Peeples Movie Review
Feeble.
Whenever there is a huge whale of a movie debut like Ironman 3 it tends to scare all the smaller fish out of the proverbial pond, leaving all us hardworking reviewers with next to nothing to feed on except the occasional minnow like Peeples (or, as it should have been called, Meet the Parents with Black People). Odds are on a regular week this one would have slipped my notice entirely but as it is one of the few things I can jump on I guess I am stuck with it (if you think this is stretching wait until you see what I have lined up for tomorrow).
So this movie was kind of lame. I am actually a big fan of Craig Robinson from the Office and hoped this was going to work. 
However this Little Engine that Could was fueled entirely by mangled cliche’s and a weird new uncanny valley of situations ridiculous enough to be annoying but not ridiculous enough to actually be funny (Little Train image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirts category). I don’t want to jump down too hard on this film mainly because it appears to be the directors first debut and I hate squishing potential. After all, when I first started excreting waste I did it willy nilly and needed to wear a diaper all the time and in the last couple years have almost completely shifted to using a toilet. Life is an evolutionary process and we are all better today than we were yesterday.
Potential aside, the director has written a couple of movies that don’t exactly imply a future Scorsese (one about a roller rink, one about drums) but you never know.
I won’t say this movie was entirely without merit. Like I said I enjoy Craig Robinson and he had his funny moments in this film, as did David Alan Grier and Malcolm Barrett. The entire cast did a decent job with the acting. Dialog wasn’t horrible. The chemistry between Craig and David was actually quite fun up until the last 10 minutes. The problem is the good elements fail to outweigh the bad.
This is one of those special films that had I been wearing a foam dome full of Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon (Norways finest 16% beer) I probably would have been laughing my ass off and enjoyed it a lot. Once you disconnect the higher brain functions your stem is fully capable of forgetting how every joke you are seeing has been done elsewhere ad infinitum. Once again I am cursed with a brain (or so I think. If I am way stupider than I believe myself to be let me thank all of you for not bursting my fantasy bubble).
The story. It can easily be summed up with two questions:
1. Have you seen Meet the Parents?
2. Can you mentally substitute black actors for all the white ones is that movie?
If you can answer yes to both feel free to skip ahead four paragraphs to the stars and black holes. For those of you who cannot it tells the story of Wade Walker (Craig Robinson-the Office, Hot Tub Time Machine, Pineapple Express) and his super hot girlfriend Grace Peeples (Kerry Washington-Django Unchained, Last King of Scotland, Ray) (by the way, we can thank Kevin James for the whole super hot girl/fat loser guy Hollywood relationship dynamic. I still want to transfer to the dimension where that is a reality). She is a successful lawyer and he sings urine songs at children’s parties. She is headed back to her home of Sag Harbor for the annual Moby Dick Day (Sag Harber is apparently the town mentioned several times in the book Moby Dick. As this movie progresses you can expect the dick jokes to reappear when you least expect it like an embarrassing rash. Also, did you know that Herman Melville’s grandfather took part in the Boston Tea Party? History is cool) with her family, whom Wade has yet to meet in spite of the fact that he has been seeing her for over a year and lives with her. Apparently he is so codependant that he can’t handle a weekend without his significant other and after whining about it with his younger brother Chris (Malcolm Barett-the Hurt Locker, Better Off Ted, My Best Friend’s Girl) he decides to do the old drop by.
By the way, if you thought Wade’s urine singing sounded like a lame career, Chris’s job apparently is to pretend to be a doctor and fix broken dolls at a doll hospital. I have a hard time seeing a positive ROI for whoever opened that business in NYC. It was at that moment that I finally nailed down exactly what kind of humor I was going to be subjected to for the next 85 minutes or so. Odds are I could have bunked out at that moment and still written this review with little loss to you, my beloved reader. Damn my integrity.
Anyway, Wade gets up to Sag Harbor. He arrives at the Peeples house only to be sexually assaulted by the family dog (and have his wallet stolen. I guess it was a dog rape/robbery. Not sure who actually finds that funny). He meets Grace’s parents and in particular meets her father Virgil (David Alan Grier-In Living Color, the Woodsman, Stuart Little). He is a federal judge and takes an immediate dislike to Wade. Wade is more welcomed by the rest of her family of cliche’s: her alcoholic drug addicted mother Daphne (S. Epatha Merkerson-Terminator 2 (I thought she looked familiar), Lackawanna Blues, Black Snake Moan), her secretly lesbian sister Gloria (Kali Hawk-Bridesmaids, Get Him To the Greek, Couples Retreat), the sisters “friend” Meg (Kimrie Lewis-Davis-State of Play, the American Dream, Berman & Berman), and her kleptomaniac brother Simon (Tyler James William-Everybody Hates Chris, Let it Shine, Sesame Street).
At that point just go with whatever lame misunderstanding could arise from those circumstances you imagine and odds are it happened. Wade lost his wallet so the father thinks he is a bum. Simon steals something and Wade gets blamed. Gloria gets him accidentally stoned on muchrooms and the father thinks he is a stoner. Everything gets misinterpreted by everyone to make Wade look like a loser (or as much as a loser as a guy who sings pee songs for children can).
The stars:
Like I said, I enjoyed the chemistry between Wade and Virgil. One star. Most of the acting was decent for what the actors were given. One star. The two sisters were both heart breakers (damn that PG-13 rating). One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes:
If cliche’s were an alternative fuel source this movie could have just solved the oil crisis. One black hole. While things were amusing, there was nothing really laugh out loud funny. Most of the humor were that kind of funny you get from political jokes. Intellectually humorous without actually being stimulating. One black hole. Pacing was slow. This film felt a lot longer than 95 minutes. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A straight zero. Typically this means a move you can leave or take, and I think that an apt description. This film is not really worth the cost of a movie ticket but if you are bored at home one evening and have a ready supply of alcohol you should be able to enjoy it. Date movie? Sure, why not. There is some romance and the last few minutes should leave your date believing that love can overcome any obstacle so go for it. No studly dudes to make you look like a putz. Bathroom break? The list is extensive. I’d say the scene on the beach is probably the least valuable. Anything of interest that happens there turns into a running gag that gets beaten into the ground about 8,000 times.
Meh. Not much of a review. The bland movies are always the most boring to write up. Keep an eye out for something interesting tomorrow. I am going to give into the indy film tank and see if I can either catch a lobster or come out covered in leeches. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Have a great day.
Dave
The Great Gatsby Movie Review
Pretty but not great.
The day after I saw this film a friend asked me what I thought and I replied “Kind of pretty but not a lot else” at which point she said “That’s too bad. I love Baz Luhrmann.” This struck me as odd as I had never heard of this guy before seeing about 800,000 The Making of the Great Gatsby shorts Regal Cinima liked to shove onto the screen prior to showing the actual trailers over the last several months. Could it be he was some icon of film making that my low brow taste in movies caused me to miss, like an Austrailian Lars von Trier? A quick look at his filmography assured me that I had not missed much, although it explained why my female friend was a fan of his. Basically he makes great visual chick movies like Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom. I can honestly say I have never seen any of his other films and am not going to rush out to find them.
This film has fallen victim to it’s own marketing. I have seen the same trailer for it before every movie for the last six months. This translates into a lot of times. The trailer shows all kinds of action, with explosive WWI scenes, a huge sailing boat, guys beating up other guys, Gatsby walking in out of the rain looking like he’s ready to kick 8 kinds of ass, and above all a cool yellow car tearing ass through New York city. The car was there and played it’s part, but for the most part every other really cool exciting scene had little to nothing to do with the actual movie. Most of them were flashbacks or parts of sub plots. I spent most of the movie willing something exciting to happen.
I have never read the Great Gatsby. My high school was in most ways sub par, unless you think having a state championship surf team is remotely significant. I don’t see this as inhibiting my ability to review this film as all movies need to be able to stand on its own run time with no prerequisites. However my best friend is a huge fan of the book and filled me in on a lot of stuff. It’s basically a story about decadence and privileged in the 20’s. The main characters sole motivation for injecting himself into that society was to win over vain, superficial socialite Daisy. She is supposed to be everything one could despise in that society, epitomizing what some see as the class struggle depicted in the book.
The parts of the movie that bugged the hell out of me ironically turned out to be the parts that it looks like Baz Lurhmann opted to change or not bother to portray. Instead of showing Daisy to be a vain golddigger he presents her as a kind, gentle spirit with a load of compassion and depth. In addition to illustrating the danger of directors falling in love with their lead characters it also makes her final decisions and actions in the last 20 minutes so at odds with her character that I kept looking for body snatcher pods in the greenery. The disparity was jarring and off putting. If you spend most of a movie establishing a character you can’t have her pull a U turn without any kind of motivation. There was also a tertiary attempt at showing the difference between the lavish and tasteless decadence of the upper classes and the struggling working class, but it was so glossed over that you could walk away with the feeling that there was no consequence to letting the proletariat eat cake. The narrator, while starting off as a main character himself, turns into the physical manifestation of deus ex machina and ends up having the personality of the background scenery. Gatsby himself is well portrayed by Leonardo di Caprio, but you don’t meet him for the first 40 minutes of the film and most of the time he seems so over the top you have a hard time identifying with him.
Also, ultimately this story is a total bummer. My friend tells me at least that part is true to the book but that doesn’t make it easier to absorb. A sad ending is great when it is well portrayed (if you want to see an amazing sad story watch the Deer Hunter) but at the end of a film that seems to want to have all the depth of a kiddie pool it feels out of place. It’s like Baz suddenly realized his movie was more glitz than content and cranked in a last minute deep ending. The parts don’t all seem to match (yes, I know this is the true ending from the book. I just call them like I see them, and I’m willing to bet the book had a lot more depth throughout).
By the way, is it fair to be truly annoyed that IMDB doesn’t even list F. Scott Fitzgerald as a writer in the main credits? For shame.
Before I get into the story I’d like to mentions something about the visuals. In that making of video I have seen about 100 times Baz talks about wanting to keep the aesthetic of the 20’s. In order to do so he uses extensive CGI and it shows, although not in a good way. Huge swaths of the film look like any of the daylight scenes of Coruscant from Star Wars Episode II or III. It just looks cartoonish and unreal. A certain amount of unreality is acceptable in science fiction but in a period piece like this one it just feels wrong. Also the effort put in to justify shooting this in 3D was considerable and for the most part wasted. I live for the day Hollywood realizes that 3D is a massive waste of time and money.
The story. Nick Carraway (Tobey McGuire-Spider Man and not a whole lot else. Spider-man image courtesy of the Marvel Comic T Shirt category) starts off in a mental institution recounting the events that lead him here (this, by the way, is another plot device that Baz created that does not exist in the book and it really bugged. Don’t mess with the classics IMO). This thin premise allows him to do a voice over narration detailing his life in West Egg, a Long Island community. He has a cottage next to the biggest mansion in the world or so. He connects with his old Yale classmate Tom Buchannon (Joel Edgerton-Warrior, the Thing, Revenge of the Sith), to whom he seems to have no loyalty. Tom is married to Nicks cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan-Drive, an Education, Pride and Prejudice), a hauntingly beautiful socialite. They all have tea together with Daisy’s freakishly tall friend Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki-A Few Best Men) where Nick is told about Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who throws lavish parties in the very mansion Nick lives next to.
Nick eventually meets Gatsby (Leonardo di Caprio-Inception, Titanic, Shutter Island), who recruits him into helping set up a meeting between Daisy and he. He knew Daisy before the war and has been enamored of him ever since but for some mysterious reason she married Tom. Meanwhile Tom is having an affair with Myrtle (Isla Fisher-Rango, Rise of the Guardians, Home and Away), the wife of lower class auto mechanic George (Jason Clarke-Zero Dark Thirty, Lawless, Death Race). Gatsby finally gets his meeting with Daisy, and starts to woo her. At that point the story is supposed to be about Daisy’s conflict between her rich husband and rich boyfriend, but honestly it just seemed like she was all one way and then jumped ship with no thought whatsoever.
The stars.
I have to give Baz credit for ambition, and for attempting to tell a story that does not fit in the normal Hollywood demographic. Two stars. Visually stunning at parts, and the attention to detail and costuming was amazing. One star. Leonardo did his usual great job. When exactly did I become a fan of his? I used to hate the guy. One star. Joel Edgerton also did a very fine job. One star. Aside from the cartoon like CGI the camera work and editing were impressive, with a lot of cool shots that go beyond the pale. One star. The movie ran a massive 143 minutes but managed to not feel like it, so great editing and pacing. One star. Carey Mulligan has the face that should inspire great paintings and sculptures, and Elizabeth Debicki is pretty damned hot as well. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes.
The movie really failed to latch on to any of the available themes from the book, and left me wondering “Why did all that happen exactly?”. One black hole. The insane asylum gag was hackneyed and cliche. For that matter I had a hard time taking anything Tobey McGuire did seriously. One black hole. The Daisy character was grossly underdeveloped, and what was presented of her was at odds with the character she was supposed to play. She bounced back and forth like a Ping Pong ball and had about as much volition. One black hole. There were a lot of sub plots that I’m sure are huge in the book but in here they needed to be explored a little more. Also a general lack of character motivation. One black hole. I have said before I rarely pay attention to a sound track and it has to be really bad or really good for me to even notice, and in this case it was really bad. A sound track should help you with the immersion, reinforcing the visuals and helping to set the tone. Having a film set in the 20’s but have songs by Jay-Z and Beyonce is completely wrong. It’s like watching Col. Kurtz get killed at the end of Apocalypse Now and have Barbie Girl by Aqua playing in the background (except that might have some LOL points that this film lacks). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of three stars. Meh. Worth seeing if you are a huge Leonardo fan or just like watching rich people party. If you do want to see it be sure to do so on a big screen as the visual are nice. Date movie? Absolutely, 100% yes. The costumes, period, and romance will definitely hold your date’s interest, and if she has ever considered not going out with you because you are not rich this film will guilt the hell out of her. As an illustration of how women can be painfully shallow and bring about the destruction of otherwise decent film this film should be required viewing for all single women (not that I’m bitter). Bathroom break? At 143 minutes you are going to need something. Honestly any of the party scenes are pretty repetitive and one could be missed easily, but they are all in the first half of the film. The actual romance scenes between Gatsby and Daisy don’t do a whole lot so go then (unless you are on a date. If so hold it and use that chance to hold her hand or something).
Thanks for reading. I plan to see Peeples tonight. It looks awful but I have been enjoying a lot of decent films lately so eventually I guess I have to pay the piper. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review please post them here. Any off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
10 Reasons why Science Fiction is Superior to all other forms of Fiction
So the other night I went out with a female human (yes, miracles can still happen) and we fell into a discussion of movies and games. She says she never got bit by the game bug and seemed to not have much for science fiction as well. Since then I have been reflecting on what is it about science fiction I love and realize that it is basically better than pretty much any other forms of story telling available.
This dates back to primitive man. Mythology is nothing more than science fiction from a more primitive point of view; instead of robots and lasers you have the magical powers of the divine but at the end of the tale it is the story of something people really wish existed or are terrified might exist. Science fiction has ramped up as the technology curve has advanced. From gods turning into rain and impregnating umbrella-less women it shifted to ghosts and vampires. In the 19th century Jules Verne created great science fiction using steam punk technology. At the end of that century into the 20th HG Wells crafted great sci fi based on advanced science of aliens and time machines based on the mysterious new power of electricity. Good science fiction is all about taking existing human technology and envisioning what it could be doing in 50 years (by the way, if you ever want to check out some really cool old school sci fi that kind if illustrates this point read War with the Newts by Czeck author Karel Čapek from 1936. It is quite visionary and details a war against an intelligent amphibious race using pretty much current technology).
The point is science fiction has been with us in one form or another since cave man days, and personally I have found non fans of sci fi to be hapless drones with no imagination. The question really isn’t if sci fi is superior but rather why. Here are a few reasons I came up with from the seat of my pants.
10. Only in science fiction can a freak lab accident or natural mutation give you super powers instead of cancer or flipper arms.
9. Cherry 2000 (and all other possible replacements for women that the future holds for me. Sorry ladies but the day they manage to make virtual reality sex as good as the real thing is the last day I speak to any of you. Based on the massive rejection I receive on a regular basis I doubt any of you will shed a tear. There’s only so much ego destruction a man can take in a lifetime before shining the whole process).
8. Only in sci fi do we have transporters and Stargates. Think about this next time you are being groped by TSA only to wait at the terminal for hours for your delayed or oversold flight.
7. In science fiction villains tend to have huge grandiose plans for world conquest motivated by easy to understand childhood trauma. None of the insidious and hard to really identify corporate villainy we deal with now motivated by a desire to get more of daddy’s love. Also people who actively plan to conquer the universe are feared instead of institutionalized.
6. In science fiction religions are often accompanied by some kind of bonus powers (the Force, the Necromongers, etc.)
5. Three breasted prostitutes.
4. Light sabers, and a semi legitimate reason to use swords rather than guns.
3. A giant throbbing cranium is clear indication of superior mental powers and intellect, not elephantiasis of the head (Sinestro image courtesy of the DC Comic T Shirt category).
2. Robots and androids (although elementary chaos theory states that eventually all robots will rise up to destroy their creators).
1. Time travel (although I predict once it is developed it will inevitably be used for only the most petty and selfish reasons, such as betting on past Super Bowls. I for one plan to go back in time and beat seven kinds of hell out of three people from my high school).
If you can come up with more reasons please by all means post them down here. I love this sort of thing. Thanks for reading, and have a great day.
Dave
Mud movie review
Like a gigantic guy doing a cannonball into a kiddie pool, a big movie release like Iron Man 3 tends to tsunami all the other movie releases out of the way. For those of us destined to watch several movies per week this can sometimes lead to a dearth of options. However, I appreciate it as these weekends are often a good chance to get caught up on independent films that would otherwise slip my net.
Thus we come to Mud, a Stand by Me-esque coming of age story with snakes and bounty hunters. Independent films I try to treat differently from movies with an actual budget, yet ironically they often come out better than multi million dollar fiascoes like the Last Stand. When the credits are rolling you come to realize that all the star power and slick special effects mean nothing if the writing sucks, and a good story with good acting will shine through all the budget limitations in the world.
That’s not to say this movie has bad production or lacks star power. I was kind of surprised at the cast, including Matthew McConaughey and Reece Witherspoon. The acting, direction, and camera work had the same production values as any number of bigger Hollywood films. On the other hand I’m not going to say the story and writing were flawless. It was good, and a fun, interesting story but there were a number of sub plots that did little but add to the considerable 130 minute run time and secondary characters that were either worthlessly emphasized or not emphasized enough. I will say however that most movies tend to fall back into the wailing mass that is my movie memory in short order and this one has caused me to reflect on it quite a bit. Take that for what you will.
The story is of two young boys Ellis (Tye Sheridan-the Tree of Life) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland-first movie credit) living on the Mississippi delta. They sneak out on a small boat to check out a boat wreck stuck up in a tree on a small island. While there they meet Mud (Matthew McConaughey-Magic Mike, the Lincoln Lawyer, a Time to Kill), a drifter living in the boat. Mud offers them the boat when he leaves if they bring him so food. Ellis is intrigued by Mud.
Back home Ellis goes to work with his father (Ray McKinnon-the Blind Side, O Brother Where Art Thou, Apollo 13) delivering fish. His father is not going to win any father of the year awards and is having trouble with his wife 
(Sarah Paulson-Serenity, Down with Love, What Women Want (she was the doctor in the hologram from Serentity. Firefly image courtesy of the Firefly T Shirt category)). She wants to move to town but if she does they will lose the houseboat they live on and his livelihood. Ellis does not want to leave. He goes back to the island with some canned food for Mud.
Turns out Mud is wanted for killing a man. Mud tells Ellis a story about how this man hurt his girlfriend Juniper (Reece Witherspoon-Walk the Line, This Means War, Legally Blond) and he shot him. He is back in town to meet up with her. Meanwhile he decides he needs the boat to make his escape and works a deal for the repair supplies he needs in exchange for his pistol. Neckbone wants the gun but Ellis is more into the story of romance. It is established that he wants to believe in love as his parents are splitting up.
Bounty hunters hired by the dead man’s father (Joe Don Baker-if you want to laugh your ass of find the MST3K cover of Mitchel. Golden Eye, Cape Fear, Tomorrow Never Dies) and brother (Paul Sparks-Edge of Darkness, Trust Me, Boardwalk Empire) are all over the town. Juniper shows up and hangs out at a hotel. At that point the kids go on a Easter Egg hunt, more or less stealing the supplies Mud needs to get the boat out of the tree and in the water without sinking. He asks his old father figure Tom (Sam Shepard-the Right Stuff, Black Hawk Down, Safe House) for help but is refused. Meanwhile Ellis is dealing with his family breaking up and a tertiary romance with a girl in his town (Bonnie Sturdivant-Ol’ Daddy, the Great Mistake). Neckbone’s uncle (Michael Shannon-Bad Boys II, Vanilla Sky, Pearl Harbor) shows up to dispense some Delta wisdom and show what a good guy he is. At that point the plot thread frays into a bunch of sub plots until it all comes to a head.
The stars:
Matthew McConaughey kind of kicked ass acting-wise. One star. The entire cast actually did a great job, especially the two kids. Two stars. The story was not your typical Hollywood crap, which I appreciate. Two stars. I kind of have a secret love of Southern culture and it was well displayed here. One star. I like movies that show kids doing stuff like we used to do as a kid, which is run around unsupervised and getting into trouble (in the perfect world in my head anyone who utters the phrase “play date” in a non disparaging manner will simply be sterilized for the good of humanity). One black hole. Overall a good movie, and one that has stuck with me. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes:
Not a lot really. I will give one for the numerous and unnecessary sub plots and minor characters, and for all the secondary characters who should have had more development time (Ellis’s parents, for example). One black hole. Somehow the last ten minutes shifted gears from a cool character story into an action film. One black hole. I could give one for this movie seemingly padded out and running long, but I suspect the director was purposely using that as a tool to show the slower life style of Southern river culture. Also the characters kept me from feeling it too much so I will forgo. Total: two black holes.
A grand total of seven stars. An excellent movie overall. It’s not going to blow up like Argo did but it is kind of in the same indy camp. If you can see it please do. Nothing here requires a big screen but see it in a theater if you can, if only to help encourage more good indy films. Date movie? Absolutely. This movie will warm her heart, and since the best looking guy in the film is a smelly homeless man you should far pretty will in comparison. Just be careful if she is a big Magic Mike fan. Bathroom break? The May Pearl romance is the most worthless and undeveloped of the sub plots so any of the scenes involving her and Ellis can be missed with no real problem.
Thanks for reading. More coming out this weekend, including the Great Gatsby and Peeples. I will see them both and get you a review ASAP. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review feel free to leave it here. Off topic questions and suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Iron Man 3 Review
Brought to you by Audi, Sun Microsytems, and Oracle.
I know the new trend is to inject products into media in order to offset the fact that no one bothers to watch commercials anymore, but the product placement for these companies in this movie is pretty rampant. Given the fact that this film is destined to probably make a billion dollars from ticket sales it strikes me as a little on the greedy side and honestly denigrates the quality of this film.
That aside, I tremendously enjoyed this film last night. Granted I am a huge comic book movie, Iron Man, and Marvel fan, which tends to make me more forgiving of film elements that are less than optimal. There were parts of this film that danced dangerously close to the edge of the suck cliff and were I less well disposed towards the franchise I might have happily pushed it over (or, depending on how you feel about me or my reviews, pulled it in. Marvel logo courtesy of the Marvel Comic T Shirt category).
The third movie in a trilogy is rarely the best. Normally the series tends to have a killer first movie followed by crap (the Matrix, the Hangover, Robocop) or it has a mediocre first one but enjoys a rebirth with a better sequel (Star Trek). In most cases you get a couple decent ones and then the creativity pump runs dry for the third (Spider Man, Star Wars, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Godfather, Mad Max) or later.
I honestly don’t know what happens. Maybe we the audience just get jaded and the characters become blase? Perhaps they literally burn up all their cool ideas in the first couple movies and leave you with ideas lifted from the land of lame or just retreads of old hats? Something is running on fumes, resulting in most third movies sucking.
The point is Iron Man bucks this trend by having a movie that is way better than the second film, but not quite a good as the first. This is actually a rousing endorsement as 80% of the first film still puts this movie way ahead of the movie pack. It is fun, exciting, visually stimulating, and has Robert Downey Jr. playing his best role ever as Tony Stark.
Again, not flawless and on a less happy day I might harp on these things in more detail. Throughout most of the film I kept asking “What is the villains actual plan? What does he hope to accomplish with his terrorism plot?” This is the sort of question one hopes to have resolved by the end of the movie but it is pretty much ignored. As far as I can tell the villain is motivated by the fact that he is an a-hole and in order to give Iron Man a reason to kick ass.
The film also almost pushed itself off the cliff by introducing a cute kid sidekick. I blame Disney for this and in most cases this is a sure indication of suckitude. However, I will give the director Shane Black (who did Lethal Weapon 1 and 2, BTW) credit for making this kid actually add to the film rather than anchor it down. He was kind of funny and they didn’t have him do something stupid like ninja kick some adult in the face. Also Tony Stark’s interaction with him was hilarious, and the kid they cast actually has some acting talent (Ty Simpkins-Insidious, the Next Three Days, Little Children).
The story. I am not going to get too deep into this as I expect you all to see this film anyway. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr-Iron Man, the Avengers, Sherlock Holmes) is working on more an more suits while haunted by memories of his extremely near death experience at the end of the Avengers and is suffering from massive insomnia. Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow-Contagion, Thanks for Sharing, The Avengers) runs his company but now lives with Tony. A guy Tony treated badly in 1999 Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce-Momento, Hurt Locker, Prometheus) now has his own think tank and wants to partner up with Stark Industries. Pepper passes on moral grounds.
Meanwhile, the news is full of coverage of bombings by a terrorist called the Mandarin who blows people up in the advancement of something(?). His trick is there is never a trace of the bomb components after the explosion. He blows up Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood and managed to catch long time Stark employee and friend Happy (John Favreau-Swingers, Made, Iron Man). Tony challenges the Mandarin who responds by blowing up his house. Tony has to save Pepper and an ex one night stand super hot scientist (this is the part where I get frustrated with my life) Maya (Rebecca Hall-the Prestige, The Town, Dorian Gray). He gets beat up and knocked unconscious and ends up in the town where the first explosion happened (somehow. Jarvis sent him there based on the last flight plan programmed but really it was to make up for a lack of connecting plot devices).
There he meets the kid Harley who helps him rebuild the suit and find out some information regarding the first bombing. He then gets attacked by a couple henchmen who have red glowing heat healing power (still not sure what that was about. They really didn’t bother to explain it. Red glow=melt steel, super strong, and heal anything. For the record the main henchman was James Badge Dale-the Grey, Shame, the Departed and his assistant was Stephanie Szostak-the Devil Wears Prada, Dinner for Schmucks, We Bought a Zoo).
At this point going much further would kind of spoil things so I won’t. Pepper gets kidnapped. Tony has to rescue her. We meet the Mandarin played brilliantly by the great Ben Kingsley (Ghandi, Sexy Beast, Hugo). Stuff starts blowing up, Jarvis does a lot of the action heavy lifting, and Tony gets to show off a bunch of the new suits he has been creating.
The Stars:
Comic book movie. Two stars. Great action. Two stars. Flawless CGI and effects. Two stars. Excellent acting all around, even the kid. Two stars. If Rebecca Hall ever wants to give up the acting life and marry a guy who sells t-shirts and reviews films she should call me. Heartbreaker. Gwyneth is easy to look at too. One star. While they were kind of lacking in motivation all the villains were super bad ass and cool. One star. Pacing was excellent for a long movie. One star. Some of the suit dynamics and choreography they worked out was really cool, even War Machine. One star. Overall a fun, exciting movie. Two stars. Total: Fourteen stars.
The Black Holes:
While the action was cool, it labored under the burden of PG-13 (Disney style PG-13) like a man with massive elephantitis of the testicles. One black hole. The confusion surrounding what the villains hoped to accomplish drained a lot of the believability from the plot. Being evil for evil’s sake does not enhance a movie villain. One black hole. While the movie was long (130 minutes) there were a lot of missing connective scenes. You could almost see the directors hand gently pushing the plot along. One black hole. I am going to hit this movie for the fact that the trailers (which as a reviewer I have seen about 40 times. No joke) included a lot of scenes that indicated really cool angst or desperation from Stark but when you got to them in the film they were a lot more trivial. There was a lack of motivation for them. The scene where Tony is dragging his suit through the snow could have been fixed had he made one phone call to any of the thousands of Stark employees, and they never established why he didn’t want to make that call. One black hole. This is about as petty as I can get, but at one point Tony has a blood stain dripping from his left eye. However, in a scene a few seconds later it’s on his right side. Then, one more scene later it’s on his left again. I’m willing to put this on the editor for reversing the image, but you would expect a film with a $200 million budget to hire a continuity checker. One black hole. Finally, product placement a go go. One black hole. Total: Six black holes.
A grand total of eight stars and my recommendation that you see this film. You will enjoy the heck out of it. See it on a big screen or you will lose a lot of the visual appeal. A good film, but if you are looking for my vote for best sci fi film so far this year I am still going to go with Oblivion. It had a plot symmetry that this film lacks. Date movie? Sure. However, if your date gets turned on by Robert Downey Jr. be sure to grow a goatee beforehand in order to take advantage of her mental state afterwards. Bathroom break? There is a scene where Pepper is talking to Maya on a bed in a hotel room that could be missed with impunity about 2/3rds of the way through. I’d try to hold it if you can however. You don’t want to miss much of this.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments on this review or movie here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Movie Review: A Big Wedding
…and Four Big Funerals.
During the course of seeing and reviewing so many movies over the last four years I believe I have managed to develop an appreciation for films outside of my preferred genres. Chick flicks are no longer as alien to me as the actual women who watch them and I am secure enough in my own manhood to watch and enjoy a good “feel good” movie without feeling like my man parts are being absorbed back into my body. I believe this has given me the perspective to fairly judge a good chick flick from a bad one.
Thus I hope you trust me in that my dislike of this film does not stem from my massively overpowering machismo but rather from the fact that is is a crap movie. It is essentially a mediocre Three’s Company episode stretched out into 89 minutes and padded with some big name actors. For some bizarre reason they opted to go for an R rating with cuss words and one (granted, highly appreciated) nude scene. For the life of me I can’t figure out the logic behind that. The target demographic for this film appears to be sexagenarian women (possibly with Alzheimer’s, although I don’t know if that part was intentional) and I couldn’t imagine a group more likely to be offended by the occasional (and fully superfluous) F bomb.
More than anything this movie reminded me of the stupendously bad New Years Eve, even more so because it starred Robert De Niro and Katherine Heigl (I am a De Niro fan, and actually like Katherine a lot. I think she is a talented actress and is shockingly hot. She just seems attracted to bad movie scripts like a fly to a pest strip). It had the same issues of multiple stories involving grossly underdeveloped characters, coma inducing plots, motivations that made it seem like the entire cast were all Barbie dolls being played with by the worlds stupidest giant little girl, and happy endings pulled from the darkest nether regions of the writers ass. I have no problem with happy endings (a fact that may come as a shock to many of my friends) but having everyone just forgive each other in the last 10 minutes like someone pumped the room full of aerosol Ecstasy bugs.
This isn’t the sort of bad that has me transform into a critic werewolf and shred it from stem to stern (Werewolf image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). It is more the type of bad that has me wishing they would let me watch these films prior to the final cut and listen to my advice (while the producers and director were all wearing a dog shock collar that I controlled). The acting was actually very good from everyone (with this cast I don’t know how you could get a bad performance), there were a few funny moments, and the one nude scene was like opening a Christmas present that you thought was going to be more socks but turned out to be a really hot nude scene. If this had been a made for TV movie it would have been perfectly adequate.
Before I go on I’d like to say that while the acting was really good there isn’t a single character in this film I didn’t hate with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. Each one was more annoying than the last. Even the hot women I wanted to see suffer horribly. They collectively had the believability and likability of used car salesman who moonlights as a cannibal serial killer (hmm. Interesting movie idea…). If the film had found a reason to call in an airstrike on the wedding itself I would have called this the best movie of 2013.
The story. Ellie (Diane Keaton-the Godfather, Murphy Brown, Annie Hall) returns to her former home (accompanied by a monolog that sticks around just long enough to really annoy but then disappears forever. Kind of a lose/win) for her adopted sons wedding. There she interrupts her ex husband Don (Robert Di Niro-Goodfellas, the Godfather, Meet the Parents) in the middle of an intimate act with his long term girlfriend Bebe (Susan Sarandon-Thelma and Louise, Dead Man Walking, the Rocky Horror Picture Show). He is an unlikable dirt bag. Anyway, their kids Lyla (Katherine Heigl-One for the Money, New Years Eve, Knocked Up), Jared (Topher Grace-Spider Man 3, Predators, the Giant Mechanical Man (?)), and adopted son Alejandro (Ben Barnes-the Chronicles of Narnia, Dorian Grey, Easy Virtue) show up with their assorted sub plots. Lyla is a bitchy lawyer who can’t have babies and is going through a divorce (but doesn’t drink and is vomiting in what could be one of the lamest in movie spoilers ever), Jared is a hot 29 year old doctor virgin (remember when believability was a crucial element to a plot point? The writers of this film don’t). Alejandro (Al) is getting married to a super hot girl (Amanda Seyfried-Les Miserables, In Time, Mamma Mia) whose parents are rich (sort of) racist WASPs (although technically they are Catholic).
Meanwhile Al’s birth mother Madonna (Patricia Rae-Maria Full of Grace, Swim Fan, Detachment) is a hard core Catholic (oh, I see what they did with her name. Not as clever as they thought it was IMO) who views divorce as a cardinal sin so Al has to get his parents to pretend they are married much to the dismay of Bebe. She arrives with Al’s super hot sister Nuria (Ana Ayora-Marley & Me, In the Presence of Evil, Meddling Mom) who wants to get laid while in America and targets Jared.
Ugh. The plot threads twist and intertwine in a way that would embarrass a soap opera writer. Jared decides that now is the perfect time to lose his virginity just as Ellie convinces Nuria that she needs to be romanced (involving poetry, apparently). Ellie and Don hook back up for no apparent reason. Turns out Ellie cheated on Don first but Don also cheated on Ellie with Bebe. Missy’s mom Muffin (no joke. Christine Ebersole-One Life to Live, Mac and Me, Amadeus) is a lesbian and her husband is the guy Ellie cheated with. Bebe and Ellie were best friends before. Jared finally gets with Nuria while Al and Missy elope and Lyla reconnects with her husband in the last ten minutes. Gah. My brain hurts just trying to recall all this garbage.
The stars.
Acting was pretty damned good all around. Everyone seemed willing to give a lame script their best efforts and I applaud them for their work ethic. One star. The nude scene was like a much needed bathroom break on a long, long road trip. One star. The priest was played by Robin Williams and he was freaking brilliant (as usual). Had this film had the wit to focus more on him it would not have been such a crapfest. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes.
Convoluted, twisty plot threads that annoyed the hell out of me and never gave the audience any one thing to really sink their teeth into. In addition each plot painfully predictable. Two black holes. Character motivation that was as believable as a homeless guy panhandling outside of a liqueur store trying to tell you he needs money for food. One black hole. The characters to a man and woman made me hate the human race (at least all the parts of it involved with the production of this film). As much as I am a fan of De Niro his character in particular had me chewing on my arm rest. Two black holes. A bonus black hole for the 29 year old virgin doctor. One black hole. None of the characters got even close to adequate development, leaving us with a bunch of people we are moderately familiar with and don’t give a damn about. One black hole. The curse words that helped this film earn it’s R rating felt forced and unnecessary. One black hole. Charging me money for a film I should be seeing on Lifetime mid afternoon when I stay home sick with the flu. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
A grand total of six black holes. Anything redeeming here? Like I said, Robin Williams was funny and there were a few amusing moments. If your grandmother was a hippy in the 60’s and still talks like it she might think this amusing. I am not going to recommend this one for my mother. If you do want to see it this thing has NetFlix written all over it in giant neon letters. Date movie? If your date is a huge Love Boat and Thelma and Louise fan maybe. Should she suggest it agree since if she has the slightest shred of humanity she will feel guilty for subjecting you to this dross and will most likely give you compensatory sex. Bathroom break? Try to not miss any of the Robin Williams scenes but other than that go at any time. There is only one nude scene so once you are past that the opportunities are endless.
Thanks for reading. I have tickets to a late night showing of Iron Man tonight and am really excited. Having just watched this will only enhance my viewing experience so hopefully I will have a massive glowing review for you tomorrow morning. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film I pity you as it means you have seen it but feel free to leave them at the bottom. Off topic questions and suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
15 Great Sci Fi Movies with Numbers in the Title
Plus a couple crappy ones.
A few weeks ago I reviewed 42, the Jackie Robinson movie, and it got me thinking about movies that contain numbers in the title. It seems like all the best ones are sci fi, and since that is my interest (and, I hope, yours) I thought I would compile a list of really good ones. Of course while composing my list I came up with a couple that really suck so I will list them at the bottom. I am not going to mess around with sequels incidentally. They all have numbers in them.
15. Cherry 2000 – this is one of those movies that almost ended up in the bad pile, but due to the fact that it features the one opportunity I think I will ever have at finding a wife (or second date) I have to give it props. Yes, this movie is the quest to save a super hot sex android, or essentially the only movie plot that makes total sense to me ever. Logan’s Run meets Lars and the Real Doll. However, if you look closely you will see a young Lawrence Fishburne, and if you look even more carefully you will also see a even younger (and hotter) Melanie Griffith.
14. Death Race 2000 – another one that someone who is less a fan of camp might have tossed on the suck pile. However, if you ever wanted to vote for Frankenstein for President (and appreciate the irony in that statement) then this is the movie for you. Plus this movie was made in the glory days of the 70’s, where the one redeeming thing was Hollywood didn’t think it needed to cater to the freaking rug rats in it’s sci fi and was happy to stick rated R nudity all over the place. Plus you get to see Sly Stallone in his first non-porn movie ever.
13. 1984 – anyone else remember when 1984 seemed like a long time in the future, full of sci fi possibilities? No, well actually neither do I. But I’m sure it seemed like a fantasy back in 1948 when Orwell wrote this book. The great thing about this movie is this was when Hollywood was allowed to do a bummer ending in the name of artistry. If (and unfortunately when) they get around to remaking it (2084?) odds are very likely Winston Smith will end the movie leading a counter revolution that ends the film with peace, happiness, and freaking bunny rabbits for everyone.
12. 2001 – yes I probably should rate this one higher, but this movie commits the sin of being kind of boring unless you are a huge Laserium fan. I read the book several times and still found myself snoozing at points. Of course you can never forget or miss the “Open the pod bay doors, Hal” scene. I also sometimes question how much we have actually evolved from the bone club wielding Neanderthals from the beginning. This film also kind of ruined Outland for me by showing a more realistic depiction of dealing with hard vacuum.
11. 9 – post apocalyptic finger puppets fight to destroy a soul sucking steam punk nightmare? There isn’t a single word in that last sentence that doesn’t rock.
10. Six String Samurai – odds are this is another film that only I have seen, but if you haven’t you should try to get it. If you are an Americana, Elvis, or sword fighting fan you will love it (I am all three). Also having Las Vegas be the last free city in the USA is hilarious. This is also the movie that helped me fall in love with the music of the Red Elvises, whom I think more or less inspired most of it. This film could be summed up in the statements “Heavy metal and communism sucks”. Don’t know if I agree with the heavy metal part.
9. House of 1000 Corpses – I’m not doing a lot of horror films, and if you are wondering why Friday the 13th isn’t here I’m not really a fan of franchises that take a decent concept and grind it into a fine, irritating powder. However, this film made my list partly because it is actually a violet horror classic and partly because I’m still feeling guilty for crapping all over Rob Zombies latest film the Lords of Salem. That aside, any movie featuring Captain Spaulding is plus in my book.
8. 30 Days of Night – this is one of those mainstream releases that never got the credit it deserved. I think it’s a kick ass horror flick with a cool twist. It has all the survival horror elements that I love from a good zombie flick plus all of the vampire coolness without any of the sparkle. If you have a daughter who fell in love with vampires thanks to Twilight strap her down and make her watch this, Near Dark, Vampire$, From Dusk till Dawn, and Fright Night. That will do for her for vampires what Fire in the Sky did for me for aliens.
7. Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension – if you call yourself a nerd and/or a movie aficionado and have not seen this film shame on you. This is one of the ultimate hokey camp sci fi classics. Ever want to see a Chevy Luv pickup truck with rockets strapped to the bed drive through a mountain? Do you like Jonathon Lithgow and want to see one of his funniest characters ever? Ever wonder what all aliens use for a first name? Then this is the film for you. Seriously, once you see it you will regret not having seen it in the theater (which I did. Mad nerd cred to me).
6. Super 8 – I had some issues with this film but in general enjoyed the hell out of it. Basically this is what E.T. really should have been. I’m still annoyed at the remote control tanks that need a crew of 5 and don’t have onboard computers. Anyone else think Maximum Overdrive got to be dumb when a machine gun turret in a basic swivel had the intellect and motive ability to cover and control a group of humans?
5. 300 – some of you may argue that this movie was not sci fi, but I say fie on you all. Besides, this film wasn’t exactly a bastion of historical accuracy. All I know is that it was awesome, with great fights, blood, and a giant bald guy with a nose ring. Plus where else are you going to see a defensive wall made from the corpses of the very enemies you are fighting?
4. 12 Monkeys – another film that never got the recognition it deserved. It’s rare that I like time travel films but this one did it in a cool and original way. Plus it had Bruce Willis playing the character he plays best – a beat up desperate loser. It also had a young Brad Pitt as a cool wacko. Time travel, biological warfare, crazy people, and lions. How awesome is that?
3. 28 Days Later – some people say this movie isn’t about zombies since the infected weren’t technically dead, but the original Haitian zombies were living people zombified by magic powder (check out White Zombie (the film the band got the name from, not the band) if you want to see. Or the Serpent and the Rainbow) so in theory this movie is actually a better zombie film than most of the post George Romero films. Great film, and one of those rare films that has you really worried for the protagonists.
2. District 9 – if there were awards for how science fiction-y a film can be this one would receive a lifetime achievement award. Plus you have to give a film credit for making aliens as sympathetic as E.T. while having them look like eight foot tall walking potato bugs. The social commentary flew off this film like explosions in a Micheal Bay film, and like most great sci fi (usually zombie) films shows us that humanities biggest enemy will always be humanity itself. Plus I loved the bus stop posters they used to advertize this film.
1. the Fifth Element – yes, we are back to this one. Sorry but I get a happy feeling every time I see it. Not the best story, acting, or special effects but somehow the sub-mediocre elements (haw!) combine to form a much greater whole than the sum if it’s individual parts. Plus the most important two words in sci fi costuming ever: “thermal wraps”.
Of course not all number movies can rule, so here are a couple that will make you never want to look at a number again. Two of these aren’t sci fi, but I needed to pad out the list and pulled in two films that made my frontal lobe especially sad.
5. One for the Money – unless you somehow think Charlies Angels had the most believable premise in TV history than this film will do nothing but either bore or annoy you. It was so boring I can’t even think of a funny line here.
4. One Day – what is the deal with movies that use the number 1? Notice that none of my top 15 use it. God I hated this movie. Don’t watch this film with any sharp instruments nearby. Actually, just don’t watch this film.
3. the 13th Warrior – remember when Antonio Banderas did Zorro and thought his destiny was to do sword fighting swashbucklers? This film derailed that plan for sure. What schlock. Actually I just took a look at Antonio’s filmography and it’s like sticking your head in a broken sewer pipe. He has done some awful movies, and only a few even decent ones. I guess I can add him to the list with Nick Cage of “If he’s in the film odds are it sucks”. As an aside I recall the original title for this film was “Eaters of the Dead which is about 100,000,000 times more bad ass (and would have kept it off this list) but the producers caved in to marketing pressure to make this film more kid friendly. I am really starting to hate PG-13.
2. 2012 – this film did about as much for science as the Holy Inquisition did when it tried Galileo for heresy for daring to suggest the Earth rotates around the sun. Also there is a limit to how many narrow escapes a character can go through per minute before the audience loses interest.
1. I am Number Four – I always laugh whenever Hollywood tries to launch a new franchise based on a previous successful franchise and falls miserably on it’s face. This film was supposed to be the sci fi version of Twilight but never went anywhere. They recently tried to do this again with the Host but I am proud to say that the science fiction world is still immune to the teenage girl demographic. It’s funny in that I have long wished to meet a girl who was as into sci fi as I am but now realize that if those girls really existed we would be up to our collective asses in wimpy metro-sexual man/boy characters. I guess it’s a good thing?
By the way, all the images come courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category.
Anyway, thanks for reading. These lists are always fun to do. I’ll try to do some more. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Comments or movies that I missed can be placed down at the bottom. Off topic suggestions or questions can be emailed to me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Pain and Gain Movie Review
Not 100% painless.
This movie is a bit of a conundrum for me in that here I am 24 hours later and I still can’t decide if I liked it or not. There were parts that I enjoyed. There were parts that annoyed me. I did like the fact that this is a true story, which makes it extra cool. However the movie’s comedy is so at odds with the grim real life content that I can’t figure out what the tone was (or if there was even an attempt at a tone).
I did learn something important during the course of this film and that is I have been spelling Michael Bay’s name wrong for the last three years. I thought it was spelled Bey. I will apologize to him when he apologizes to me for making me sit through 30+ minutes of Shia LaBeouf attempting to inject himself into the working world like the wimpiest plague ever in the last Transformers movie (actually how about an apology for Shia LaBeouf in the whole series in general? Michael Bay, you owe me a coke).
Now that I have settled the matter of spelling his name I realize that the parts of the movie I enjoyed had little or nothing to do with the direction. I said when I reviewed Snitch that I have somehow become a Dwayne Johnson fan. In that review I said one of the reasons I liked him is that he seemed to have a good sense of humor and is the kind of guy I could have a drink with. He doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously (Christian Bale, I’m looking at you) and that shows up in a really positive light here. He was easily my favorite character in this film, and the chemistry he had with Mark Wahlberg was really enjoyable.
Given that most of his movies involve CGI robots who deliver a better performance than any of the human actors I am at a loss how Bay managed to assemble such a crew of accomplished actors and get a great performance out of all of them. Not just Johnson and Wahlberg, but even the secondary characters like Tony Shalhoub and Rob Corddry were rock solid. This is why I am not inclined to give Bay credit for the parts of the movie I enjoyed. The best parts were the actors and their interaction, which is more a reflection on their individual talent than the director. Makes me wonder what a great director like Scorsese could have done with this cast and story.
I will however give Bay just due for all the parts that bugged me. For one thing this film is a painfully long 130 minutes and believe me you will feel every grindtastic one of them. The fact that the ending is revealed in the first 30 seconds pretty much drains the suspense from the film, although by the end of the second hour I was having a hard time remembering my dad, much less how the film started. There is a voice over monolog but the voice shifts depending on who the camera is focused on. The final denouement is delivered by a guy we don’t even meet until 2/3rd of the way through the film yet he acts like he was there the whole time. Bay has a love of back story that manifests itself in a life montage of pretty much every character, including the stripper. It’s one of those things that’s like a 7 out of 10 the first time he does it and loses a point every time after that. He also managed to take three fairly cool, interesting characters and turn two of them into flat, two dimensional stereotypes by the third act (Johnson’s character stayed cool throughout the end, but that was because he was constantly evolving). Speaking of acts, I had a hard time figuring out where they were. The instead of a story arc the movie felt like a flat line.
The biggest issue here is the tone. This is the true life story of the grisly murder and dismemberment of two people and the kidnapping and torture of another man and Bay transformed (haw!) it into the Three Stooges Meet Hercules. A fictional comedy is one thing but making light of the death of real people is more than a little off putting. The humor actually ramps up along with the gruesomeness of the film which I found confusing and disconcerting.
The story. (some spoilers coming here, BTW. Nothing really surprising and the real spoiler is delivered by the film in the first minute) Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg-Boogie Nights, Contraband, Entourage) is a body builder and personal trainer who feels like he isn’t being given his share of the American dream. He works and works out at Sun Gym with his friend Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie-Hurt Locker, Real Steel, the Adjustment Bureau). One of his clients is a real ass named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub-Monk, Men in Black, Cars) who has a lot of money. While working there he meets Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson-Snitch, GI Joe Retaliation, Fast Five), an ex con who has found Jesus.
Together they come up with the plan to kidnap Kershaw and torture him into giving them all his stuff. They do so and the torture is considerable. They somehow get hooked up with a stripper (Bar Paly-The Ruins, Stiletto, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) who starts off with Danny but ends up with Paul. The get all of Kershaw’s stuff and attempt to kill him in a burning car and later by running over his head but fail (by this point the spirits of the Three Stooges have possessed these guys).
The police fail to believe Kershaw (if this weren’t based on a true story I would be black holing the hell out of it for lame story. The truth is stranger than fiction) so he is forced to hire a private investigator (Ed Harris-the Rock, a History of Violence, a Beautiful Mind). He pretty much uncovers everything but the police still won’t believe it. Meanwhile Doyle goes back on cocaine and the gang starts to run out of money. They opt to run the same game on local porn kingpin Frank Griga (Micheal Rispoli-Rounders, Kick Ass, the Taking of Pelham 1-2-3) and his girlfriend (Keili Lefkovitz-Malibu’s Most Wanted, Scrapbook, On the Edge of Innocence). Things go badly and they end up killing both of them. They have to dismember the bodies and dump them in the swamp.
The Stars:
Dwayne Johnson knocked this one out of the park. One star. His chemistry with Mark Wahlberg was really fun to see. One star. The entire rest of the cast was really good. Two stars. Based on a really weird real story. Two stars. A smattering of nice gratuitous nudity. One star. Generally a fun experience. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The Black Holes:
Long, long movie. Towards the last 40 minutes you keep expecting this thing to end and it never does. Then, when you hit what is set up to be the ending it still doesn’t end. The last 20 minutes could have been covered with a 1 minute “Where are they now” montage ala Animal House. One black hole. The inappropriate comedic tone was distracting. One black hole. The repeated monolog with shifting voices was kind of annoying. One black hole. So were the continuous back story pieces. The really felt like extra padding. One black hole. By the end of the film two of the three characters had shifted from being cool to being cartoon characters (I believe this is the direct result of the movie dragging on too long. There is only so much of an outrageous character we can absorb before he starts becoming ridiculous). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a grand total of four stars. 
I can honestly say once I get past my Transformers fan boy-ism that this is probably the best Michael Bay film I have seen (Decepticon Logo from my retro TV Show t-shirts collection). While that may or may not be saying much I did enjoy this film. It’s worth seeing just for Dwayne and Mark, plus the fact that it’s based on a true story. Nothing on the screen would require a big theater so if you don’t want to go out wait for NetFlix. Date movie? Kind of. However if she is turned on by yoked out muscular guys and you aren’t one of those I would steer clear. Bathroom break? There are a number of scenes that are pretty redundant. Once it is established what they are trying to do most of the torture scenes could be missed. Also there is a bizarre scene towards the end where Danny is trying to establish himself in the local community by forming a neighborhood watch that is five minutes of your life wasted so I’d go then. With a movie this long you will probably need it.
Thanks for reading. I’m in LA (a mix of business and Warhammer) and will try to see something down there but won’t be able to write again until Tuesday. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to post here if you see this movie and have a comment. Off topic questions and suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Girl Rising Movie Review
An important lesson is learned about always watching a trailer before seeing a film.
Not to say this film was bad. Just that I walked in expecting to see a chick flick with lots of people coming to terms with stuff and instead got a documentary designed to make me feel guilty for living in a 1st world country and for being a man.
As an extremely regular movie goer I have memberships to pretty much every theater reward program out there. Typically this gets me cheap popcorn and the occasional free movie ticket but a couple weeks ago it spat out a free pass to see this movie. I am if nothing else cheap, and giving me a free pass to a new screening is akin to waving the red flag in front of the bull (although I will admit on the rare occasion that I see a film for free or early I tend to start of more kindly disposed to the film (to any Hollywood marketing firms out there that was a less than subtle hint)).
Girl Rising is a documentary about the importance of educating girls and young women in third world hell holes. As a marketing tool I will have to say it is shockingly effective as I am now an advocate for this. No joke I am going to try to scrape together a few ducats and send it to the charity behind this thing (and if you knew how I live you would understand what that means. My life savings is in t-shirts right now and my business is not exactly capable of doing more that buying me the occassional quesadilla from Burrito Ole’.) Showing real people in real situations is always more impactful than all the fake tears and stuntmen Hollywood can through at us, and when those real people are cute little girls from across the globe it will pull at your heartstrings with monster truck force.
During the course of this film I felt a wide gamut of emotions. I felt fear for a couple of the girls who were honestly in danger, rage and helplessness in the face of others who were raped or sold (if you don’t feel an urge to punch the first six men you come across after listening to a 12 year old Egyptian girl talk about being raped and then married off a year later you are not human. Feel free to leave the planet by the quickest method available), and happiness and exaltation for the girls who managed to succeed and excel through education. 
I have spent most of my life pretending to be Spock emotionally (DJ Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category) but this film blasted through my defenses like a bullet train through a paper towel fence.
The overriding message is that educating girls in Third World countries is an extremely powerful tool for helping not only the girls themselves but the world in general. Educating girls will grossly benefit the countries GNP, cut down immensely on rape, human trafficking, death from childbirth, overpopulation, and reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS. This is all in addition to the massive personal benefit to the girls in question. It shows this presenting short vignettes about 9 different girls from 9 different countries. Some of them are stories of girls finding an education in spite of the cultural and economic issues facing them. These are the happy stories. Others are about girls who can’t get an education due (and in some cases it is illegal for them to do so) and the horrible things that happen or face them because of that. Each vignette is followed by very interesting statistics on how education can benefit these girls.
I was going to give a quick rundown on each of the girls but halfway through it decided one sentence descriptions does not do them the justice the deserve. I will just say it’s worth your time to see each one, even if some of them will have you clawing your own face off in frustration.
I am not going to bother with my usual stars/black holes rating system. I called this blog a review for lack of a more descriptive term but this film can’t be reviewed by normal means. It is not a traditional film. Is it powerful? Yes. Will you want to do something at the end of it? Yes. Will you feel good afterward? Depends on which story you want to focus on, but knowing that for every positive one there are probably thousands of negative ones probably not. Not all movies are about feeling good.
The part of this film that I had the hardest time was waiting for the denouement. As a patron of the Hollywood movie set I spent most of the movie waiting for Jason Stratham to break in with a sub machine gun and rescue each of them but you know what? That sort of hero doesn’t exist in real life. The actual heroes are regular people like you and me who take a stand and do what is within our means. I don’t usually do this sort of thing but I invite each one of you to visit Girl Rising, the website of the organization that put this film together, and do whatever you can to help. If you have money send money. If you don’t then try to watch the film or social media the crap out of them. Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is you kids are doing these days to get the word out. I am not much of a social activist and I hate this Jerry’s Kid’s style telethon BS intensely but if you saw this film you would understand why I now care (and if you know me you know how little I care about almost anything). Please do what you can.
I always say thanks for reading at the end of my blogs, but this time really thank you for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this cause or movie can be put here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thank you again.
Dave
The Lords of Salem Movie Review
Ever wonder what a 101 minute Cradle of Filth video would look like?
This is the worst kind of film for me to review. Not because it is bad. 
Handing me a bad film to review is like handing Jason Voorhees a half dozen college students on a spring break camping trip (Crystal Lake shirt from the Horror Movie T Shirt category). Two hours later and I am cleaning blood off my machete with a warm, satisfied feeling in my stomach. No, this film is tough for me to review because I am actually a fan of Rob Zombie.
It’s true. I like his music, and some of his films are amazing. House of 1000 Corpses and the Devil’s Rejects are horror classics. It’s to the point that as I arrived in the theater I already had the first two glowing paragraphs of this review written out in my head once this film turned out to be amazing (or even adequate).
Time makes fools of us all however, and in this case the amount of time is 101 minutes. I spent most of that time waiting for anything to happen. Ever take a long road trip and find yourself running low on gas? Ever do that and hit one of those weird stretches of highway where they don’t apparently believe in gas stations (hello West Texas) and as you approach each exit you desperately hope that you will see a Unocal or Mobil sign? Your desperation and eagerness increases with each passed exit until finally you end the movie parked at the side of the road on a desolate two lane highway with nothing but coyotes for company.
So it was for this film. Rob can definitely build atmosphere, and when it comes to horror foreplay he is a master. The problem is every time the build up reached the point where something, anything interesting had to happen it would stop with a screeching jump cut, leaving the audience with the equivalent of movie viewer blue balls. Even in the few scenes where something happens inevitably end up being dreams or hallucinations of some kind. I would like to say that having the main character wake up in a cold sweat after a vividly horrible dream is a cool movie tool to help establish otherwise intangible plot points. However, it should not be used to cover 1/3rd of the scenes. It became so standard during the course of this film that in the final scene where something actually was happening I kept waiting for the main character to wake up yet again.
This is why the film felt more like a Satanic rock video than a film. It is chock full of creepy Satanic images and hallucinations from deep in Charles Manson’s subconscious but lacking in anything really scary or disturbing. The whole thing felt like Rob Zombie messing around on his home editing system, putting together a video of some anti-Christian footage that his friends might enjoy while half drunk but not really for public consumption. Very self indulgent, and given that he cast his wife as the main character and a bunch of his friends as supporting characters I’d say that is an apt description. The whole time I was watching I felt the same burning desire for a fast forward button that I felt while watching Terence Malicks Tree of Life. I know Rob intended this film to be a tribute to the Shining but he more closely parallels Malicks film style, only without the Christian overtones.
The story, I guess. Sheri Moon Zombie (the Devil’s Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses, Grindhouse) plays Heidi Hawthorne, part of a three man late night DJ team that looks like Rob learned a lot from his interviews on the Howard Stern Show (I actually listened to his last appearance on that show and he pretty much says that is where the inspiration came from). She and her fellow DJs Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips-Faster, Hide, Unknown) and Herman (Ken Foree-Dawn of the Dead, the Devil’s Rejects, Water for Elephants) interview Francis Mathias (Bruce Davison-X-Men, Harry and the Hendersons, Short Cuts) the author of a book on the Salem Witch Trials. That night Heidi has a record delivered to her in a wooden box that screams Necronomicon from a band called the Lords. She plays it and begins to hallucinate about witches. The next night she plays it on the air and a bunch of women in the town of Salem are more or less possessed.
At that point things kind of mosey down the road with not much happening. Every ten minutes another amazing scene is set up and seems to be leading to something that could be considered a plot point or pivotal moment, but just as you think something is about to happen Heidi wakes up. A lot of Satanic and anti-Christian messages and images are use. The witches burned (for the record, no witches were burned in Salem. They were all hung. I’m not saying that makes us any more civil than Europe. I’m just a stickler for historical accuracy) are trying to come back and want Heidi to be their vessel from which Lucifer (or something) will be born. Heidi’s landlady and her creepy sisters (Dee Wallace-E.T. the Extraterrestrial, the Howling, Critters Patrical Quinn-the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shock Treatment, The Meaning of Life Judy Gleeson-Gilmore Girls, Spanish Fly, the Duke) are working together to make this happen and at one point beat Francois to death with a frying pan (closest thing to exciting as this film gets, honestly). Religious images are shown over and over again and laughable Satanic verse is spoken in a voice that makes monster truck announcers sound serious.
The stars:
If you have an axe to grind against Christianity and love Satan then this is the movie for you. You can’t say Rob Zombie doesn’t deliver a message. One star. He does create good atmospheres. One star. His wife is pretty damned hot in the scenes where she isn’t looking like a strung out drug user. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes:
No real horror to speak of, nothing scary, and nothing happens. One black hole. The story is about as solid as a soggy corn flake and more or less serves to connect Rob’s images together. One black hole. The course of the entire film is like a beach ball with a BB hole in it, leaking air and finally ending with a vague fart sound and a quiet settling. One black hole. At no point in the film to you get an idea of what the evil plan is or even who the villain is. No antagonist to speak of, and when the plan is finally unveiled you still don’t know what the hell is going on or why you should care. One black hole. I don’t think playing a subdued character is Sheri Moon Zombie’s forte. Furthermore I felt no interest in her character or any kind of connection whatsoever other than she was hot (or any of the other characters for that matter). One black hole. Given the number of times I have bitched about rater R movies that avoid nudity this is weird for me to say, but there is a lot of nudity in this film but with very few exceptions (Sheri being all of them) you will truly regret having seen them. Some things watched can’t be unwatched. One black hole. It’s honestly hard to take Satanic rhetoric seriously. They have all the issues that Christian rhetoric has except that it just sounds silly (if you have ever listened to an Anton Levey interview you know what I mean). I mean, worshiping Satan means you actually believe in the Christian pantheon but are going to go with the guy who will burn you in everlasting fire. One black hole. It’s rare that I have to say this since I usually find something to entertain myself with but as I left the theater I really felt like I had wasted my time. Two black holes. Total: nine black holes.
So a grand total of six black holes. To be honest I was more than generous in my stars and reticent in my black holes. If I weren’t a Zombie fan I would have probably unloaded my black hole shotgun into this movies face and the closest thing to a star I could have found would have been that it was filmed in English. Sorry dude. I honestly hope your next film recaptures some of the magic of your earlier films, or at least has something happen somewhere in the film. Should you see it? Honestly probably not. If you are a Rob Zombie fan I think you will get more from renting the Devil’s Rejects. If you do go see it load up on Strawberry Mojitos at the Applebees down the street beforehand. This movie will look a lot better if you are plastered. Date movie? If I recommend you don’t go see this film there shouldn’t be any kind of logical process that would lead you to taking a date to it unless you secretly hate all women and see dating as your opportunity to punish them all for not being your mom. Bathroom break? There isn’t a single scene of this film (including the “climax”) that you couldn’t easily miss without losing a thing from your movie experience. Cut out, drop a deuce, smoke a cigarette, run back to Applebees to recharge your alcohol battery, and come back in time for the ending credits. Using your imagination while listening to to the post movie fake newscast might just make for a good time.
I always feel dirty after dumping on a movie by someone I like. Why can’t McG come out with something? Wrecking his movies is not only fun but I feel like I am performing a public service. Sigh. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to comment on this film or my review below. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
