’t even tell you if he had a speaking role. Moore blew me away, in all honesty. Everything about him felt sincere and real. Moore conveyed so much throughout the film through facial expressions alone, which is especially helpful since he didn’t play a smooth talking confident character for the most part. He was relatable and he was awesome.

The film was also surprisingly up to date with current technologies and they do a good job of introducing concepts that not a lot of people know about. Dark web stuff. It makes a lot of sense that this is the first movie that is allowing tickets to be bought via bitcoins.

Favorite part about the film would be just how realistic the portrayal of modern hood life is like. It isn’t just gangs, just drugs, just poverty. There is a lot of hope and a lot of people just trying to fit in. None of the characters were extreme stereotypes, providing some slightly thought provoking conversations despite the urban language throughout.

Overall, Dope is a surprisingly funny, realistic and a feel good movie that came up out of nowhere. I am not going to listen to MC Hammer today out of respect for that.

I have avoided it long enough. I can tell you I didn’t want to see McFarland, USA, at all. Cross country is not an inherently exciting sports. It is a bunch of people running long distance. It is just another inspirational Disney sports movie. So the company that brought us Remember The Titans, which was and still is amazing. But they also brought us Invincible (meh), Miracle (meh, as a hockey fan), and Million Dollar Arm (big meh).

What have they done for me lately? That is what I want to know. Not a whole lot. So the prospect of another inspirational true sports story doesn’t exactly get me excited. Couple that with the sports choice, and the fact that Kevin Costner is at the lead, there is just a lot of apathy around this project. Check out my Black or White review about Costner and his recent movies, I don’t need to bring them back up here, but overall he has been on a mostly disappointing trek of films.

As for my final complaint, McFarland, USA. What? Why the second part? What state is this city really in? Did you try at first just “McFarland”? Because that sounds a bit more bold to me. Adding the USA makes it seem like some fake town on a TV show because the writers were feeling lazy.

If you expected pictures of anything but running from this movie, you are surely a dumbass.

Jim White (Costner) is your average white dude football coach. Then he got mad at his players playing like shitty players and threw a cleat at a kid.

Next thing you know, his wife (Maria Bello) and kids are moving! Guess who got fired! (It was Jim). The only job he could find was as an assistant coach in the middle of nowhere, a place called McFarland. Well, he doesn’t last long there either. No, he doesn’t get fired, but after he doesn’t let a kid who was pretty beat up get back on the field during a game, the coach has a hissy fit. So he can keep teaching his random classes, but not be on the team. Gee, well that blows.

Until Jim gets bored and decides to start up a cross country team. Why? Because he is bored and doesn’t like hanging out with his kids. He also notices a lot of these kids can run pretty fast and run home and well, let’s put dos and dos together.

Eventually he gets his team of 7 kids! Ramiro Rodriguez, Carlos Pratts, Johnny Ortiz, Rafael Martinez, Hector Duran, Sergio Avelar and Michael Aguero.

So Jim White, with his white-ness, takes a group of Hispanic boys and turns them into winners! Running winners! And college winners too! (spoiler?)

Also, I feel obligated to include Valente Rodriguez as the principal, because he made me laugh once.

Ah yes, the classic “yep, this is still a picture of people running!” follow up!

I don’t even know why they make movies about people running long distances anymore. Did everyone else not watch Forrest Gump? That dude ran forever and literally cross country. Sure, this was a true story of a coach who ended up winning a lot of cross country meets over a 14 year period and at least all the kids in the movie were real. But it still lacks the wow factor that a movie needs to have.

Inspiration is one thing. If it doesn’t entertain while it inspires, what will a viewer actually get out of it? It doesn’t help that this movie is OVER two hours long with not a whole lot going on. It is mostly a lot of “how do I reach these keeeds” type moments, which at this point is one of the most boring subsets of the genre.

Here is how you teach kids to run good. Are you ready? Well, first they already for the most part have to be good runners before you get them. Buy them some new shoes. And make them practice. A lot. All the time. Make them practice running up and down tiny man made hills and get them used to that. And then? Then you win the things.

It didn’t really feel like the coach in question was great in the film version, again, just a guy who didn’t like where he was and kept his time busy with coaching athletes which is all he really liked to do.

This film features average to okay (at least consistent) from everyone involved and stories you heard many times before in better contexts.

After American Hustle, I just assumed every Christmas we would get a movie with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. They did it two years a row, and that means they have to do it forever?

Sure enough, looking at their IMDBs early in 2014, you would have seen Serena, coming out sometime end of 2014. Three for three, they were going for the Turkey!

But then something happened. It never came out. It got pushed to MARCH of 2015, basically the middle of nowhere. And it had an instant VOD release. Thinks weren’t looking good for this period drama set in North Carolina based on a book…

Real lumberjacks wear pink. Just ask Monty Python!

This movie, Serena, is a period drama (early 1930’s), set in North Carolina (Mountains) based on a book (also called Serena!).

George Pemberton (Cooper) is there, trying to start (or already has?) a big timber business. He is a lumberjack, okay? He is working on expanding his business to overseas, Brazil, get some of that rain forest money.

And then there is Serena (Lawrence). You may have heard about her. She is a blonde stand out, living amongst all the mountain folk. She doesn’t need no man to get her way, but she does, in George. Speaking of George, he has a child actually, with Rachel (Ana Ularu). Kind of awkward, but boys will be boys.

That is, until it is found out that Serena can NOT have kids. So the only person to carry on George’s legacy is some bastard kid. That’s not okay. When people get in Serena’s way, people get hurt. She is conniving and maybe even a little bit mad.

But what else is there to do in the North Carolina mountains?

Also featuring David Dencik, Rhys Ifans, Sean Harris, and Toby Jones.

And of course it ends with a big dance sequence like in Silver Linings Playbook. Right? Right?!

This has taken me about 10 hours of research after watching the movie, but I think I figured out why it was delayed and eventually only a limited release and VOD.

Serena is not very good.

The book might be fine, great, grand, wonderful. I don’t care. The movie is a bore and it is awkward. First off, Cooper and Lawrence, despite their presumably best efforts, do not look like they fit at all with the rest of the actors in this film. Maybe they are too pretty, maybe just too famous, but it doesn’t work. I would also say they don’t act that great here, which is a shame, since we know what they can do.

The side characters all above were pretty good though! Which is a shame. Their collective good was not great enough to overshadow the lumps of coal that Cooper and Lawrence delivered on a platter, however.

Aside from that, the story is pretty much a bore. Some excitement happens. Maybe two exciting things. And a couple more moments that were meant to be exciting, but instead were met with yawns. By the end when I should care more about the fate of certain characters, I instead found myself checking how much time was left and when it would finally end.

This isn’t All About Steve bad, no, but at least All About Steve had some entertainment value.

There is no Deus here, no, we just got the Ex Machina.

In case you didn’t know, Deus Ex Machina (god from the machine) is a plot device where some outside force just kind of appears, fixes the issue, and leaves. It is usually a badly written plot device, Greece/Roman plays are full of these types of things where literally the gods came down and did some stuff.

And just to reiterate, this movie is the phrase without the god part. So just “From the Machine”. A movie about robots.

Maybe even robots kind of just appearing, fixing the issue, and leaving. That’d be swell.

I don’t think I can bore up this intro anymore so I should just get right to it!

Put on your thinking face and get to movie watching.

To err is human. To compute is robot.

Humans and robots don’t really interact nowadays on any level that isn’t a slave/owner relationship. Right now, robots have it rough.

Related, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) totally just won a prize. He is a coder for Bluebook, the Google of this movie, and he has won a week to spend with their reclusive CEO on his giant resort island thing. Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the CEO, has turned his home into a secret underground facility, to test out new technologies and prepare for the next big technical revolution and he is very secretive.

Nathan wants Caleb to perform the Turing test on something he is working on. In the test, a human asks a robot questions, without knowing whether they are talking to a human or a robot. And if the human cannot determine what it is, the robot/AI passes the test! But err, knowing you are doing that kind of ruins the point you would think. Hell, being introduce to Ava (Alicia Vikander), and seeing her in a robot body also probably puts a hamper on the basics for the test.

Maybe. JUST MAYBE. There is more going on in this facility that Nathan isn’t telling Caleb. Maybe things are more than just the Turing test. Maybe! Who knows? That Asian maid, Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) who doesn’t know English and is the only other person in the whole facility? Yeah, probably. Bet she has seen some shit.

If you thought the elevator scene from Captain America was bad ass, wait til you see this action fest!

I think Ex Machina is the type of movie you just want to watch with someone else. There are a lot of themes present, and since I watch the majority of my movies alone, the only people I can talk about those themes with are you guys.

But then I’d be a silly spoil sport.

Instead, let me instead make sure you realize this is a sci-fi drama. That means we are going to have a lot of talking and not a lot of action, and I wouldn’t want you to go into this thinking otherwise (like a dumb ass).

The discussions and the twists that went into the film were pretty enjoyable. I went in assuming I would be able to see everything coming a mile away and I think that most of my predictions did not end up coming true. So it is great to see it not go down the obvious path.

The three main actors involved all did an excellent job. It is now expected of Isaac to provide quality, but Gleeson is still not super tested and Vikander of course is out of nowhere (in comparison). The story the film tells can be interpreted in several different ways, depending on who is watching the film, which will provide excellent discussions.

At the end, I felt as though it was still a bit too slow and not as grandiose as I had expected. That is of course my fault, not the films. Ex Machina is a wonderful addition to the Sci-Fi genre and one loves of that and drama should definitely seek out.

I wouldn’t consider myself a gambler. The one time I got to go on a river cruise, I left broke and learned a valuable lesson. Never lose out in the first hour of a three hour cruise. The last two will feel like forever. Might as well just slots the whole time instead.

The Gambler came out on a Christmas, and once I found out it was doing that, I would have bet money on it making close to nothing. I think I would have won that bet. Despite its technically A-List celebrity lead, it was barely advertised, and was a very awkward movie to come out on Christmas. There isn’t a super ideal demographic that it is appealing to, at least not one that might be wanting to go see movies on Christmas.

But again, I don’t gamble. Not with my own money. I now prefer gambling with higher stakes, like when lives are on the live. Then it is more than gambling. Then it is charity work, kind of.

Like teaching (for pay) entitled college kids at a big university is charity work.

Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) is not your typical heir to a huge fortune. Well, he is in that he became a writer, because only rich people can be writers. He made a good book and rode that success into getting an English teaching gig at a University. But he hasn’t written well sense then.

Oh, and he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not to something decent, like, tax people, or people his corporation stole money from. Nope, he owes it due to gambling a whole bunch, borrowing money to gamble, and never paying it back. Every time Jim gets some money, he gambles it for more and never knows when to quit.

Sucks! Especially when he starts dealing with more and more violent people. He owes money to quite a few by the movie end (Alvin Ing, Michael Kenneth Williams, John Goodman). And these people have a code. They have RULES. This isn’t ‘Nam!

We also get to see his very rich mother (Jessica Lange), the only person in his class with writing talent (Brie Larson), and a huge star college baketball player (Anthony Kelley) who might get picked #1 overall. Seems relevant.

“Shut the fuck up little Donnie!”

Movies about gambling usually involve smooth talking con men, or men who are smart and can out bluff opponents with their sweet or non sweet poker hands. This movie is just about a guy with a problem.

Gambling addiction is a real thing. So are nervous breakdowns. All of this can make compelling film, usually things that will be overly dramatic and make me cry. But those types of stories require either a better script or better acting, both of which this film is probably lacking.

I am not saying anything is wrong with any of the actors in this movie. They all did fine. No one really stood out as great though. Maybe this new guy, Anthony Kelley, he was pretty good at his smallish role. Everyone else was just very “mehhh”.

And of course it is disappointing that the movie didn’t have anyone being a smooth talking con man or smart battle of wits person. It was just all a regular dude who ranted to his university class and could take a beating. It tried to avoid cliches throughout, but the ending was a bit terrible, ending with some cliches and just ending…well flatly. It was extremely disappointing, and again, I wonder why the fuck this came out on Christmas.

You see, Spare Parts is a metaphor. It both describes what they used in the movie to accomplish their goals, and what they felt society thought about them. They were leftovers, trash, extra coleslaw on the side.

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but you know I could have described the movie that way without seeing anything about it. That title has to work that way. As soon as I read it, my cheese factor went off, and I knew it had a double meaning.

When I read a brief description, it had every thing going for it to make a classic, and lame, “How do I reach these keeeds?” movie.

And it came out in January. I should stop before I talk myself out of even writing this review.

Ah, you teach the kids by taking them AWAY from school.

Let’s head on over to Phoenix, Arizona, where it is hotter than hot, in a lot of good ways. There is a lot of immigration going on to, one could describe it as illegal. Like all of the main high school kids in our story. All of them are not legal United States citizens, so they don’t have a lot of prospects going for them. Their futures are kind of screwed.

Oscar (Carlos PenaVega) wants to join the military, but you know, can’t. So he is disappointed. For whatever reason, he wants to enter an underwater robotics competition in California. He has no team or adviser or anything. Thankfully, there is Fredi Cameron (George Lopez), a real engineer, and he is stuck substitute teaching at the school for a few months. The economy and all. He is the head of the Robotics club as per his job, but he was told no one would sign up.

So Oscar gets the idea to do the competition. They don’t have to compete against colleges, there is a high school division. Talent scouts and internships can be won there, along with a whole pile of prestige. Well, only if they can get a few other guys together. So Oscar is able to find a big nerd, Cristian (David Del Rio), a tech guy who is good at cars, Lorenzo (José Julián), and the muscle, for heavy lifting and stuff, Hector (J.R. Villarreal).

But things can’t just be that simple though, right? No, they really can. Here are some more cast members.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays our slightly eccentric, maybe on Xanax principal. Marisa Tomei is another teacher and new love interest of George Lopez and a huge team supporter. Alexa PenaVega gets to be random girl interested in Oscar, her real life husband. And Esai Morales gets to be the father who wasn’t there for his boy and never cared about his success. The makings of a truly stereotypical true story inspirational film.

I mean, just thinking about it all makes me wet too.

If it wasn’t obvious, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to watching this movie. But I did it finally just to get it out of the way.

And you know what? It wasn’t that bad. Wasn’t bad at all. Was it full of cliches and some stereotypes? Sure, damn straight. Was the true story a bit better than the movie? Yeah, also true. Knowing some of the changes can be quite annoying. But eh, movies, yada yada, we have to get over it.

Here’s the thing. The characters were pretty charismatic. At least 2 of the boys one would probably enjoy their story. The other two I didn’t really latch on to, as I don’t think they told as much of an interesting store. Huh, a very average amount of things that I like.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about Spare Parts. You will go in knowing what to expect, and by golly, it will happen. It is a decent feel good story, where the only real difference between this and other ones is its heavy Hispanic influence.

Fun fact about my brother: Maggie was his most anticipated movie of the summer of 2015. Not Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not Jurassic World. Not Mad Max: Fury Road. No, he wanted to see Maggie. I found that extremely interesting, but none of you should, because most of you won’t know my brother.

Maggie didn’t have a huge release and didn’t have any screenings for critics. However, it did come out on Video on Demand at the same time as its theatrical release, so hey, look at me now, getting to watch it in the restfulness of my own home, where I can cry if I want to. Where I can leave my friends behind. Because if they don’t cry, and if you cry, well, they might leave you behind.

Or maybe they just don’t have fully functional eyes.

That’s right. Zombies. But this is a slower zombie movie. So get your drink ahead of time, because you have to pay attention. I think overall, maybe only five or so zombies get killed the whole movie. There is a Necroambulist virus that has spread throughout the world. It might spread throughout food and regular contamination things. Also if you get bit by one, of course. Well, the movie starts with Maggie (Abigail Breslin) calling home as she is in the city after curfew and she wants to be alone. Well, her dad, Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) didn’t care about that. No, he is getting his daughter.

You see, Maggie has been bitten and she will slowly (very slowly) turn into a zombie. She doesn’t have to be placed into quarantine yet. She can go home to the farm and live a peaceful few days before her disease makes her too deadheaded. She can say goodbye to her friends, family, maybe get some good last meal in, who knows.

And that is about it! Life sucks when you know you are going to die. It also sucks when you know you will turn into a creature that looks kind of like you that will eat the flesh of your friends and family, potentially.

There you have it. A zombie tale about the slow decay of a person into madness. But with Arnold! And, sure, Raeden Greer, Bryce Romero, and Joely Richardson too.

“That skin condition is not a tumahh.”

So, I am not going to say I cried because I actually didn’t. But man, did I feel some emotion throughout it.

The movie felt a bit weird at first, kind of quick, lot going on with very little explanation. The movie makes you pay attention or else you might just get lost and ignore the rest of the plot.

Schwarzenegger and Breslin are actually really great in this film. The former is not known for his drama, but he played the part of a concerned father really well. And of course it wasn’t balls to the wall with action like his normal films. Breslin played the part of a frantic teenager, again, really well. But she just had to do with her arm decaying and losing vision and her mind.

The reason I am giving it this rating is that despite all of that, it still feels a bit too slow for me. I enjoyed the acting, just I know I don’t think I’d want to watch it again. Maybe a shorter cut would fix the issues. I don’t think the slow movement helps build up the tense situations later on, I think they just delay the best parts.

Oh hey, so apparently Courtney Cox has directed a movie. She wants to go the David Schwimmer route now.

I didn’t know she was the director when I watched it though. I wanted to see Seann William Scott. I repeat, I watched Just Before I Go because it was starring Seann William Scott.

Scott isn’t a terrible actor, he is just terribly typecasted. Most of his characters are not smart, but they are all generally different. And fuck, Goon was the best. Fuck you if you think otherwise.

Look at him, breathing underwater. That is acting folks!

The film opens with out main character, Ted (Scott) drowning. See above. Yep, he is narrating about his death at the start of the movie, much like the very recent review of mine of Catwoman. Man, having a Catwoman comparison right off the back is not a good thing.

Let’s back up, of course. Ted had a decent life growing up, until his dad died. Then he was full of grief and his life went to shit. He started getting picked on by bullies, both teachers and classmates alike. So he eventually moved away from his family and started a new life far far away. He had a boring job and a woman, Penny (Elisha Cuthbert), who accepted him. Until she left him because he was boring, safe, and stagnant.

Well shit. So now Ted wants to go back home, make amends with a few folks, and then kill himself. Poetic. Kind of. He has to beat up the local bully (Rob Riggle), berate his old teacher (I don’t remember and IMDB doesn’t want to tell me), and also thank a cute girl (Mackenzie Marsh) who was nice to him in high school.

Pretty simple. He even gets to stay with his dick cop brother (Garret Dillahunt), who has a wife (Kate Walsh) who doesn’t love him, and a son (Kyle Gallner) who has to hide his gayness. Woo, gayness. The actual plot of this movie comes when Ted goes to yell at his very old old teacher and ens up meeting her grand daughter, Greta (Olivia Thirlby), who ends up wanting to document his final days before suicide after hearing his story. Very sweet.

Also featuring another high school kid (Evan Ross) and his mom (Cleo King).

Picture chosen because I didn’t want too many of Ted drowning.

Again, no idea Courtney Cox was involved in this project until I looked up picture for the movie, and instead, got a lot of her walking the red carpet. It was quite odd and I was worried I missed her somewhere in the film. Maybe she was secretly the old lady?

Unfortunately for Cox, I think a lot of the blame lies on her side of the movie field. The story has elements that seem interesting. Some of them, sure, they are common, but there were some more unique elements as well. It just doesn’t feel cohesive. The film’s different subplots and stories don’t mold in a way that is pleasant to the mind. It doesn’t know if it wants to be funny, serious, or maybe even a dark comedy. By the end, it mostly just feels cheesy/Hallmark-y. It is all over the place, which can be a good thing, but in this movie’s case just falls flat. Scott doesn’t do great either. He feels like such a bland character, it is impossible to root for or against him. Like if he was an actual jumper, you would turn away apathetically not caring if he fell or not. You would go and wait in a long line at Starbucks instead.

For whatever reason, this movie is rated R. There is about one risque scene that happens about three times, but they don’t even show any nudity during them, making it one of the more tame R rated movies of recent months.

I have nothing more to say. It is a movie that tried to reach some deep and interesting subjects, but felt flat and just left me bored.