A Haunted House Review
Stupid, childish, offensive, and hilarious.
So I had a choice of this one or the Quiet Ones and just felt in the mood to laugh my ass off. Odds are if I were a more serious reviewer I would have gone for the Quiet Ones but in my opinion found footage horror has pretty much advanced as far as it’s going to go. I do not expect that film to blow my brain in original thought or content.
So I saw this film and it was exactly the kind of awful slapstick rated R hilarity you can expect from Marlon Wayans. There is absolutely nothing of note in terms of message or social note. The humor is crude, low brow, offensive, sexual, and derivative. The story is the barest pretext to move the film from set piece to set piece. The special effects are essentially a PA flicking the lights on and off (the movie had a budget of $4MM and it shows. In truth I think even $4MM is a generous estimate). It is a muddled mass of 3rd grade fart jokes and the t shirts you see teamsters wearing (“I’m not a gynecologist but I’ll take a look”, “FBI: Female Body Inspector”, etc.) and bad sight gags. In fact, it has only one redeeming feature and that is it is fricking hilarious.
Yes I laughed my ass off throughout the film. There is a reason crude humor is still humor and the jokes aimed at taking the pressure off racism were amazing. The cast were to a man or woman funny entertainers and knew how to deliver a punchline. Some of the jokes will have you squirming in your seat (or possible retching a little) but in general you will love it.
I will offer up a warning to anyone on the fence about taking their kids to see this film: it is about as hard an R as you can get without going NC-17. Pretty much every sexual act possible was explored (generally with a puppet, but still), the curse words flew out thick and fast, and every bad behavior possible was shown. 
Normally I don’t feel the need to express this but I saw this movie at 10pm on a Tuesday night and the theater was FULL OF FREAKING CHILDREN! I’m not even talking early teens. I’m talking kindergarteners. I know I don’t have kids and probably should keep my noise hole shut but if you take your 5 year old kid to a 10pm showing of a rated R movie that shows the act of analingus on a school night you are a selfish bastard who’s only qualification for parenthood is fertility. When I conquer the world don’t be surprised if you find yourself wearing a shock collar to keep you from doing stupid crap like this. (the children image is funny but really it should say something about parents. Image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Anyway, I supposed I should do a story recap although really, it’s kind of pointless. The story is of Malcolm (Marlon Wayans-Requim for a Dream, White Chicks, Scary Movie) and his cousin Ray Ray (Affion Crockett-Never Back Down, Soul Men, This Means War) escaping from Malcolm’s ex girlfriend psychotic possessed Kisha (Essence Atkins-A Haunted House, Are We There Yet, Half & Half). Apparently this was from the end of the first movie? (Is it fair to for me to review a sequel without having seen the first one? Probably not, although I feel that all movies should stand on their own without a prerequisite. Suck it, Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part II!)
Skip forward a year and Malcolm is moving into a new house with his new girlfriend Megen (Jaime Pressly-Not Another Teen Movie, I Love You Man, My Name is Earl) and her two kids Wyatt (Steele Stebbins-Wish You Were Here) and Becky (Ashley Rickards-Awkward, Gamer, Sassy Pants). Odd stuff starts happening including the dog getting crushed by a safe. Malcolm meets his Mexican neighbor Miguel (Gabriel Iglesias-Magic Mike, Planes, the Nut Job).
He finds some old footage that show an incompetent demon trying and failing to kill the previous family. Becky gets possessed while Wyatt has an imaginary friend who is not so imaginary. Malcolm has sex with a wooden doll (very graphic scene. Pretty much a harder version of the sex scene from Team America) who then ends up stalking him.
Hilarity ensues. Malcolm tries to get rid of the demon haunting him by bringing in psychic team Ned (Hayes MacArthur-the Game Plan, Life as We Know It, She’s Out of My League) and Noreen (Missi Pyle-Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters, the Artist, Big Fish) and then Father William (Cedric the Entertainer-Madagascar, Ice Age, Planes), each with different hilarious results. They jump from ridiculous and funny scene to ridiculous and funny scene.
The stars:
Really, really funny. I spent more time laughing than not. Three stars. Some really good references to current films and TV shows. I especially like the Breaking Bad one. One star. Rated R for this film translates into some great topless scenes. Thank you for remembering that the only reason guys go to see rated R is for massive violence and/or the occasional female breast. One star. In generally a really fun time watching. Two stars. Total: seven stars.
The black holes:
Some of the humor was really off putting or stomach turning. The recurring joke of the creepy wooden doll got really old by the end. One black hole. This film suffers from the same curse that the Scary Movie franchise suffers from in that once you are done watching it you will immediately start forgetting it. There is nothing here that will really stick inside your brain and I could almost hear the flushing sound as my brain started dumping the scenes out of my memory banks. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
So a grand total of five stars. Not bad, but ultimately a moot point. If you like this sort of film you will watch it and enjoy it and if you have an underdeveloped sense of humor and think laughing for longer than it would take you to say the word “laughter” is gauche you will not. Use that as your barometer of whether you should see it or not. Nothing in this film requires a big screen so wait until it shows up on Hulu or whatever. Date movie? Probably not, unless she is an avid fan of the Wayans. A lot of crude humor in this film and in my experience that is just ammunition for her to load up her rejection gun with. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere, but I say that in a good way. All the scenes were at least funny but none of them remotely necessary for your understanding of the “plot”. In fact you could probably see each scene randomly out of order and still enjoy it so go whenever the need takes you. It’s only 89 minutes so odds are you can hold it.
Thanks for reading as always. Naturally I’m going to see the new Spider-Man tonight. I’m both afraid and hopeful. Look for that review tomorrow. Also since big blockbusters like this tend to clear the theaters of other new releases like an unmentionable in a public swimming pool I will be able to catch up on all the films I missed while at Wondercon. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this film or my review can be left here and off topic suggestions or questions emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
“the Infamous Dave” Inman
The Other Woman Review
Testosterone draining for sure, but fun nevertheless.
There are days when I sometimes wish I had been born a woman (is this keyboard on? Dammit!). Not in any sexual sense as I have yet to see anything even remotely male that I found the slightest bit attractive (in fact, one of the biggest mysteries of the dating world for me is how you women even put up with us. If the world actually made logical sense you would all be lesbian and men would live below ground like the Morlocks (or C.H.U.D.s), fighting, drinking beer, watching sports, and occasionally being summoned up for a sperm donation.). More from a social aspect as in my imperfect dating world women have appear to have a lot more power and can use that power to do serious damage.
Now before all the feminists I went to college with write in about the unfair social power dynamic between men and women and how much more power men actually have I acknowledge all that. My perception is based on my miserable life of always being the rejected rather than the rejector and a constant grass is always greener when it comes to dating. Odds are if I looked like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and had enough money in my bank account to actually buy a girl a meal of food I would quickly turn into the man slut he plays in this film and be singing a different toon. However, this is the world I live in and the perception I have.
Also for the record I think women have so many more cool choices in clothes. Men’s fashion has not changed significantly since 1910 and once we settle on a look we generally don’t deviate from it. Also women smell nicer and don’t have to put up a macho front in front of other women. Maintaining all this super machismo is actually a lot of work ladies. I just wish more of you appreciated the effort. Plus free dinners and you are allowed to talk in the ladies room. Sounds good to me.
Anyway, the point is sometimes when I am watching a chick flick I honestly try to see it from the distaff side and this movie made it easy to do. I am not really a Cameron Diaz fan and feel like she has been playing the same role for years but managed to engage with her character a bit. Leslie Mann was my favorite and really really funny, while Kate Upton is like the result of a scientific experiment to concentrate sexual attractiveness to a weaponized level. The fact that she spent most of the movie wearing a bikini did not in any way inhibit my enjoyment of the film if you know what I mean. Each of the three were very distinct and interesting characters and I wanted to learn more about each of them.
Therein lies the flaw however. Instead of having a protagonist for us to connect with we actually have three. Essentially not enough time and effort was spent on any of the three to let the audience really connect, leaving me wishing I knew more about each of them. Little breadcrumbs of character development were strewn about (Leslie Mann’s character was implied to be a creative genius, Kate Upton had a few lines in passing implying some serious personality issues, and there were some hints of interesting daddy issues for Cameron Diaz that could have taken away from her stoic mien) but nothing that really convinced me they were anything other than a high powered driven New York lawyer, a timid fragile suburban housewife, and a hot bimbo.
I suppose an argument could be made that this was supposed to be some kind of team up showing the value of sisterhood but that was treated as a side note. In fact the three protagonists felt like one fully developed character broken up into three distinct fragments. Also once the three of them were introduced the film more or less washed its hands of any further development and then proceeded to drag on like a pushing a car out of gas up Lombard Street. The film was a fairly short 109 minutes but it felt like all 109 of them were in the last half of Act 2.
The male lead and focus of all the feminine vitriol was as despicable as you can imaging but let me clue any female readers out there (for the sake of my self esteem and sanity I hope there are more than three of you. Otherwise 33% of my female readers is my mother) in on a little fact of dating. 
When you see a guy who looks like he just fell out of a Calvin Klein ad and every women he looks at has her skivvies burst into flame odds are far more likely he is a scumbag than the more “average” looking dude out there. Men who put in a lot of effort in looking amazing and have hours a day to be in the gym are doing so for a reason and that reason is generally pulling tail. The “good guys” you ladies claim to want are far to busy working, paying attention to their (hypothetical) girlfriend, and writing long, detailed movie reviews to get waxed and run a marathon. (the image comes from our funny t shirt category and makes me laugh whenever I see it)
Anyway, the movie. It starts out with Carly (Cameron Diaz-Bad Teacher, There’s Something About Mary, Being John Malkovich) dating the current love her her life Mark King (Marking? Really? As in a guy who marks. A little Freudian writer Melissa Stack. Oh, yeah, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau-Headhunters, Mama, Oblivion). She is a sexy, high powered lawyer who is pretty sure the sexual world revolves around her. Mark bails out on dinner with her and her father (Don Johnson-Nash Bridges, Miami Vice, Django Unchained) because his pipe burst but Carly lets her father convince her to travel to his house as a surprise.
There she meets Kate (Leslie Mann-Knocked Up, ParaNorman, This is 40), Marks wife. She bails out but the next day Kate shows up at her work. Kate more or less breaks down and Carly has to get her out and gives her some advice. 
At that point a reluctant friendship begins, mainly due to Kate not having any friends that are not shallow suburban socialites (I grew up with about 10,000 of them) and Carly more or less trying to help Kate not self destruct. Kate convinces Carly to stalk Mark on a trip to the Hamptons and there they meet his other mistress Amber (Kate Upton-Tower Heist, the Three Stooges, Exposure: Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2011).
The three of them form a friendship and bond. As a huge fan of the Count of Monte Cristo I would love to say they started cooking up a revenge plot but a lot of the film seemed to be them just stumbling from set piece to set piece. The character focus shifts from Carly to Kate (to the betterment of the film in my opinion. Kate was a more intriguing character) with Amber floating in the background. A romance starts between Carly and Kate’s brother Phil (Taylor Kinny-Zero Dark Thirty, Chicago Fire, Trauma). The film drags through a very long segment and eventually remembers that stuff is supposed to happen in time for a fairly fun if predictable denouement.
The stars:
I definitely found moments to laugh at. Parts of this film were very funny. Two stars. Acting was good all around, even Kate Upton (at least I hope it was acting). One star. I especially liked Leslie Mann and found her both funny as hell and extremely engaging. She was the character I was most interested in. One star. Kate Upton was eye-bleedingly gorgeous. One star. 
Every other woman in the film was at least super hot, especially Carly’s assistant Lydia (Nicki Minaj-Friends with Benefits, The Hangover Part 2, Pitch Perfect). One star. Mark was a total scumbag that you wanted to see bad stuff happen to and when it does you get satisfied. One star. I won’t say great story but it was competent. Given the dross that makes up most of Hollywood scripts were this being graded on a curve it would warrant a B- at least. One star. As I left the theater I decided I had not wasted my time (always the real challenge for a manly man such as myself when watching a chick flick). Two stars. Total: ten stars.
The black holes:
The splitting of character focus in three different directions was not a good move. They either needed to consolidate or add another 20 minutes to the run time. I really could have used more info on each of the characters. One black hole. I thought pacing was great at first but about 40 minutes in the whole film slowed down to an almost complete halt. I was seriously wishing for a fast forward button. This might have been the perfect time to inject some of that missing character development I just spoke of. One black hole. While Kate’s desire for revenge was both comprehensible and legitimate working to ruin the life of a man who you only dated for two months seems a little extreme. Carly and Amber seemed gung ho to literally destroy Mark and some of the stuff they pulled on him had me squirming in my seat. If you have ever had any kind of distrust of women or fear of them wrecking your life you should probably give this film a miss. One black hole. This may sound petty but I really found Don Johnson’s character fake and out of place. He wasn’t in it much but every time he showed up I disconnected from the film and remembered I was in a crummy theater in Oakland surrounded by happy couples and attractive women I was too shy to talk to. I can honestly say I have always been neutral towards him as an actor so this has no previous bias. One black hole. At the end of the film they did a whole Animal House/American Graffiti-esque “where are they now” text montage that was completely out of tone with the rest of the film and totally unnecessary. Pretty much everything they said in the text was on the screen and completely obvious. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of 5 stars. Not bad. Worthy of your time. However nothing really needed to be seen on a giant screen except for Kate Upton slow motion jogging in a bikini so if that is not your focus wait for NetFlix. If it is your focus try to see it on IMAX. Date movie? Hell yeah. She will love it and you will have some nice eye candy to keep you interested. However if you are planning on cheating on your girlfriend you should probably stay away. This film might give her ideas. Bathroom break? Anywhere in that dead zone I talked about would do fine. If I had to pick a scene I’d the dinner with Mark and Kate is pretty missable. The film has already established that Mark is pond scum and nothing in that scene will do anything other than reinforce that.
Thanks for reading. I’m seeing either A Haunted House 2 or The Quiet Ones tonight so look for a funny horror review of some kind tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review please post them here and if you have off topic questions or suggestion email the to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
“The Infamous Dave” Inman
Brick Mansions Review
Let’s think of another kind of house made out of bricks.
It seems like every time I see another Luc Besson film I go off on a “what the hell happened to this guy” diatribe so I will skip it this time around. I think I am done wondering what happened to his talent and instead am wondering if he ever had any talent. I think it entirely possible his particular brand of bad movie making skills hit at the exact right time when that style of crap was considered in vogue. Either that or he spent most of his life making his few good films and has been coasting ever since (I am not discounting the possibility of some kind of serious brain injury, however).
As a fan of the Fast and Furious series I feel bad dumping on Paul Walkers last film. I know he liked working on it and I wish he had come out with something better but honestly this film is junk. It’s everything bad in modern action films plus somehow Luc keeps using his time machine to travel back to 2004 when parkour was still considered cool. I saw District B13 (I think it was called Barrio 13) in 2007 and enjoyed it but even then it seemed dated. Seeing it done again in English watered down to PG-13 with the same dude but about 100 times hokier did not make for a good movie experience.
The last few Luc Besson projects I have seen have convinced me he actually has no understanding of American culture and really should stick to doing French films. He looks at the problems in our country and proceeds to think “Wouldn’t it be cool/terrible if they did this?” and proceeds to set up his film based on that without considering the fact that it could never actually happen. Sorry, Luc, but mafia murderers in witness protection do not live lavish lifestyles in Normandy on the US dime (and get away with murder), the CIA does not have carte blanche to run rampant through France, 10 year old girls cannot life 300 pound manhole covers, US politicians are not so devoid of morals that they think dropping a neutron bomb in downtown Detroit is the fast track to urban gentrification, and the ability to jump fences and climb walls does not translate into the ability to dodge several thousand bullets shot at your main characters.
Let me expound a little on that last one and a phenomenon I have seen in certain foreign directors before. You see, whether you are for guns or against them growing up in America you learn to respect firearms. To understand their destructive power you either need to fire off a few thousand rounds or be in constant danger of having them fired at you. Foreign directors from countries where guns are much more controlled I have noticed tend to treat guns as something a few martial arts tricks can easily get around. Being an expert in parkour does not give you the ability to dodge bullets constantly.
This is all the the detriment of the film of course. The measure of a hero is in the strength of his adversaries. Every time the two main guys jump, flip, and kick another 20 well armed thugs into PG-13 friendly unconsciousness the tension of the film drains another few gallons. The best movie characters are ones who could die at any moment from any of the bad guys and take a beating just doing it. Just compare John McClane (from the first movie of course) to any modern action hero where they mow down dozens of bad guys who seem to feel the need to actually aim is purely for squares and you will see what I mean (in fact, compare John McClane from the first Die Hard to John McClane from A Good Day To Die Hard and you will understand). The weaker the villains the weaker the hero, and the villains in this film are weak.
For that matter the main villain, Tremaine, was woefully ill used. I can honestly say I liked RZA in this role far better than any film he has done to date (especially the Man with the Iron Fists) and had his character been better written I would have like him a lot. The problem is his character kept shifting back and forth from violent street thug, Robin Hood, business man, gangster poet, and sociopath. The shifts would happen rapidly and always at the exact moment to best propel the ridiculous plot.
This film is not exactly a model for positive racial relations either. The good guys are all white, the gangsters are all assorted minorities (mostly black), and the few white criminals are all more blue collar brainy types. However, Luc has never been one for steering clear of racial stereotypes (Taken-white girl kidnapped by Albanians to be sold as a sex slave to Arabs, the Professional had 0.0 non white characters, and we don’t even want to get started on his treatment of the Mangalores in the Fifth Element). The real question is is this a purposeful statement about the future socio economic status of race relations in run down American cities or is he just being a lazy writer. I bet you can guess which way my opinion leans.
For all that it is better than the last few movies he has done. I didn’t feel the need to punch someone on the way out after I did when I saw the Family, and I didn’t have to find my motivation to keep my higher brain functions operating like I did after 3 Days to Kill. The fast pace of the story kept it from being boring and if you had a sudden bout of amnesia and forgot the last 12 years you would probably think all the parkour pretty neat. 
David Belle is an amazing parkour stunt man and does most of it himself. (Stunts image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Anyway, let’s get this story over with, shall we? It is Detroit in the near future and the crime ridden tenement (block? building? neighborhood? How much of Detroit is a bad Escape from New York knockoff?) known as Brick Mansions has had a giant wall erected around it to keep the criminals feeding on each other and the hapless poor that live there (that’s the American spirit! Although since the residents of Brick Mansions seem to go in and out of the gates with impunity what was this supposed to do exactly? Other than give criminals the perfect place to hide out). Lino (I thought his name was Leito? Oh, that was the last time Luc made this movie. David Belle-District B13, the Family, Babylon A.D.) is a local parkour vigilante who has stolen a ton of some white powder that may or may not be drugs (isn’t PG-13 fun?) and is flushing it down the toilet for some reason (I guess he wants to clean up the street? Not a lot of explaining going on in this film). Local gangster K2 (Gouchy Boy-Maximum Conviction, Cosmopolis, Max Payne) shows up with cartoonish S&M sidekick Rayzah (Ayisha Issa-Warm Bodies, the Immortals, L’appât) and about 100 more stereotypes to get it back. Lino run, jumps, and kicks his way to freedom.
The head gangster Tremaine (RZA-the Man with the Iron Fists, Pacific Rim, Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai) is annoyed at his underlings losing his powder so they decide to kidnap Lino’s ex girlfriend Lola (Catalina Denis-Le Mac, Corsair, Go Fast) in a diner in broad daylight outside of this DMZ. Lino breaks in to rescue her in another exciting chase scene where for some reason a Browning .50 cal manages to specifically NOT turn a Mustang into a small pile of scrap metal and bloody meat (remember what I said about Luc not really respecting or understanding guns). He manages to get her to the Detroit PD checkpoint where he is betrayed by local cops on Tremaine’s payroll. Tremaine takes Lola away for some reason (? Sex slave? Someone to listen to his megalomaniacal rants? Some form of motivation for the characters might be in order) and Lino kills the corrupt cop.
Meanwhile undercover cop Damian (Paul Walker-the whole Fast and Furious series, Pawn Shop Chronicles, Takers) busts a local drug dealer in a high speed chase. The next day he is called into the mayors office and told that a neutron bomb capable of killing several square blocks of city being transported through Detroit was captured by local Brick Mansion gansters and has a special case that will activated the bomb in 12 hours if anyone unauthorized opens the case (WTF Luc??? That’s your plot device???) and he needs to sneak into the hood and deactivate it. In order to do so he needs the help of Lino (Detroit PD must take a pretty soft view of cop killers).
Damian is thrown in a moving van with Lino as a fellow prisoner and they manage to take over the van by throwing the two officers driving it out onto the freeway at speed (I’m sure they were fine). Lino smells Damian out as a cop and they fight. Lino leaves Damian to be killed by some locals but naturally Damian escapes and convinces Lino to help him (those cops who where were thrown out of a moving vehicle will no doubt be happy to know their sacrifice in the name of maintaining the whole Damian criminal facade was completely unnecessary).
At that point Damian and Lino jump, kick, punch, and flip their way through uncounted hordes of gun wielding thugs (how does any business make enough money to have a couple of hundred dudes lying around playing Xbox instead of actually producing something?). Rayzah does some kinky BDSM stuff with Lola in order to do nothing for the story (PG-13 BDSM, BTW). Tremaine has figured out that the bomb is counting down and straps it to an old missile they happened to have lying around.
Damian and Lino shoot the missile launcher (something that the mayor and his buddies are immediately aware of. How, exactly?) and the two get to the bomb to input the deactivation code. SPOILER ALERT It turns out that the mayor of Detroit actually needed the neutron bomb to go off in order to murder a few hundred thousand people so he could develop some kind of downtown shopping center. Talk about extreme real estate. The code that they gave Damian to deactivate the bomb is actually the code to activate it and in a truly stupid twist is also the zip code for Brick Mansions.
Let’s talk about how dumb this is. OK, assuming the mayor of Detroit has access to weapons of mass destruction and the the lack of morals to use it on his constituents why the hell would they use the zip code for the area they are trying to destroy as the activation key? Does he have some kind of dark sense of humor and is willing to risk his entire plot to have a laugh at all the people he is about to murder? For that matter what kind of bomb needs to be activated by a keypad on the bomb itself? No one has ever heard of remote detonation? The military is in the habit of building bombs that require someone literally committing suicide in order to set it off? Also are they really in the habit of storing bombs in cases that activate when the bomb when the case is opened? OK, now let’s assume his plan worked and the bomb went off. Does he not think there would be about 100,000 FBI, CIA, and DHS agents investigating every aspect of an event like that? Not to mention about 100,000,000 internet conspiracy trolls. And then the land goes to a development company that he happens to own. Nothing suspicious there. Is that how property is transferred in the USA? Kill the residents and then build a mall on it? Also neutron bombs kill people with radiation so I guess you will have a ton of money on power bills as everything will have a natural glow. Is the bomb set to stop its blast radius at exactly the Brick Mansions wall? Also do you really think people are going to be happy working and shopping on the mass grave of hundreds of thousands of people? Hell, we don’t even build on Native American graveyards. Did none of you ever see Pet Cemetery?
Sorry for that tangent but in a business where I am inundated with stupid evil plans and plot devices that one truly stood out as the stupidest. It’s also the most unnecessary. There are any number of other plot devices that could have worked without making my brain swell up inside my skull. The story ends up with another really dumb hokey ending.
The stars:
If you are into parkour this movie will work for you. Let me know how your MySpace page is doing, and watch out for that new company called Facebook. One star. I will have to give one for Paul Walker. I am sorry things went down for him like it did. One star. Catalina Denis is stunning, and for some reason her wholesome Americana diner uniform looked a lot like what a stripper Catholic school girl would wear. One star. If mindless action, car chases, and wildly inaccurate gunfire is your thing welcome to heaven. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes:
The whole plot couldn’t be stupider if it had been about the Garbage Pail Kids conquering the world. I’m not kidding when I say it was insultingly dumb. Two black holes. A bonus black hole for using the zip code as the suicide bomb activation code. One black hole. Every time Damian and Lino managed to defeat another 20 guys with guns without firing a shot themselves your interest in the film evaporates even more. If there is no chance of them being killed who cares? One black hole. This film fell into a PG-13 sinkhole and never climbed back out. One black hole. As hot as Ayisha Issa is her character was truly laughable. I’m pretty sure Luc put her in because he wanted something to jerk off to. One black hole. Racial stereotypes up the arse. One black hole. Tremaine’s inability to pick a character and stick with it. One black hole. Luc’s complete lack of understanding of American culture is both humerus and insulting. We don’t make a lot of films about how much France sucks in French and open it in Paris (no we do it in English and open it here in the good old USA. God Bless America!). One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
Total of 5 black holes. A pretty poor score but like I said one of the best I have given a Luc project in a while. Worth seeing at all? Maybe if you dream of the day a group of parkour ninjas takes over the world. Maybe if you are a Paul Walker fan (in that case go see any of the F&F movies IMO). Maybe if you went to the movies drunk as hell and wandered into the wrong theater by accident. Other than that not really. Date movie? Nope. Bathroom break? Well, if you are really into the story (I almost typed that sentence without bursting into laughter) I’d say the best point would be the BDSM scene between Lola and Rayzah. It is way less fun and sexy as it sounds and does nothing but make you laugh at her character even more.
Thanks for reading. I saw the Other Woman last night and will try to write it up later today. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. You can post comments on this film or my review here (although lately I am buried in spam so if I mass delete your note I apologize) and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thanks for reading and have a great day.
“The Infamous Dave” Inman
Draft Day Review
Dodgy.
Yes, I know. It’s been over a week since my last post but contrary to popular belief writing these reviews is not my full time job (although in truth I wish it was. The t shirt business is a lot of hard work). I spent most of the last week either at Wondercon or preparing for it (plus about 15 hours tearing along the dotted line known as the 5 freeway).
I’m back however and feeling the need to express myself with regards to film. I saw this film before I left and have had a lot of time to think about it. I have said before that while I have little to no interest in watching sports of any kind I love sports movies. I honestly find football and baseball painfully boring but a film about a plucky down-on-it’s luck team coming back and trouncing their hated rivals puts a big smile on my face (with the obvious exception of the Mighty Ducks, of course).
However, with this film I discovered that my interest level in the intricacies of managing a team from behind a desk is even lower than watching the sport in question (or watching paint dry). In the military it is said that good generals study tactics while great generals study logistics but when it comes to military film entertainment I would choose to see a film about guys fighting a major battle, not struggling to process the requisition paperwork to get canned beef to the front line. When the most exciting scenes include ducking into a supply closet for a private meeting and following the main characters mother onto a football practice field for a memorial service you can forgive me if I keep spamming the “excite me now” button.
I’m also going to bitch about the marketing for this film. I have seen this trailer several dozen times over the last few months and it tries very hard to convince you that the film is about a football super genius who has a secret plan that is going to save his beloved team and make him out to be a star. That sort of thing is very cool. However what we have hear is a hapless and modestly lost fellow who spends most of the movie bumbling around like a cat in a tumble dryer, dealing with situation after situation and more or less coming to his happy ending through dumb luck. There seems to be some kind of attempt at implying it was all some amazing plan but that part is lost in the Leaving Las Vegas approach to dealing with life that the main guy seems to have.
This film looks and feels like someone has finally realized his long term dream of doing an NFL movie in support of his favorite team. As someone who only knows what draft day is from watching the League I had no idea what most of the movie was about and even less interest in learning. The intricacies of NFL team politics seems like a lot to stake a major film on and in my mind the guys who actually would know or care about them would want to see a football film with actual football in it. The rest of us should (and based on the box office returns did) get bored pretty quick. The film may or may not have intended to be just a character study of Sonny Weaver Jr. but so much of the focus was on the team, the negotiations, the politics, and the personalities of literally dozens of minor yet fully developed characters who appear on the screen without a nonce of exposition to explain who they are or why we should give a crap about them only to have them vanish into the ether like a fart on a windy night that the study gets lost completely.
(A perfect example of this “character from nowhere” phenomenon is someone tells Sonny that some guy (don’t expect me to remember all the names) just trashed his office and I’m like “Wait, who is this guy? Why would he be pissed? Why should I care? Why isn’t Sonny having him escorted out in an arm lock?” only to find out that he is the current quarterback and due to be replaced if Sonny drafts some other dude we haven’t even seen yet. In my experience the more “W” questions an audience comes up with the “W”eaker the script).
And finally, the wipes. Did you ever see the episode of the Simpsons where Homer and Lisa are making a video and Homer insist on using a star wipe for every scene change? Well remember that when you see this movie. Someone gave Ivan Reitman some new wipes where he starts off with a guy on the phone, they split screen to the other guy, and the first guy walks through other guys scene. It would have been impressive as hell in 1993 but now it makes the movie look very much like a student film and is more than a little distracting. If you see this you will know what I mean.
All that being said this film does not totally suck. Ivan Reitman does know a thing or two about editing and story telling and the cast was literally as talented as you could possibly get (as long as you are a fan of Waterworld and the Postman, that is). Lots of good camera work and scenes shot from around the country giving fans of almost any team a chance to see their stadium and possible a player or two. However, all the good aspects of the film only manage to highlight how blase and pointless the story ultimately is.
The story is of Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner-3 Days to Kill, 3000 Miles to Graceland (ha ha ha I totally forgot he was in that stinker), Dances with Wolves. By the way, did you know they did a Field of Dreams 2? It’s a short, but still…), general manager of the Cleveland Browns on Draft Day. He starts his day finding out from his secret girlfriend Ali (Jennifer Garner-Juno, Dallas Buyers Club, Daredevil) that she is pregnant (you know, I’m not a woman but unless I was a totally unbalanced psychotic I might have considered waiting 24 hours on what is the biggest day of Sonny’s life before telling him). His team sucks and everyone hates him so he needs to do something impressive or his boss whatshisface (sorry but it’s been eight days since I saw this and this is one of those films where IMDB lists every one of the literally dozens of characters completely out of order so unless it’s a very distinct character I’m going to be skipping on a lot of IDs).
Sonny is getting calls from guys who want to play for him including Vonte Mack (Chadwick Boseman-42, the Kill Hole, All My Children), who needs to be drafted early to pay for his nephews or something. Sonny gets a trade with some other team for first pick which gives him a chance at Bo Callahan (Josh Pence-Battleship, Gangster Squad, the Social Network), the hottest quarterback. Some people are happy with it and some pissed off. The story kind of goes from one convoluted scene after another and since I’m already at 1200 words for a movie I saw a week ago I’m going to say it ends with all the loose ends tied up except for the big one of did Sonny plan this whole thing around or did he just get incredibly lucky?
The stars:
Cast was all around great. Way more talented than the story deserved. Two stars. If you are writing your doctoral thesis on NFL draft politics this film could be quite informative. One star. I do like a film that is willing to travel to get some shots rather than shoot the whole thing within six blocks of that old studio apartment I had in downtown LA. One star. Pacing, editing, and camera work were talented. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes:
Boring. I can honestly say that Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land had me more interested back in 4th grade and all the football insider references made it effectively inaccessible to someone who just wants to see a sports movie. One black hole. So many personalities coming in and fading out it was nigh impossible to pay attention to the actual main characters. One black hole. The convoluted nature of the trades and politics will hurt your brain and leave you wondering what the hell just happened. One black hole. The whole question of “Was Sonny Weaver Jr. some kind of mad genius with a diabolical plan or just a lucky dope?” bugged me for about six of the fifteen hours I spent driving this last weekend. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So one star total, pretty much the very definition of a mundane film in my opinion. Worth seeing? Sure, if you are a huge Browns or football fan. If you are more intrigued by the real draft day than actually watching football you can enjoy it but if not pass. Nothing in this film needs to be seen on a big screen so feel free to Netflix it. Date movie? A big fat nope. You will be bored, and she will be bored and hate you for dragging her to this sports BS and punish you by making you watch the next three testicle shriveling chick flicks to come down the pike. Choose your battles my friend. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere you like but the scene with Sonny’s mother marching out onto the field to do a memorial for her dead husband is especially worthless. 
Also, why the hell was Sonny’s ex wife there? (loved and lost image courtesy of the Funny t shirt category) Also again unless his mother were a complete psychopath another event that she might have considered waiting 24 hours for.
Thanks for reading. I’m going to get back into it and hopefully caught up soon on the latest films. I’ll go see Transcendence tonight and write it up tomorrow. I have some hope for that film (of course, hope can be the cruelest poison). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this film or review can be left here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave Inman
Bad Words Review
Funny, clever, and full of bad words.
I have not to date been a fan of Jason Bateman. Sure I loved Arrested Development but he was the least interesting character on there, and since then every time I see him he is in a movie that seems to think someone eating excrement is the epitome of humor and cleverness (I’m literally talking literally BTW). I heard Identity Thief was decent but I still had the sour aftertaste of Horrible Bosses and the Change-Up causing me to dry heave and managed to miss it.
So I was not exactly chomping at the bit to see this one. I did listen to a great interview with Jason on the Howard Stern Show and he managed to warm me up to the base concept of the film. I rolled into a late showing with my mind relatively open and the thoughts “How bad could it be? It’s not like he’s co-starring with Ryan Reynolds again.”
89 minutes later I rolled out having laughed my way through most of it. Not only was it funny without devolving to the lowest strata of humor it was actually clever and well written. You really get to connect with the two main characters in spite of the fact that one of them is painfully repulsive. I went on a date this last weekend (with a human female!) and as part of our very pleasant conversation the girl told me about the six elements of a play according to Aristotle. They are plot, character, theme, language, rhythm, and spectacle. I think these could be translated in modern movies to story, character, tone, dialog, pacing, and cinematography. Any movie that nails two of these six is on track to be a winner and both Aristotle and I seem to agree that plot and character are the most important (yeah, Ari and I are going to grab a beer later). It’s tragic how few movies try to achieve more than even one of these and how many manage to not hit even one. This one managed to hit 5 of the six and even the cinematography was decent.
(Note-if you are a regular reader and are reeling in shock at the twin ideas of me using a classical literature reference and having a date with a girl you are no more stunned than I. I’m still waiting for the Earth to reverse the direction of it’s spin. Shakespeare image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Once in a while this “job” affords me moments of deep satisfaction and this is one of them. If you recall when I reviewed the medical waste of a film Jack and Jill one of the few stars that movie earned was for the Indian kid who played Jack’s adopted son. 
I thought Rohan Chand was cute, funny, and talented and at the time said I hoped his first movie roll being the cinema equivalent of a sucking chest wound would not inhibit his future career. I was gratified to see him resurface as the other main character in this project and he nailed it. If that kid doesn’t Macaulay Culkin it he is going to be a big name in future film. I just hope they don’t turn him into the go to guy for every movie that needs a token Indian character.
The story is about a grown man named Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman-Arrested Development, Identify Thief, Horrible Bosses) who uses a loophole in the rules to enter a spelling bee for kids. He is aided by internet journalist Jenny Widgen (Kathryn Hahn-We’re the Millers, the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) and they bully their way into the qualifying match. He more or less has a photographic memory and crushes the competition. He is also a complete ass hat and verbally abuses everyone around him.
On the plane ride to the national finals he meets Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand-Jack and Jill, Lone Survivor, Homeland), another competitor. Chaitanya annoys him and Guy tells him to shut up in a very inappropriate and borderline racist manner. The next day he is told by the spelling bee officiator (Allison Janney-Finding Nemo, Juno, American Beauty) that he is not welcome and is only going to embarrass himself. She puts him up in a storage closet at the hotel.
At that point it is just a series of really funny set pieces where Guy screws up his competitor while offending people. He is heartless and has no remorse regarding ruining the dreams of young kids. The officiator (under pressure from assorted parents) tries to cheat him out of the running. 
Guy has a very dysfunctional relationship with Jenny. He develops a weird friendship with Chaitanya (who’s own dad is kind of a dick). Eventually he is confronted by the main spelling bee guy Dr. Bowman (Philip Baker Hall-Bruce Almighty, the Insider, 50/50) who more or less calls him a lifelong loser.
I don’t want to delve in too deep in the story as it is really good. Sufficed to say I was very pleased with the direction the plot took and it where the story ended up.
The stars:
Guy is an awesome character that you can’t help but like and root for in spite of the fact that he is a total dick. One star. All the rest of the cast was all very agreeable characters and well portrayed. One star. Rohan Chand was perfect as the kid competitor. One star. Story was great and not at all what I expected. One star. The dialog was brilliant, especially for Guy. His insults would peel paint. One star. A rated R movie that functioned well as rated R. They didn’t just throw stuff in the qualify as rated R to suckle off the Hangover teat. One star. In a weird way one of the more believable stories I have seen in a while. One star. Really, really funny. Two stars. In the end a great time watching. Two stars. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes:
It honestly felt short. The ending kind of ran up on you and resolved itself a little fast IMO. At 89 minutes I don’t think anyone would have objected to another 10 minutes. One black hole. If you are the type who is bothered by kids listening to profanity or being injected into other wildly inappropriate situations prepare to have your ears bleed. A couple of the scenes with Rohan you almost expect the police raid the set. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
A grand total of nine stars and my rousing recommendation that you see it. One of the best comedies I have seen in a couple years. I am now a Jason Bateman fan and will go back and see some of the films I missed. Should you see it? Yes. Yes you should. Date movie? If your date has a good sense of humor absolutely. If not or you are not sure don’t take the chance. This film is potentially very polarizing. Either she will love it or hate it and hate you through association. Bathroom break? Hmm. Good question. The film is short and most of the scenes are really funny. I think if I really needed to go I would choose the scene where Jenny hooks up with her FBI ex boyfriend at a bar in order to get some background info on Guy. Nothing critical happens and any of the scenes without Guy in it are less interesting.
Thanks for reading. I am going to go see Noah tonight and will consider writing it up tomorrow. I tend to steer clear of the religious stuff but from what I can see this movie has very little to do with the Bible. I’ll probably do it but am kind of dreading it. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and like us on Facebook up at the top. If you have a comment on this film or my review post it here, and if you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected] (especially if you want to advertize on the blog and/or can get me free movie tickets or advanced screenings. Money for popcorn and tickets doesn’t grow on trees you know (unless it’s paper money)). Talk to you soon.
Dave Inman
Divergent Review
I kind of liked it.
Yeah, not bad. It’s definitely better than all the Twilight movies lumped together. Not as good as the Hunger Games IMO but if this were a a fancy awards banquet the two movies could sit at the same table rather than out in the alley dining on fried rat like the Host or Mortal Instruments. Of all the lame attempts to launch a new franchise for teenie bopper girls since Hunger Games this is probably the one most likely to succeed.
Why is it not as good as Hunger Games? Well, I think Catniss is a more interesting character and the girl playing her does a more credible job but honestly it boils down to how many questions come to my mind about the society the movie is sent in and how dumb it sounds. The world of the Hunger Games kind of makes sense to me. After a revolution the country is broken up into districts where the lower classes are repressed while the upper crust lives a lavish and decadent lifestyle with a taste for blood sports (1,000 years from now when historians are discussing the decline and fall of Western civilization (haw!) it will be realized that Reality TV is the gladiatorial blood sport of the first part of this millenia). It all makes a kind of sense to me and with a realistic future context the movie does too.
Much less so with this film. In the world of Divergent society has been broken up into five factions: Abnegation (The Selfless), who live a life of poverty and community service; Erudite (The Intelligent), who are the brainy scientists and big brain thinkers; Dauntless (The Brave), who are super sexy soldiers and action guys; Amity (The Peaceful), who are farmers and such; and Candor (The Honest), who tell the truth always and tend to be judges and lawyers (there’s the very first real disconnect). Each kid is given a test to recommend what group to join but at 18 they can go anywhere they like. So at age 18 a kid is supposed to choose to be a super cool action hero, a nerdy scientist, or one of three types of slave. Anyone else see a problem with that? Why would any kid not choose Dauntless? Within a generation the society would be like 88% Dauntless, 6% Erudite, 3% Candor, and the remaining 3% would choose the life of a street cleaner or plow horse. You make your decision in the space of a few seconds and are committed for life. A life of poverty and selflessness is something you decide to do at 45, not 18.
There is a lot of talk about how this is the perfect society but does forcing a kid at 18 to choose his or her life forever with no chance of change sound like a recipe for happiness? Also what is up with this breakdown of humanity into five groups? Dauntless is supposed to be there to protect everyone from…something? Someone? In the first ten minutes I figured out that the only group that Dauntless would have to protect their society from would be Dauntless and lo was it so. They made an effort to show that the groups were more or less equal in numbers so that means that this society has a standing army of 20% of it’s population? Who grow nothing and contribute nothing to the betterment of society other than protecting everyone from some threat that hasn’t manifested itself in over 100 years? 20% is lawyers, 20% public servants, etc. It doesn’t make sense. The story is basically about Erudite using Dauntless to take over the society but the leaders of Dauntless all seemed like a-hole sociopaths too so why did Dauntless not take over like 80 years ago?
Also only 20% of the population is farmers who look like they farm by hand. Seems like not a lot of food production going on. Also who manufactures all the high tech semi-automatic rifles and brain control drugs? If 80% of your society is in the military, government, law, and science that puts a lot of pressure on the last 20% all of whom seem to think that a three crop rotation system is a newfangled idea.
Also the city of Chicago is pretty well wrecked but they have the resources to build hi tech research facilities? No one has the inclination or resources to rebuild or knock down wrecked buildings? No danger of any of them collapsing and killing a few hundred people. They had the resources to build the worlds biggest wall to protect them from…who was that again? I’m a big fan of dystopian and post-apocalyptic futures but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t have your characters wandering the set of Escape from New York and then hang out in the Apple Store.
Speaking of the wall they talk about how it works to protect the city from…someone. I guess their mysterious enemies have forgotten the secret of gunpowder and artillery. Static walls as a defense went the way of the crossbow about the time Napoleon was conquering the Europe.
So the Erudites develop mind control technology and use it to get control of Dauntless and take over the city at gun point. Why not just say “Hey, we’ve developed a new immunization for the dread disease Exploding Head Syndrome (EHS). Everyone in the city come get it in the next two weeks” and then just run the show?
You see what I mean? The more questions that come to mind of an average everyman such as myself the less believable the whole premise is. Every time an audience member says “Hmm…” you are bleeding credibility. All that aside (plus a few more that I didn’t bother to add to this review) the movie was engaging and interesting.
However let me talk about one thing last thing. I guess since Twilight the recipe for success with teenage girls who read this sort of thing is a main female character who as bland as possible and Tris could win a lifetime achievement award for being the blandiest. I’m not kidding when I say that every supporting character in this film was more interesting than she up to and including her super bland brother. I’m willing to bet that a lot of marketing research goes into this sort of thing and Hollywood has determined that teenage girls find it easier to project themselves into the main role when that character has the personality of a human shaped Roomba. It works but makes things harder for those of us who appreciate a little complexity in our characters. I’m not looking for Roy Batty or Marge Gunderson here but give me something more interesting than the HAL 9000.
Spoilers incoming so if you are going to see it and haven’t read the book skip ahead. The story is of young Tris (Shailene Woodley-the Descendants, the Magnificent Now, the Secret Life of an American Teenager), a girl who grew up in Abnegation with her mother Natalie (Ashley Judd-Heat, Double Jeopardy, Olympus has Fallen), father Andrew (Tony Goldwyn-the Last Samurai, Ghost, the 6th Day), and brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort-Carrie, the Fault in Our Stars, Men Women and Children). She goes in for her test and is told by tester Tori (Maggie Q-Priest, Live Free or Die Hard, Nikita) that she failed to qualify for any of the factions and is Divergent. You wouldn’t think that such a big deal since each kid can choose anyway but apparently it is. She is told to say she tested out Abnegation.
The next day at the choosing ceremony her brother goes Erudite and she goes Dauntless. This is a big deal as it severely discredits Abnegation’s qualifications to run the city or something. She then enters a fairly cool training sequence (as a fan of Kung Fu movies I love training montages) with fellow novices Christina (Zoe Kravitz-X Men First Class, After Earth, the Brave One. Lenny Kravitz daughter BTW and looking super duper cute), Will (Ben Lloyd-Hughes-The Scapegoat, Tormented, Great Expectations), Al (Christian Madsen-the Brazen Bull, Lost in the Woods, Refuge from the Storm), and jerk Peter (Miles Teller-can someone please tell Hollywood that I hate this guy? I have despised every other movie that he as done and were we in high school together I would want to see him get his ass kicked daily. 
Here are three movies that I crapped all over with him in them: Project X, 21 and Over, That Awkward Moment. So Annoying image from the Funny T Shirt collection). Their trainer is Four (Theo James-the Inbetweeners, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Underworld: Awakening) under his commander Eric (Jai Courtney-Jack Reacher, I Frankenstein, A Good Day to Die Hard).
The training is hard and the lowest ranked trainees are destined to be kicked out to be homeless. At first Tris sucks but over time gets better. However her Divergent nature is constantly in danger of being recognized and that would result in her death. Four coaches her. She passes her test but it turns out that the reason Divergents are hated is that the mind control technology doesn’t work on them. Erudite tries to take over and things fall apart.
The stars:
Unlike Twilight there was some cool action, and unlike Mortal Instruments it wasn’t all about some Buffy wannabe kicking the crap out of people. Kind of fun and believable. One star. In spite of all my questions the story wasn’t irredeemable. It was like Swiss cheese. Full of (plot) holes but the stuff surrounding the holes was good to eat. One star. Most of the characters were engaging. Even Shailene Woodley did the best she could with the role she was given. One star. A good training montage is a balm to my reviewer soul. One star. I’ve had a thing for Maggie Q ever since Priest, and Zoe Kravitz is a heartbreaker. Shailene is easy to look at too. One star. There were some really good cinematographics. The hallucinations were good and there was a zip line sequence that I enjoyed watching a lot. One star. The wrecked Chicago sets were cool, especially the flying over the city panning shots. One star. In general a fun movie. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes:
No way I can let that many plot and setting holes slip by unscathed. Look at the list of questions from above. Two black holes. The whole super hi tech society living hand in hand with the set of the Road Warrior hurt the tone. Make up your mind. One black hole. Normally I would ding a film like this for PG-13 but honestly it didn’t hurt the action much and I didn’t feel any need for nudity (well, any more than I do on a daily basis). No black hole there. The blandness of the main character drained my ability to connect with her and the romance between Tris and Four had all the chemistry of mixing two different brands of bottled water together. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of 5 stars. Honestly not bad, and when compared to the other plastic surgery disasters (haw! again. I’m really feeling my punk rock roots today) jumping on board the “this is the new Twilight” train quite good. Should you watch it? If you liked Hunger Games absolutely. If you like fun movies yes. If you want a complex character to sink your brain teeth into probably not. Date movie? For sure. You will not be bored yourself and if my theory on bland female teenage action movie protagonists holds true you will have a greatly enhanced chance of getting laid (my own chance might have even skyrocketed into the positive integers!). Bathroom break? This film clocks in at a massive 139 minutes so odds are you will need one. I’d say the scene right after Four rescues Tris from some of her classmates could be missed pretty easily.
Thanks for reading. I will be seeing the new Muppets movie shortly and will try to write it up tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments on this film here or send off topic questions and suggestions to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Single Mom’s Club Review
I kind of liked it and am having a difficult time figuring out why.
Occasionally I will see a movie that is so far outside the pram that my friends all ask “Why in the world did you see that movie?” This is not a question that haunts me however. As I am sitting in the theater waiting for the movie to start I can see the logical steps in my mind and life that led me to watching What to Expect When You’re Expecting or Pitch Perfect. It makes sense from the comfort of my theater seat.
Not so with this film. I’m still not sure why I saw it. I generally avoid reviewing Tyler Perry movies. Having not grown up in Black America I sincerely doubt my ability to accurately perceive what is good or bad in one of his films and a crippling fear of being perceived as racist or culturally insensitive keeps me away (on the other hand whenever they do films about White Trash America I am all over it. Be true to your heritage!). I see most of them but tend to wait for NetFlix. Also while I do feel OK about writing reviews about chick flicks it is not my personal interest and so they tend to slip the net more frequently than sci fi films.
However last night was St. Patrick’s Day and in spite of my Irish blood have always felt vomiting up green beer is the height to stupidity. I am not a big fan of bars and crowds of drunks and so found myself at loose ends. My movie choices were this one and About Last Night and honestly there is only so much Kevin Hart comedy I can absorb in a month (there’s the cultural insensitivity!). Plus this film is reportedly an original and I think About Last Night is a remake. Also watching That Awkward Moment has left a sour taste in my mouth for films about how easy it is for guys to hook up with super hot chicks (Not that I’m bitter. For the record the irony of avoiding such a film while skipping out on one of the biggest party nights of the year in order to sit by myself watching a chick flick in a theater eating popcorn and Jr. Mints for dinner is most definitely not lost on me.).
So I ended up in the Single Mom’s Club (Mom image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category) and truly expected it to be the chickiest of the chick flicks. I was pretty sure this film was going to cause my genitalia to be reabsorbed into my body and grow into a vagina and to be fair I did feel a little retraction of the testes (although when you think about it what am I really using them for anyway?). However as the film progressed I found myself engrossed in the story and discovered it was about women supporting each other in a good way, not about male bashing and pointing fingers at dudes.
The appeal of this film comes mainly from the characters, who are diverse and interesting. It is an assemblage cast and story but managed to avoid most of the pitfalls made by other crappy assemblage movies such as New Years Eve. The main trap it missed was it did not give us 14 different characters with trite, insubstantial story lines that mesh in only the most tertiary manner. Instead it gave us five reasonably strong characters who’s stories blended and interacted with each other in order to reinforce each in turn. It made me care about them all, the true sign of a decent film.
That is not to say this film should be up for any awards. The stories themselves are rehashed old After School Specials and are all resolved in the happiest, most trite manner ever. The single mothers struggle to make it as single moms and show that by…sitting around together bitching about their lives while drinking red wine and more or less letting their kids run rampant in the street (or so I assume. That’s what I would have been doing at age 12). Listening to a mom bitch about having to take care of her three kids when she doesn’t have to work and lives in a fairly palatial house kinds of lets the air out of the tires of tension if you know what I mean. Only one of the five seems to struggle in the classic “single mom” way.
But I guess a weak story can succeed of the characters are appealing. The story is of course of five single moms from different walks of life and cultural diversity. There is May (Nia Long-Boiler Room, Friday, Big Momma’s House), a newspaper writer who’s son feels the need to see his father (who has a drug problem we are told. You never see the man); Hillory (Amy Smart-Crank, Road Trip, the Butterfly Effect), a yuppie mother of three who’s lawyer ex husband is wrecking her in the divorce and who has a crush on her hot neighbor; Jan (Wendy McLendon-Covey-10 Rules for Sleeping Around, Bridesmaids, Reno 911), a driven book publisher who’s sperm bank daughter seems to hate her for being ignored; Esperanza (Zulay Henao-Fighting, Boy Wonder, Takers) a super hot mother who’s controlling ex husband undermines her parenting of their daughter just because he can; and Lytia (Cocoa Brown-Lakeview Terrace, Friendship!, An American Carol), a struggling working mom who is trying to keep her son from prison like his brothers.
All the kids go to the same exclusive private school and the moms are all called in to deal with their kids smoking and graffiti (someone call 1955 and tell them about the new preteen crime wave!). The principal tells them that the schools very progressive policy is to punish the parents when the kids get into trouble (I kind of like that policy. I see parents every day who deserve a good beating, especially when I’m at a 10pm movie showing on a school night and there are kids in the theater) and in order to keep their kids from being expelled need to work together to plan some kind of school fundraising event.
The five meet up and at first hate each other but in time become friends. They form the Single Mom’s Club in order to give them each time away from their kids by rotating babysitting duties. Each of them meets a dude (or in Esperanza’s case started with one) and support each other in dealing with their ex husbands, kids or whatever. Honestly that’s the story in a nutshell. Stuff goes wrong at a couple points but in the end they each find some kind of resolution to the major issue of their lives (or at least a new dude to date).
The stars:
Like I said before, a success in characters. None of them were Tyler Durden level of engagement but you got to like them all. Two stars. Acting was for the most part at least adequate if not good. One star. The film was a little sluggish at points but by the end it didn’t feel like the 111 minutes it actually ran. One star. It was a soft PG-13 but the dresses they stuffed Zulay Henao into made me realize it is my destiny to marry her (destiny is a harsh mistress). In fact most of the women were fun to look at. One star. It galls me to use phrases like “the bonds of sisterhood” but you could actually see them being formed and it was fun to see them support each other. One star. Not the huge waste of my life I thought it was going to be. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes:
If you really examine each individual story and the big story in total you realize this film is Baby’s First Single Mom Plot. The actual drama is minimal and you have all seen these stories in much more real circumstances. The single mom drama of Won’t Back Down was more impactful. One black hole. This movie is all about female characters and that carries through to the male ones. The women all were real and engaging and the men feminized caricatures of what women imagine dudes are good or bad. Kind of robbed the overall story of realism. One black hole. There was a weird thing going on during this film where I would like two or three scenes in a row and then hit one that just sucked. It was like eating grapes but one in four had a BB in it. One black hole. None of the kids were terrifically believable. That might sound churlish but I have seen great kid actors deliver amazing and most of these were at best mundane. There was one scene in particular between May and her son that had my eyes rolling. This might actually be a reflection on the director as it some directors seem more able to get good from kids than others. One black hole (and for the record I sincerely hope each of these kids grows up to be an amazing actor. They all have the potential). Total: four black holes.
So a grand total of four stars. That’s at the bottom of my good range (mediocre for me is typically 2 black holes to three stars) but still in the good. Worth seeing for the right person I’d say. However the filming looks like a made for TV movie so there is no need to see this on a big screen (in fact rumor has it they are making this into a TV show on OWN). Date movie? Sure. As long as you can get your date to associate you with the good male characters you will either get laid or the sweetest “let’s be friends” speech you ever heard (not that I’m bitter). Bathroom break? Assemblage movies rarely have critical plot scenes so pretty much anywhere you want. Your best choice would be the first time May is babysitting all 25 (or so it seemed) kids. Not a lot happens there.
Thanks for reading. My readership has shot up dramatically lately (in serious danger of breaking three digits) and I can only assume it is in major part thanks to you, my beloved regular reader. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu and hit the Like button up top if you would be so kind. Post comments on this movie or my review here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Have a great night. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Mr. Peabody and Sherman Review
Set the Wayback Machine 92 minutes.
I think it’s fair to say I see way too many animated movies for a man my age (2 score and 4, although I like to think of it as 308 in dog years. Suck it, dogs! I am Methuselah to you!). This was a fact even before I started doing all these reviews so I can’t use this blog as my excuse. The fact is while chronologically I am middle aged I am a child inside. I don’t mean that in the asinine way hippies like to claim they find joy in everything and yuppies claim they wish they could be. My own childhood was on the bad end of the miserable spectrum and even at 12 I was pretty bitter and sarcastic. No I mean the things I thought were cool back then I still think are cool now. I like to think of myself as a big kid with body hair and a frustrated libido.
Thus I love good animated films. I tend to list my favs every time I review a kids movie so I will skip it. I am also not going to go off on what makes a good kids movie great for creepy grown men who sit by themselves in a theater full of children looking like a henchman to a Bond villain. What I am going to say is as an adult fan of kids movies who sees a lot of them I tend to have a more exacting tolerance for what is good and what is crap and to be honest this film felt really lazy and mediocre.
I suppose I should be honest here. I was not really a huge fan of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. I found it pun-tastic in a bad way and the only characters I enjoy were the villains (specifically Boris and Natasha and Snidely Whiplash. Snidely is one of the male role models my father failed to provide for me) and since Peabody’s Improbably History had no iconic villains I found his segments really boring and annoying. It was mostly a dog you mostly wish were put down and a super annoying kid you really wish the dog would bite.
So a film staring cartoon characters I have always wanted to punch in the face will have a hard time on my film dissection table right off. I will say this film kept a lot of the elements of the cartoons. Unfortunately they are all the elements I hated. Each segment of the TV cartoon was written in some kind of reverse engineering where they thought of the final pun and then came up with the story. The same seems true for each vignette here. Sherman is still the same annoying kid and handcuffing him to another annoying kid is not making him more appealing. You would think I would like Mr. Peabody as he is a brainy scientist but he is that special kind of brainy that somehow managed to avoid being socially awkward or obsessed with nerd interests (AKA anti girl interests) and I always end up hating those guys for not being ridiculed in 5th grade for showing up for Halloween dressed up as Spock. He should be in my camp but isn’t.
Then there’s the humor of this film. I’m somewhat perplexed as to who it was directed at. I have often said a good kids film needs some jokes for the adults but every one of these jokes was an esoteric historical pun that even a lot of the adults wouldn’t get and those of us who did would find them very ho hum. When you spend 10 minutes setting up a pun and it isn’t really laugh worthy go back to clown college. As a rule I expect good jokes in a film to be funnier than the crap I write in this blog every day. This movie didn’t really live up to my level IMO.
Finally there is the animation. No real thought or effort was put into it. The characters looked like slightly more real versions of the characters from the Incredibles. The problem is those characters hovered dangerously close to the Uncanny Valley and Mr. Peabody and Sherman look like they vacation there. Also the Incredibles was great for 10 years ago but times have changed and animation and the aesthetics have improved. The uncanny nature of them I found really off putting, and the computer generated feel of the animation made these characters really soulless. I yearn for the days of movies done with the help of South Korean slave animators.
The story is of course of Mr. Peaboy and his boy Sherman. In case you never watched his cartoon and aren’t sure who Mr. Peaboy is or why you should care don’t worry. 
He will do an extended monolog of his life and tell you in the most minute excruciating detail why he is like unto God (I mean Dog. Damn my dyslexia. Image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). We learn that Sherman is going off to school after being home schooled by Mr. Peabody. Once at school Sherman gets bullied by an annoying girl named Penny (Ariel Winter-Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Speed Racer, Modern Family). I guess all those bullying campaigns have had no effect. Sherman freaks out and bites her, causing Mr. Peabody to get called into the office. There he meets a social worker of some kind named Ms. Grunion (Allison Janney-Finding Nemo, Juno, the West Wing) who has a clear axe to grind and tells Peabody that she is going to do an inspection and if she sees anything inappropriate or dangerous she will immediately revoke Peabody’s custody of Sherman (oh, yeah. In the cartoon the relationship between Sherman and Peabody was never discussed like most young boy/order male traveling companionship relationships from the 60’s. In this cartoon their relationship is VERY CLEARLY defined over and over again. Mr. Peabody is Sherman’s adopted father who insists the Sherman call him Mr. Peabody rather than dad. I can already hear the therapy sessions 20 years down the road).
Actually I’d like to speak a bit about this. The cartoon was purposefully silly and as such didn’t need an explanation as to what a dog and his boy were doing together. By setting up a complete legal case with a judge who may or may not have been tripping on acid when he made the call it just made the whole situation more ridiculous and thus harder to believe.
Mr. Peabody objects and sets out to prove what a great father her is. I mean, what could he do that could possible seem inappropriate for a father, aside from the fact that just the day before he nearly got himself and Sherman killed in the French Revolution, took Sherman swimming in a 16th century Parisian sewer (where Sherman most definitely drank the water), regularly takes him around using a time machine (CPSC approved, I’m sure), drives Sherman around NYC traffic in the sidecar of a scooter, wears no clothes except for a bow tie and glasses, and may or may not lick his own genitals in public? Plus he’s a dog. Let’s hope Ms. Grunion doesn’t find an uncovered swimming pool or hidden porn stash. Also how do you change a diaper with no opposable thumbs? That one is going to keep me awake tonight.
Anyway, Peabody invites Penny and her parents to his place so they can make up before the arrival of Ms. Grunion. After a rough start he charms the parents but Sherman is having a hard time liking or getting along with Penny. Eventually he caves and shows her the Wayback machine. They go back in time despite Mr. Peabody telling him to not even mention it (just goes to show how hard it is for a guy to say no to a pretty girl) and they hit ancient Egypt (for all his genius Mr. Peabody never thought to put a lock on his time machine? My car has a lock).
At that point time machine chaos ensues. They have to go back in time to save Penny. They travel around talking to assorted historical figures (I guess the Butterfly Effect is not in effect. Haw! For that matter every established concept of time travel is more or less thrown out the window, along with anything resembling historical accuracy. Remember when kids movies would at least try to educate? Well, no. Me either. But still). More weird stuff happens and the space/time continuum takes massive blunt force trauma to the head.
As per usual I won’t do my typical rating for a kids movie. The theater was packed and the kids in the audience seemed amused, so I guess it can be counted as successful. I was bored and kind of creeped out by the animation. I showed up late and got crap seats and honestly didn’t care. Another movie for the “Keep the kids entertained” pile but not one I think that adults will collect and want to see more than once. A lazy movie for lazy entertainment. Date movie? Meh. Something about this as a date movie doesn’t feel right. Bathroom break? Well, there is a lot of thinly veiled bathroom humor so odds are it will be on your mind. Most of the Mr. Peabody/Penny’s parents dinner party is of limited use unless you dream of seeing an animated dog reprise Tom Cruise from Cocktail.
Thanks for reading. Noting on deck today so I might just do another Star Trek thing later on. Please follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this film or my review please leave them at the bottom. Off topic questions and suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon. Have a great day.
Dave
(Note-Mr. Peabody and Sherman image courtesy of the Official Site)
300: Rise of an Empire Review
Slow Motion a go-go!
Have you ever gone to a truly epic party on a Friday night? One that you could consider one of the best of your life? An amazing house, great music, lots of cool people, hot chicks, and all the greatest food, booze, and drugs you could ever want? The kind of party where you have nothing but fun and excitement with no real repercussions or consequences? You know, the kind of party where the next day I say to myself “Wow, I almost got laid last night!” (wait is this keyboard on? Dammit! Image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category BTW).
Anyway, ever go to that amazing party and the next morning while basking in the afterglow (or puking up your hangover) you get a call from That Guy? You know who That Guy is. The guy who also had a blast and is 100% convinced that he can make lightning strike twice by throwing the exact same party the very next night, little realizing that most of the people who made it fun either are recovering or recognize him as That Guy and opt to stay in or do something else super fun and cool that I am not invited to. Also his house sucks, the only music he plays is his weird Spotify mix or his neighbor’s kid’s band, the booze is all the cheapest swill available, the drugs either scary or non-existent, and the only food he has is stale chips, cold pizza, and frozen cheese-and-broccoli Hot Pockets with no microwave. Sure, a few of the same people showed up and you can talk about the amazing party you went to last night but really you just stand around looking at each other and wishing you could go back in time 24 hours.
That’s pretty much what 300: Rise of an Empire is. The next day after party no one really wanted. It sort of has a similar greasy feel to it but beyond the fact that it’s bare chested Greeks swinging swords at Persians it is not the same amazing scene and you spend most of the movie wishing you were watching the original. I originally thought that this was another Zack Snyder event but once I ground my way through it to the extremely predictable ending I looked it up and realized Zack only has a writing credit. No, directing credit goes to some dude named Noam Murro, who has done 0.00 action movies and mostly did a couple of HBO movies (one of which was a documentary) and a Dennis Quaid film called Smart People, which netted less than $10 mil.
I know I rail against this every time I see a crap movie with a huge budget but see if you can follow the logic for me. You are a senior executive at Warner Bros. You green light a film and give it a $100,000,000 budget. You are looking for a director. You look at a list of people and think “You know who would be perfect for directing this $100,000,000 film production? Some guy who no one has ever heard of, has never done an action or adventure film, and who’s total box office receipts to date are about 1/10th of the money we are about to hand him. How perfect is that?” Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. Is there anyone out there who works in the movie industry who can shed some light on this for me? I will respect your anonymity but I really don’t think I can take Hollywood seriously if I don’t understand what combination of drugs and stupidity leads to these decisions.
Not to say that Warner is going to lose their investment. Thanks to the brain damaged decision making process that you, the American movie going audience, engages in it is proven that any sequel will automatically rake in 60% of the take of the original regardless of the merit of the film. 300 brought in $70 million its opening weekend. This turd is on track to earn $40 million, which is 57.1% of the original. Do any of you ever feel guilty for catering to a stereotype? On a completely unrelated note I cannot wait for the new Captain America sequel. It is going to be epic.
Before seeing this film last night I was talking about it with a couple friends who are active Frank Miller readers and they told me that his later work has been getting more and more misogynistic. After seeing this I can totally believe that as every woman in this film is either a murderous, evil sociopathic bitch or a rape victim. That says a lot about how Frank Miller and Noam Murro feel about women. There is a death scene where a very blunt and phallic sword is thrust through a woman in a blatant call back to a previous brutal sex scene. I find this attitude towards women ironic since the only redeeming feature of this film was apparent woman Eva Green. She stole every scene and was awesome. She also gave us a truly amazing nude scene and is the new love of my life (sexist I may or may not be, but definitely not misogynist. I love women).
This is a film that ironically suffers under the weight of it’s predecessor. 300 was such a huge success and pretty much established what a Greek or Roman film is supposed to look like that now every film has sweaty, bloody bare chested men hacking at each other in slow motion. This is the third film I have seen this year that could be considered “influenced” by 300 (fourth if you count Son of God) and honestly I am getting really tired of it. This film latches onto its predecessor like a tapeworm and spends most of the film sucking nutrients from 300’s small intestine. The call backs to the good film came with the rapidity and subtlety of a mini gun fired into a six foot block of soft cheese. Some directors might take pride in creating his own film and treat the call backs as the crutches they are but such distinctions are a waste of time for this team.
I’m also going to take issue with the title of this film and what exactly it is supposed to be. The film starts out 10 years before 300 and seems to imply we are going to see a film about the rise of the Persian empire but then it skips forward to the exact time of the Battle of Thermopylae. As far as I can tell the empire exists. Is this a prequel or what? A sidequel? I can tell you there was no sign of any empire rising in this film, so you can understand my simple minded confusion as to the words “rise”, “of”, “an”, and “empire” used in this title.
Also remember how 300 was about 300 Spartan warriors holding off the Persian army in a choke point? Well, now it’s about how Xerxes is the creation of some magic or god crap. Remember how the Battle of Thermopylae occurred in 480 BC? Well now we have prehistoric sea monsters because…well you know. Sharks are boring.
Anyway, one more thing and then I will get into the film. Let’s talk about filming and editing techniques. 300 more or less pushed the whole fast/slow motion action technique. It was used well and really enhanced the film. Well, this movie took that technique and has stretched it out to include literally every scene that does not actually involved people speaking. I’m not kidding when I say every freaking scene that does not have dialog is done in slow motion. Guy walking down a corridor? Slow motion. An exciting scene of oars hitting the water (done over and over again)? Slow motion. Ships crashing into each other? Slow motion. This film went a fairly measly 102 minutes but if you ran the whole film at real speed I doubt it would have been even an hour.
Oh, yeah. If you see this film I hope your favorite colors are grey, grey blue, and grey green because you are going to see a lot of it. The entire film felt like I was watching it from the other side of a fish tank in desperate need of cleaning. Even the blood looked grey. It honestly would have been less monochrome had they shot it in black and white. At least then our imagination might have filled in some color and we could have believed it was done for artistic rather than incompetent reasons.
I guess we can get into the story. The story starts off with the old king of Persia Darius (Igor Naor-Munich, Rendition, Green Zone) at the Battle of Marathon getting his ass handed to him by the Greeks. Thermistokles (Sullivan Stapleton-Strike Back, Gangster Squad, Animal Kingdom) is the Greek general and he picks up a bow and slow motion shoots Darius in the chest right in front of his loving son Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro-I Love You Phillip Morris, Rio, The Last Stand). Xerxes is heartbroken and once Darius finally shuffles off this mortal coil bitch admiral Atemisia (Eva Green-Casino Royale, Dark Shadows, Perfect Sense, my future wedding (hopefully)) convinces him that in order to challenge the Greeks he must become a god. He wanders the desert and takes a bath in magic fire water, emerging as the Bedazzled bald dude we know from the other film.
Skip forward 10 years and now it is up to the Athenians to beat his navy at sea while the Spartans hold him off via land. The Athenians are outnumbered like 50 ships to one but put their ships in a big circle like covered wagons and use that to defeat the first wave. Atemisia chucks her first general overboard and lets the next guy step forward and fail. At that point she goes on a diatribe lamenting the fact that she doesn’t have a man strong enough for her. She invites Themistokle to her ship for a parlay and they lay some pipe. He then rejects her offer to be her second in command and heads back to his navy. The next day blood is spilled, ships get rammed (more massively Freudian imagery BTW. The director of this film has phallus’s on his mind I think), and the “surprise” ending that they had been setting up since the end of the introduction surfaces. I won’t spoil it for you but if you can predict that a skunk is going to stink you will know how this film will end.
The stars:
I’m just going to say it; Eva Green saved this film from being a complete and utter disaster of Baby Geniuses caliber, and I’m not just talking about her topless scene. Every scene with her in it was fun to watch, which had the negative side benefit of making all the rest of the scenes that much harder to witness. However this section is about things the movie did right, and what they did right was cast Eva Green and give her a lot of screen time. Two stars. Eva Green’s topless scene (hey that rhymes!). One star. A lot of the action was pretty good if you are not already stuffed to the gills with Zack Snyder slow motion sword fighting. One star. I guess it was kind of fun to see some of the 300 characters, just like seeing a few of the people from the party the night before can be fun. One star. In spite of everything else it was based on actual events and kind of got most of it right. The Athenians did fight a navel battle while the Spartans were getting massacred. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes:
The story and characters made very little attempt to engage the audience, at least as well as 300 did. One black hole. Except for Eva Green there was not a single character I cared lived or died. Thermistokles was either another bare chested Greek or annoying me with another “inspirational” speech. One black hole. The speechifying to really old really fast. One black hole. If you have a fear of losing your color vision this is not the film for you. Monochrome hell. One black hole. The misogamy has to be pretty blatant for me to notice and I was seeing it all over the place. Also enough with the phallic imagery Mr. Murro. We get it. Mommy and daddy didn’t love you enough. One black hole. This film was shot almost entirely in slow motion, a trend I find ugly as in most films I find myself wishing for a fast forward button. One black hole. The addition of magic and dinosaurs did nothing for this film. One thing I liked about the 300 was the fact that it could have been how events played out. If I want magic I’ll go back and watch the LOTRs. One black hole. This film couldn’t have stuffed in another call back or reference to 300 without bursting at the seams. One black hole. Also the whole father/son thing was a complete rip off of the first movie and 100% worthless. One black hole. Can someone please tell me what empire is supposed to be rising in this film? The Persian empire pretty much stayed established the whole time. One black hole. The addition of the “we fight for freedom and democracy” that the Athenians kept banging on about felt really out of place and annoying. How about you fight because the Persians want to conquer you? Seems like motivation enough. One black hole. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see how this film is going to end. Maybe it’s just me but predictable=boring. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
So six black holes total. Was it really that bad? Meh, probably not although I held myself back on the black holes. For example I didn’t ding them for completely worthless 3D. If you can’t get enough of slow motion swordplay and shades of grey is a turn on you will enjoy it. Most of my bile comes from the fact that this film is an insult rather than a tribute to the first amazing film. Date movie? Only if misogamy and rape turn her on. This film was made for dudes. Bathroom break? That’s easy. Any time you see Themistokles on the shore inspiring his men or making plans is the prefect place to bug out for a bit. Don’t miss the scene where he visits Artemisia on her ship or you will have missed most of the reason to see this flick.
Thanks for reading. Long one today but the films where I feel personally insulted tend to be the extended reviews. Join the tens of Twitter people who follow me @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this film or my review are welcomed and can be posted below. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. I’ll see Peabody some time this weekend and write it up, and am thinking about going over the Golden Raspberry results too. That should be fun. Have a great weekend.
Dave
Winter’s Tale Review
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a crappy script.
In case you aren’t the type to be endlessly fascinated by the weirdos and degenerates that inhabit the internet there is a sub culture known as Bronies. These are grown men who are avid fans of My Little Pony. You know, the cartoon designed for little girls ages 2 to 11. Some of them are just guys who for some whatever developmental failure still enjoy the cartoon (or so they claim) but a large percentage of them are known as Cloppers and are the reason Rule 34 was created: If it exists there IS porn for it. Yes, they pleasure themselves to My Little Pony porn.
(Incidentally my knowledge of this sub culture comes from the Howard Stern Show. If you ever want to feel your skin crawl try to listen to the interviews with these guys. Now let me get back to Googling metal bikini Leia pictures).
Anyway, the point is Winter’s Tale has a similar feel to the Bronies. It is a story written for pre-teen girls that for some inexplicable reason they opted to make into a grown up movie. It’s like a little girl dressing up in her mothers clothes without the cuteness. I’ve heard the book by Mark Helprin is pretty much a fairy tale and why they opted to shoot in on film instead of making it into a cartoon is beyond me.
It’s probably the height of churlishness to bitch about deus ex machina in a movie that is supposed to be about miracles but the point is deus ex machine is dead boring. Drama is the result of seeing protagonists that we have connected to triumph against the odds through might, cunning, and strength of will. Seeing the protagonist and his supporting character escape from the top of a skyscraper by climbing onto a flying horse pretty much says that this film is on auto pilot and is going to roll into Grand Central Boring Happy Ending Station without any input from any of the people on the screen or any interest from the audience.
The good news is any debate as to which of Russell Crowe’s movies are his worst can now be put to rest. The bar has been set and unless he opts to play Babs Johnson in a scene-for-scene remake of Pink Flamingos it can’t go any lower. The same cannot be said of Colin Farrell, unfortunately. I feel bad as I actually like him. I think he is appealing and talented, but the man cannot catch a box office break. He needs to hire whoever reads George Clooneys scripts for him. All his recent films have tanked. Dead Man Down, Seven Psychopaths, Total Recall, and Fright Night. Ironically I found something to like in each of those films, which is why I feel a slight pang of guilt (very slight) for dumping on this one.
In addition to being pretty much a film for little girls who believe in fairies this film is a confusing mess. So the basic premise is that each human has exactly one miracle to perform in their life and can only do it for one person. Each person who performs their miracle goes to Heaven and becomes a star or something. Russell Crowe plays a demon who’s job is to prevent miracles from happening. His plan to prevent Colin Farrell’s miracle is to…kill him? 
I thought minions of the devil were supposed to use corruption and temptation to damn people. If all you need to do is feed a guy bullets why not go on a murderous rampage and kill everyone who has not yet performed their miracle? Go to a church and finish off hundreds of miracles every Sunday. The whole thing might have made more sense if the demon characters had been sending prostitutes and drugs his way. (image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
For that matter the whole good/bad thing is suspiciously vague. Colin plays a thief who spends a lot of the movie stealing from people. Last time I checked that was considered a bad thing but somehow he is in this state of indeterminate grace. He is being aided by an angel (or something. Not as clear as it was for the demons) in the form of a white horse that can fly. At one point Colin is being confronted by about 20 of Russell’s minions and the horse flies down and…murders them all? Not exactly divine behavior (Haw! If you got that joke you are cool). I mean, sure they might be bad men but I thought the whole idea behind Christianity was the chance at redemption, something very difficult to accomplish from the bottom of a frozen lake. Again, a little explanation of what the hell the angels and demons could do and what their agenda was would have gone a long way.
And then there’s the whole deus ex machina issue, of which that last scene is a prime example. Colin’s character more or less bumbles around and whenever the plot calls for him to do something and/or he is in a dangerous situation God miracles his ass up there (thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman). You can get away with that once in a film. Maybe twice. Miracles should not be the plot points that connect each and every scene together.
So the film starts off with the parents of Peter Lake sticking him as a baby in a toy boat off the coast of New York (I guess it was sea worthy? I have build a few model ships and they are rarely ballasted enough to hold a baby) in order to get him to America after they were rejected for being unhealthy. Somehow they knew the boat wouldn’t capsize or he wouldn’t die of exposure before someone found him. Skip forward and adult Peter Lake (Colin Ferrall-Phone Booth, In Bruges, Total Recall) is on the run from a gang of thugs lead by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe-Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, L.A. Confidential). Peter kills a couple thugs (more evidence of his good soul) but gets trapped. Pearly wants to torture him to death for some reason but a horse magically appears that jumps over a massive fence and Peter escapes.
Later Peter spends the night like all good Christians do; robbing houses for loot. He breaks into a house and meets Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay-Downton Abbey, Black Mirror, Albatross) in it alone. She is dying of consumption and needs to stay cold or her fever will kill her. They spend a few minutes together and fall in love. He bugs out but is obsessed with her and heads back to her house on the horse, only to find Pearly about to kill her (Pearly had some kind of vision and drew her in the blood of some poor kid he just murdered. If that kid had not yet done his miracle wouldn’t that put Pearly in the black regardless of the whole Peter question?). Peter rescues her and escapes on Miracle Horse, who grows wings in order to fly down a huge cliff.
Pearly needs permission from Lucifer (no joke. It takes real balls to have the Prince of Darkness as a named, speaking character in your movie. Oh, yeah. Will Smith-I am Legend, Men In Black, After Earth) in order to cross the river. Lucifer denies him permission, determining that Pearly is too close to the issue. Peter and Beverly arrive at her family estate where Peter is welcomed by her father Isaac (William Hurt-Dark City, Into the Wild, A History of Violence) after a fairly perfunctory “What are your intentions” conversation. They continue to fall in love.
Pearly hires an angel to kill Beverly (huh?), assuming that Peters miracle was to save her life. Peter and Beverly go dancing and the angel poisons her. That night the two hook up and then she dies. Skip forward about 100 years and Peter is still alive with no memory until he meets Virginia (Jennifer Connelly-Blood Diamond, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream) and her daughter Abby (Ripley Sobo-just some TV work). Abby is dying of cancer but Virginia feels the need to probe Peters mysterious past.
The story chugs along from there. Pearly is still around and still wants Peter. The super horse is still around and rescues all of them. Guys get killed, things twist (sort of), and yet more miracles happen.
The stars.
I have to say my favorite part was Will Smith as Lucifer. In each scene with him in it the movie ceased to be a confused miracle love story written for grade school children and turned into a hilarious laugh out loud comedy. I think of all the actors in this film he best smelled what the director was brewing and took it with the appropriate seriousness. One star. Visually decent. Some good camera work IMO. One star. I don’t know if I really need to crush this film but I am having a hard time coming up with anything else. Two stars total.
The black holes.
A fairy tale for adults that failed to entertain. One black hole. The whole question of what everyone’s agenda, powers, and deal was. One black hole. I don’t know if Russell Crowe was secretly laughing at the director or his dentures were slipping but his accent was ridiculous. One black hole. The whole Beverly dying part made the first 2/3rds of the movie a bummer for no reason. One black hole. Deus ex machina as a substitute for actual writing. Two black holes. This film had a serious agenda and that agenda was to make you feel uplifted by the most obvious means possible. They even had dead Beverly do a voice over at the end in case you were asleep through most of the film and missed the point (not an unreasonable assumption). One black hole. 118 minutes that felt like 118,000,000. Pacing from hell. I was just begging for something to actually happen. One black hole. If movies having a point is something you enjoy prepare to be disappointed. One black hole. Total: nine stars.
A grand total of seven black holes. Pretty bad. I honestly think they could have done something better with this. I often wonder if as the production of a crappy movie progresses if there is a sudden moment of clarity for the actors when they realize they are pushing out a turd or if they have to wait for the premier. Worth seeing at all? Maybe. Like I said Will Smith was funny and after After Earth that man owes me some entertainment. I think I would consider taking my mom to see this one. Otherwise no, not at all. Date movie? Maybe. Depends on the girl. If she is really dumb or likes to smoke pot and/or drop acid before a film she might enjoy it a lot (also if she is any of the above find out if she has a sister and send her my way. I think I am done with smart, responsible chicks). Otherwise meh. Bathroom break? Honestly all the scenes without Will Smith are equally worthless. Even if you miss an important connecting scene you can just assume some miracle saved them again and move on with your life.
Thanks for reading. I have seen 3 Days to Kill and will bury that one tomorrow morning (suck it, McG). I think I’ll go see something tonight as well and try to crank out two tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu and email your off topic questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Post any comments on this film or my review here. Talk to you soon. Have a great weekend.
Dave
