We Bought a Zoo Movie Review
The sappiness dial on this movie goes up to 11.
Yes, this movie was sappy like Natalie Portman is hot or the general movie going population is dumb. Does that hurt the movie? In one sense yes. However, if you saw any of the trailers and expected to be anything other than heartwarmed then your problems with perceptions run so deep you wouldn’t notice that your hair was on fire until someone shot you in the face with a fire extinguisher. This movie will play your emotional heartstrings like a cheap ukelele, evoking sadness, happiness, cuteness, frustration and (in the case of Scarlett Johansson and, assuming you are into men, Matt Damon) horniness. (11 Dial image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
The story is, as the title subtlety implies, about a family that buys a zoo. It starts off with the father (Matt Damon-Good Will Hunting, the whole Bourne series) and his kids dealing with the recent death of his wife (Stephanie Szostak-the Devil Wears Prada, Dinner for Schmucks). His annoying 14 year old son (Colin Ford-Jack and the Beanstalk, Push) is dealing by acting out in passive aggressive ways and by drawing disturbing pictures all the time. His daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones-Footloose) seems better adjusted but prone to telling strangers that her mommy died.
Let me just go on an aside and talk a bit about Maggie Elizabeth Jones. In this movie she is comprise of 100% pure weapons-grade cuteness. I can’t stress that enough. She is so cute your face will hurt from smiling every time she is on the screen or says something. Until she turns into another annoying teenage actress she will probably have a lock on every super cute child role for the next six years, and deservedly so. I am not really into other people’s kids, but was smiling every time she said something.
Anyway, the son Dylan gets booted out of school for stealing and the father Benjamin (who by the way, is being stalked by every hot woman in whatever town he lives in. I guess being a hot single widower with super cute kids is quite the turn on for women) decides they need a new start. He ends up buying the zoo based on his love of the house. He opts to get the zoo running again and meets the staff, including the super hot zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson-Match Point, Iron Man 2, the Prestige) who falls into the Hollywood pit of the amazing girl who dedicated her life to animals rather than dating and getting a life, as well as a host of flat, two dimensional stereotypes ( just imagine the kind of hippies who want to work on a zoo for no money and you will have them nailed down). Her younger 13 year old sister Lilly (Elle Fanning-Super 8, Deja Vu, the Door in the Floor) lives there too and gains a crush for emo-Dylan. At that point the story more or less follows the very typical family-business-struggling-in-the-face-of-adversity Hollywood script. They are obstructed by a cartoonish antagonist in the form of USDA inspector Walter Ferris (John Micheal Higgins-Wag the Dog, Fun With Dick and Jane, Bad Teacher) who has to certify them before they open and a host of other incidental problems.
The stars. The movie does what it set out to do, which is yank your emotions around like a fish on a line before landing you in the heartwarming boat. One star. Rosie was painfully cute. One star. Good dialog. One star. Good direction. One star. The main characters in the form of Benjamin and Kelly felt really real, although their on screen romance felt a little artificial. One star. Lots of cute animals to look at. One star. At the end of the film you feel good and don’t feel like your time and money were wasted. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. As real as Benjamin and Kelly felt, almost all the supporting characters felt really flat and artificial. The supporting characters in the Muppets felt more real. One black hole. Pacing really seemed to drag at times. One black hole. The story was predictable enough to set your clock to. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of five stars. Not bad. Worth seeing with the qualifier that you are not looking for any chases, fights, explosions, or surprises of any kind. It really earns it’s PG rating. I don’t think any of the scenes are of such cinematographic brilliance that they require a large screen, so NetFlix is fine. On the other hand, this is a brilliant date movie, as your girl will love it and the little girl will have her thinking about a family for sure.
That’s it for now. I am working on my Nerdy Awards and think I will start them over the weekend. Nothing to see tonight, but I might actually do some nerd dating advice tomorrow. Some things that happened over New Years kind of got me thinking about it again. Look for that tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Adventures of Tintin in 3D Movie Review
Kind of boring as a film, but kind of interesting as a case study in schizophrenic movie making.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Any family get together where the assorted factions amoung my cousins don’t melt down like Chernobyl is a winner in my book. Plus my mom got me complete Star Trek TOS season 2, so count me happy.
Anyway, Tintin. I am in general a Spielberg fan. In fact, I just gave his filmography a look and, except for the first two Transformers movies I love pretty much everything he has ever done. This is not even a case of having done something long ago and riding that into the ground. He recently worked on Real Steel, Super 8, True Grit, and Falling Skies, all of which I have enjoyed immensely. Also, Tintin is based on a comic, which is usually win in my book. So, why then didn’t I love this movie?
Well, to be brutally honest, Tintin the character is kind of boring and two dimensional. I enjoyed Snowy the dog a lot more, and I hate animal characters. Tintin looks like young Howdy Doody got his wish and was transformed into a real little boy. The problem is he is then thrust against gritty, harsh, realistic guys and the disparity is jarring. His motivation to do anything at all is highly questionable. He shows no real emotion and I felt no real connection with his character, which more or less robbed the film of any tension when faced with a life threatening situation. I felt a better connection with Captain Haddock, and felt my pulse quicken a bit when he was involved in an epic sword duel with the baddy. Fortunately, just before my eyes were in serious danger of opening all the way Tintin swung in on a rope and robbed the situation of all tension, allowing me to return to my previously torpid state.
The other problem I had with this movie was I couldn’t figure out who this movie was made for. It seemed at first for kids. Swashbuckling adventure with a young boy and his dog, some really goofy comic relief characters, simplistic story, and no motivation whatsoever says children all over. They really went out of their way in the first half to maintain that PG rating. A guy gets riddled with bullets and is only injured. Another guy falls off a moving ship and gets caught up in some rigging. Bullets miss easy targets in a manner that would embarrass the A-Team producers. Then, all of a sudden we are faced with the brutal and horrific execution of a ships crew (tossed overboard into shark infested water) and the death of the first villain (run through with a sword and left to drown on a sinking ship). It was like they spliced two minutes of the Human Centipede into Winnie the Pooh. Also, the running joke throughout the movie was about a probably terminal case of alcoholism that Captain Haddock was suffering from. The previously child-simple story takes a turn for the extremely complicated. I still can’t decide who that movie was made for, and honestly that is a bad sign.
I can say one thing about who this movie is for, and that is clearly males. There is literally one female character in the entire film, and that is Tintins landlady who has about three lines total. Other than that it’s a total sausage fest. I’m not looking for eye candy in what may or may not be a children’s film (or, for that matter, a cartoon), but it seems foolish to not include any single character for 50% of the potential viewing audience to identify with. I actually find myself in a weird place on this point. On the one hand I despise movies that force characters into existing stories in order to broaden the appeal. On the other hand I really felt this movie would have benefited from a little more estrogen on screen. Take that for what you will.
Anyway, the movie. Tintin is a famous boy reporter who buys a model ship of the famous Deus Ex Machina, I mean the Unicorn. Some other characters offer him large sums of money for it, but he refuses based on his love of this model ship (I guess. His apartment shows no sign of any interest in anything model related, ship or otherwise. I guess he imprinted it (Twilight joke there, fans) Otherwise there is no reason shown that he wouldn’t have flogged it for a serious profit). Turns out there is 1/3 of a secret message from an old ship captain about a lost treasure. Tintin gets his ship stolen but has the message. He gets kidnapped by some merchant marines and then the adventure begins! He meets up with the chronically comedically drunk Captain Haddock (seriously, this guy puts away enough booze to kill my Irish grandfather) and they escape the ship in a life boat. The adventure follows a pretty standard Indiana Jones plot from there, if Indiana was an annoying kid and was also channeling Benjamin Franklin Gates from National Treasure. Repressed memories surface that in fact have nothing to do with actual finding of the treasure, only pad out the screen time. Stuff gets blown up. Tintin and Haddock engage in things that should have had them in jail for life. The story drives through the some gaping plot holes to arrive at a pretty pat ending.
I normally don’t do the stars/black holes things for kids movies, but the ambiguity behind the intended audience on this is allowing me some leeway on it. Stars first. Comic book movie. One star. The animation was really good. Overall really impressive visually. One star. Excellent motion capture, mainly by the great Andy Serkis (Ceaser from Planet of the Apes and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings). One star. A few exciting and/or humorous moments. One star. Snowy the dog was cool. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Tintin as a character failed to interest me in the slightest. I couldn’t have cared if he if he fell off a cliff. One black hole. The pacing dragged at times like a front wheel drive car missing it’s rear axle. One black hole. The whole kids/adult movie question. One black hole. Failure to provide me the slightest hint of why Tintin was doing anything. One black hole. The story was so full of deus ex machina it was brushing it’s teeth with the stuff. One black hole. The ending included a less than subtle pitch for the inevitable sequel. One black hole. No female characters of any kind in a film that really felt the need. One black hole. Ultimately, a film that was sold as really exciting and fun that was actually pretty boring. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
A grand total of four black holes. Pretty mediocre. I know, this movie has done amazing things in Europe and all my European friends will probably yell at me for it, but let’s face the fact: Europeans are weird (Normal People Worry Me image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). 
Tintin has been hugely successful as a comic book in Europe for years and never even approached the surface here in the US. Worth seeing? Not really. Not kiddy enough for your kids and not adult enough for an adult. Maybe if you are European or have a deep appreciation of bad European entertainment. On the other hand, this could actually work for the right girl as a date movie. She may well be impressed that you like something so Euro and pretend to like it herself in spite of being bored to tears. This may translate into her pretending to like you in spite of being bored to tears in an attempt to look like she has traveled farther than Bakersfield in her life. It’s worth a shot. Be sure to talk about all the subtle nuance on the screen and use the line “Americans always have a hard time appreciating the European aesthetic” at least once after the movie.
That’s it. There is a ton of new stuff out this week, so look for a new review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
New Years Eve Movie Review
There aren’t enough synonyms for “trite” in the English language to allow me to review this movie.
Actually, I kind of like to think of this movie as an experiment in alternative script writing methods that went horribly wrong and, like all bad science experiments is destined to rise up and destroy us all. You see, most bad movies take a crappy story idea and run it into the ground. What the writer of this bomb did (Katherine Fugate-Valentine’s Day, Room in Rome, the Prince and Me (grammar is optional in movie title writing, really)) was take ten bad stories, interweave them into a tapestry of horribleness, and then drape it all over the screen like a death shroud. The funny thing is each story in turn actually magnifies the bland horribleness of the previous one in an exponential manner, so that by the time you get to the 10th sub story you get horrible to the ninth degree.
The whole story chain is weird. The system is a blatant vehicle to cram as many celebrities into one bad movie as possible. The laundry list is endless. Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro, Zac Effron, Halle Barry, Alyssa Milano, Jessica Biel, Katherine Heigl, Seth Meyers, Ashton Kutcher, Jon Bon Jovi(?), and Sarah Jessica Parker to name a few. In my mind’s eye I see this movie as the “rock soup” approach to film making. Here’s how I think it works. They get the first star, say Sarah Jessica Parker for example. They write a crappy little drama about her and her daughter. Then they approach the next on the list and say “Hey, we’ve got Sarah Jessica Parker”. The next celebrity joins in and so they write a crappy drama for him or her. Rinse and repeat, and at the end you have a crappy pot of soup made only with a rock!
Of course, with ten different stories in 118 minutes (was it really that long? Felt more like four hours) none of the characters get to in any way develop, or give us any reason to connect with any of them, or for that matter in any way give a crap about anything that happens on the screen. The crappyness of the script might have shot right past the thinking part of each of the actors brains, but it obviously lodged deep into the brain stem and and subconsciously inspired them each to phone in their performances. The acting felt so much like a first or second rehearsal I kept looking to see if the stars actually had scripts in their hands they were reading from. It looks like another draw for each of these people is the fact that they could probably film their respective parts in about a week.
The strange thing (and this is in no way an endorsement or encouragement of this movie) is if you are forced to watch this movie you actually get a little interested in the individual stories, if only to see which of them is going to end the most horribly (the Sarah Jessica Parker one IMO). It’s like watching a leper marathon; you know it is going to be bad to watch and terrible things are going to happen, but you really can’t help but watch if only to see which participant has the most body parts fall off.
One last thing on the multiple story chains is I didn’t realize they had the hydra-like ability to spawn other story chains. You finally get one of them concluded and somehow another one spontaneously germinates. I’d say it grinds, but this whole movie was such a grind that by the time I got to that part most of my gears were stripped.
Anyway, I can’t really get to into the story without submitting the entire script, so I will just recap each of the stories that stuck in my head enough to talk about it. Robert DeNiro is in a hospital dying of cancer (and while his performance was far sub par of what I would expect from him, at least he looked like he was dying) and Halle Barry is his nurse, who also has a husband in the military overseas. Michelle Pfeiffer is a mousy spinster secretary who quits her job in a huff and bribes Zac Effron to make her bucket list come true in the next ten hours. Jessica Biel is pregnant and her wimpy husband Seth Meyers wants her to give birth right after midnight to win some cash prize but are in competition with some other couple. Katherine Heigl is a caterer who is contracted to do food for a huge music industry party, and her ex boyfriend rockstar “Jensen” (played by an almost lifelike Jon Bon Jovi robot of some kind), who is the uber-prosaic music entertainment for the party and the Times Square deal, wants to win her back with emotionless dialog. One of “Jensen’s” background singers, Lea Michelle, gets stuck in an elevator with loser hipster comic book artist Grinch Ashton Kutcher (loser hipster is not much of an acting stretch for him, IMO) and proceeds to teach him something important about the true meaning of New Years Eve. Sara Jessica Parker reprises her Sex and the City roll with a 15 year old daughter, who wants to run around unsupervised through New York. Meanwhile, her long lost love interest Josh Duhamel plays one of the music company owners and apparently the hottest thing in NYC until he decides to meet Sarah at midnight. That’s most of what I can remember. Oh, yeah. Hillary Swank plays the woman in charge of the ball dropping who has to deal with an edge-of-the-seat situation when a fuse in the ball goes out, and then turns out to be the estranged daughter of Robert DiNero.
Honestly, that’s it for story. There is no actual conflict in any of these stories except for the whole “giant ball fuse” business. No one does any one thing remotely interesting. It was like watching 10 bad after school specials all edited together.
The stars. Honestly, I would normally give one for a guys like Robert DiNero, but he didn’t exactly light up the screen. I would also do one for some of the hot women in this, but for the most part they were bundled up for December in NYC and not that good looking. Also, I don’t know what this movie was doing with a PG-13 rating. It was so tame it was almost a G in my opinion. The only time any one of the characters even implied that sex ever occurred between humans was at the end when Katherine Heigl said something about it with the Bon Jovi-bot, and that image is going to take some drinking to get rid of. I’ve never not given any stars to a movie before. I guess I could give them one for the morbid curiosity the movie generated when I wanted to see which ending would suck the most. Kind of like how you don’t want to look at a car wreck when you drive by but cant help yourself. Total: one star.
The black holes. I’ll give 1/2 a black hole for each stupid sub plot, and call the extra ones spawned at the end a wash. Five black holes. The dialog was god awful. Two black holes. In addition to the dialog from the main characters sucking, the writers felt compelled to inject background dialog that made me want to murder puppies (I would never actually hurt a dog, BTW). One more black hole. A movie with no protagonist, antagonist, conflict, story, or point. Two black holes. Acting reminiscent of the Robin Hood play I had a bit part in back in second grade (I was guard #3. My one line was “I don’t like the forest”. Why can I remember that but not my social security number?). One black hole. Opening the movie with the odious Ryan Seacrest and having him resurface later like a flush that didn’t quite go all the way down. One black hole. Having two different musical numbers coalesce out of the ether like a torpedo launched from an underwater submarine. One black hole. Creating a fictional super star (“Jensen”) in a movie flush with real celebrities acting as themselves. One black hole. Pat endings so sugary sweet they could possibly kill every diabetic in the world. One black hole. The dumbest, slowest car crash in the history of movie making. One black hole. Total: 16 black holes.
So, a whopping 15 black holes, possibly the worst I have given this year. Was it really that awful? Yes. Yes it was. Can some enjoyment be had from it? Maybe, if you are stupid. Or perhaps have a serious case of ADHD. Good date movie? Sure, if your date is stupid or has a serious case of ADHD. Honestly, this movie should not only never be seen again by another human, but the 500+ stars of the film should band together with pitchforks and torches and burn the windmill in which the mad scientist/director Gary Marshal has set up his lab with his assistant/writer Katherine (Igor) Fugate. (A.D.D. image courtesy of the funny t-shirt category)
Wow. This isn’t my longest review, but it definitely took the longest to write. I wish I could just write “It Sucks” and hit the publish button. Oh, well. More movies this weekend. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Don’t see this movie.
Dave
The 10 Best and 5 Worst Mel Gibson Movies
Yes, nothing new in movies this week that really intrigues me, so I thought I would work on something else. Mel Gibson has taken a lot of abuse lately, and some might even call it justified, what with his drunk driving, spousal abuse, and racist rants. I can honestly say I would think very hard about spending money to see one of his movies currently. However, I have enjoyed many of his films in the past, and when I was doing my 5 Worst Kurt Russell film list I came across one that Mel was in as well. You’ll see it in a bit.
So these are, in my opinion, his best and worst of what he has done and I have seen. As always, feel free to disagree or point out things I might have missed, but I feel pretty good about this list. Best first.
10. Ransom-Mel owns an airline and his son is kidnapped. I remember liking the way Mel’s character handled this situation, by taking the ransom money and turning it into a bounty on the heads of the kidnappers. Not really exceptional, but worth watching.
9. We Were Soldiers-the story of the first major battle of the Vietnam war. Mel plays Lt. Col. Hal Moore, commander of the newly created Air Cav of the US Army. This movie was cool in that it showed the battle from both the American side and the Vietnamese side. The action was pretty brutal, so don’t get to attached to any of the supporting characters, if you know what I mean. Sam Elliot as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley was really cool too. However, the battle scenes kept cutting back to the wives of the soldiers having to deliver the death notices to the other wives in a manner that was jarring like editing scenes cut from Scarface into the Sound of Music. Also, don’t death notifications take more than 30 seconds for the war department to process? Still, good movie.
8. Hamlet-I’m not a big Shakespeare fan, to be honest. Maybe it’s because I have a hard time staying awake during plays, which is ironic as I have no problem staying awake during the most boring of films. However, I found this rendition with Mel playing Hamlet to be really engaging.
7. Conspiracy Theory-ever want to see Mel play a paranoid schizophrenic? Now you can. Actually, I love this movie because the writers obviously knew my cousin Matt and based the story around him. Whenever I have to answer the question “Any history of insanity in your family?” I have to mentally rewrite my family history. (Paranoia shirt image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
6. Payback–I love noir and dark stories, and trust me, this one is dark. Mel plays a criminal who is betrayed by his former partners and spends the rest of the movie trying to get his $70,000 like an even more psychotic version of the paperboy from Better Off Dead. Gruesome and dark, this is one of those movies you enjoy in spite of the fact that you have very little sympathy for any of the characters.
5. Mad Max-some of the lists I have seen have this one at the top, and I will say it has a really cool ending, but as much as I enjoyed it, there were others I enjoyed more. I think I found the motivation a little too simplistic. Also, as a fan of Max the idea of him with a happy family even at the beginning of the movie seems wrong. There should be no happiness in Max’s life. He should always be a shell shocked waste case, like he was in the next two.
4. Braveheart-painted blue ass a go go. What a great film. Mel plays William Wallace, Scottish patriot and all around bad ass. Great battle scenes, good humor, and an evisceration scene that had me loosing my popcorn, if you know what I mean.
3. Lethal Weapon-remember a few lines ago when I said Max should always be a shell shocked waste case? This is because this is the roll Mel plays best. Here he is Martin Riggs, burned out Vietnam vet with a death wish. That “nothing to lose” aspect of his personality makes him truly kick some ass. The last few minutes of the movie, where he decided there was stuff in life worth living for, felt really out of character and kind of continued in the next three sequels. Great movie, nonetheless.
2. Gallipoli-ever have the feeling that your life is just too good and happy and you want to bring it down a few dozen notches? Then this is the movie for you. One of his earliest roles, he plays an ANZAC soldier in the assault on Gallipoli during WWI. However, as depressing as it is, the movie is great and you will enjoy it. Just make sure you have your anti-depressants handy for the last 10 minutes of the film. Also, by the end of the movie you will hate the British officer class.
1. The Road Warrior-not only my favorite Mel Gibson films, but one of my top 10 of all time. Who doesn’t love a apocalyptic wasteland with Mohawk biker gangs running around doing horrible things to all the remaining good people? Actually, while this movie is in all ways cool, it is the driving sequences that make it happen. Check out my blog post about the best movie chases scenes of all time for more details on that. This is the movie that made me fall in love with double barreled sawed off shotguns (very illegal, btw). If I ever get enough money to buy a muscle car, it will be the MFP Interceptor from this movie (for the record, it’s a 1973 Ford Falcon XB Coupe, a car only available in Australia. It had a Concorde front end. The supercharger poking out of the hood was for looks only). Ironically, the filmmakers sold the Interceptor for scrap, but fortunately it was saved by a fan of the movie.
So there it is. However, as Winter follows Fall, as good opposes evil, and as yin matches yang we have to have the bad films to go with the good. Here you go.
5. Bird on a Wire-I remember walking out of this film wondering what the hell just happened. This was three years after Lethal Weapon and I was hoping to see Martin Riggs kicking ass. Instead I saw Mel Gibson with a bad 80’s Flock of Seagulls haircut and a goofy smile on his face. I put the blame for the silliness of this movie on Goldie Hawn, who I find really hard to take seriously in any serious film.
4. Signs-I know. Alien invasion movie. I should love it. But the big M. Knight Shyamalan twist (SPOILER ALERT) is the aliens are poisoned by water! Yes, let’s invade a planet that is 70% covered with a toxic substance and fight the natives who are 90% made of said toxic substance. It’s hard to take seriously an enemy I can literally kill with spitballs. This is like the US invading Iraq, except instead of sand the country is made of radioactive waste. Also, this is another movie where you get to spend 100 minutes praying for something to happen.
3. Tequila Sunrise-hey, what’s bad for Kurt Russell is bad for Mel Gibson. Check out my Kurt Russell post for more details on this convoluted dog.
2. What Women Want-jeez, talk about pandering. This so called “movie” is just painful on multiple levels, at least from a male perspective, and honestly if I were a woman I think I would be really offended by the simplistic treatment of stereotypical women. Also, it should be pretty clear from the phone conversation tape his ex girlfriend made that Mel Gibson really DOESN’T know what women want.
1. The Patriot-oi, what a piece of crap this was. OK, I know I’m a nut about historical accuracy in movies, but this one didn’t even try. Instead, we got a super USA propaganda piece that managed to completely skirt around the issues of slaves and the fact that the Continental Army managed to win not a single battle during the course of the Revolutionary War. We got our asses kicked from one end of the country to the other, and only won because the British decided the war was costing too much money. Hey, a win’s a win, but still. This film is painfully one dimensional and ultimately kind of stupid.
That’s it. Post here if you think I am an idiot for any of these (or any other thing, for that matter). Thanks for reading. I would go see a cheap movie and review it tonight, but there is nothing out I haven’t seen except for Happy Feet 2, and I really can’t force myself to watch dancing penguins (this is why I didn’t see Mr. Popper’s Penguins). Also, I didn’t see the first one and feel I might miss some of the nuance of the sequel for the lack of it (ha ha haha ha). I’ve got an idea for tomorrow but if I don’t get it together will just do the Star Trek thing. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Farewell, Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey holds a weird place in my heart. She was not my favorite, as I tend to go more of harder military sci fi and her stuff felt very soft, even feminine, to me. However, this is a result of her intention rather than any failing in her writing. I like to think that she saw the universe as a place where strife existed but peace and love could as well.
The reason she is special to me is that she was instrumental in my developing a love of science fiction through an act of kindness. As a kid we were very poor (food stamp poor) and the only books I could get were the $.10 paperbacks from the local thrift store. This unfortunately meant that reading a series was nigh impossible, as I would find the third and fifth in a series, but never the first and second and never in any kind of order. I had not read much science fiction when I had the fortune to come across a copy of the Dragonriders of Pern, first in the Dragonrider series. I read it and it was kind of mind blowing for my youthful brain. Telepathic dragons who get ridden by guys and fight space worms? The ability to bond with a friend for life who would love you unconditionally? All on an alien planet far from the PTSD inducing life that was my home and school world? Sign me up please!
The problem, as aforementioned, was that it would be many a moon before I saw another in the series. However, one of my mom’s friends was over visiting and notice me reading my copy for like the fifth time. She went home and a week later stopped by with the entire series to date, laid out in order. Seems she was a fan. It was wonderful. I consumed the entire series in about two weeks and proceeded re reread the series for most of the rest of the year. At that point I started saving up whatever money I could get (mostly from collecting aluminum cans like a homeless person, although this was before it became popular with the homeless. However, as a result I have experience as a dumpster diver) and buying sci fi novels instead of candy or junk. I always kept an eye out for McCaffrey novels. I read the Ship that Sang, an anthology Anne edited, and was introduced to several other authors. I read the Crystal Singer series and was introduced to the concept of of hot women in space singing for crystals (the cover art was pretty good on that one. Hey, it was the early ’80s).
By that time my love of reading and science fiction was firmly entrenched in my mind and continues to this day. Over time my taste shifted over towards more military stuff, as well as stories with more tragic characters or endings (ever read Iann Banks?). I remember in 6th grade we had an assignment to read 300 pages of a novel (our parents would sign off for each book we finished) in a single semester. I found that laughable and set a personal goal of 10,000 pages, which I achieved (and cemented my place as a loser nerd with my classmates. Maybe I should have set a goal of learning to throw a football). Reading has been my friend for my entire life and a big part of that I lay thankfully at the feet of Anne McCaffrey.
I was extremely saddened to learn of her death yesterday, and hope her legacy carries through and inspires other young people to love reading. I also hope that if they make a movie out of her books they follow the pattern set by the Lord of the Rings trilogy rather than Green Lantern pattern. There have been some very well done movies made from novels lately, and I hope the same movie makers are the ones to get a hold of the Dragonriders. Anne McCaffrey’s legacy deserves the best.
(Lord of the Fail image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Thanks for reading. I might go see a movie on Thanksgiving (cough cough no life cough cough), so I should have something to write about this weekend. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again, and talk to you all later.
Dave
J Edgar Movie Review
Do you like brooding? Than this is the movie for you.
I am a fan of Clint Eastwood movies. I think he is a talented movie director who gets the most out of his actors, whom he has cast with expert precision. That being said, I don’t think J Edgar was his best effort.
To be sure, it is entertaining, and Leonardo DiCaprio (Inception, Titanic. Titanic image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category) delivers a stellar performance, with excellent dialog, supporting cast, and visuals that transport you back to the periods in question. The problem is I felt I was watching two different movies at the same time. The first one was a History Channel documentary about the creation of the FBI with no real connection from period event to period event. The second was a character study of a miserably closeted megalomaniac who let his obsession with Communists rule his life. The movie started out more documentary and in time shifted more towards the character study, but finished up floundering around looking for an ending more tangible than “and then he died and was dead happily ever after.”
This was not a feel good movie in any way. For the most part all the main characters are miserable throughout the film, especially Hoover, and the documentary of the FBI makes a lot of American history look dark, and even manages to cast aspersion onto some of the great triumphs of the FBI. I actually applaud this dedication to the art of movie making, rather than the art of creating worthless pap for the mindless consumption of the American population. However, know going in that you will likely not come out feeling any better when the credits roll.
The story is, of course, the history of the FBI as told from the perspective of the founder, J Edgar Hoover. It goes through founding as a branch of the Department of Justice and highlights some of the more infamous cases, particularly the Lindbergh baby. It details how Hoover got the Bureau started, and each step of the steady increase of power they enjoyed. During the course of the movie we see details of his paranoia regarding Communists, his need for acknowledgement and adulation, and most significantly his lifelong suppression of his true sexuality. This was most strongly manifested with his relationship with his best friend Clyde Tolson (Arnie Hammer-the Social Network) who was also deep in the closet. It is also reflected in his relationship with his spinster assistant Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts-King Kong, the Ring, Mulholland Drive) and his controlling mother (Judi Dench-Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale).
Don’t get me wrong. This movie was good in many ways, and an order of magnitude better than most these days. The problem is the fact that it views like reading someones diary. Each chapter is almost a complete story in and of itself, with the overriding theme being repressed homosexuality. That self imposed repression turns into the worst part about this movie, as you sit there willing any person on screen to do anything at all to make themselves happy. It tends to make the movie very frustrating to watch.
The stars. The acting from everyone, especially Leonardo DiCaprio, was excellent. Three stars. Good dialog with effective direction and filming. One star. Very much in period. You really feel like you are in the 30’s, especially when Hoover takes over the smoking lounge for his crime lab and one of the evicted agents asks “Where shall we smoke?”. One star. No attempt was made to “happy up” the ending in order to suit the tastes of the unwashed masses. One star. The story was a very interesting piece of American history. One star. A detailed character study and illustration of the stress and frustration of not accepting your own sexuality. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. Frustrating. One black hole. The whole documentary style story telling thing. One black hole. The ending felt horribly unresolved and incomplete. In spite of going 137 minutes the film felt about 15 minutes short. One black hole. There were a few points where the pacing seemed to drag on. A heavier hand on the editing might have been called for. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a total of four stars. Not bad, but it could have been a lot better. I was actually expecting more from a Clint Eastwood film. It’s no Gran Torino. However, worth watching. I don’t know how it would do as a date film, unless you are gay, in which case you and your partner will probably leave the film with an overwhelming sense of gratitude that you are out. If you are a fan of 20th century American history I think you might well enjoy it. Worth seeing, but maybe wait for video.
After watching the upper crust of film making I think I need to lower my brain down, and will therefore see A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas this afternoon. Look for that review tomorrow. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you later.
Dave
Dream House Movie Review
House of Confusion.
This movie was bitterly disappointing for me. Not because I was expecting something great. I went into it expecting it to suck. It disappointed me because I could see elements of a great movie in here that failed to surface. It’s like the ship the U.S.S. Bad Script sailed to within sight of the Port of Good Movie only to run aground on Fumble Reef. (Titanic image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)
The best way to describe this movie is confused, in that it shifts gears several times. It started off as kind of a really interesting psycho drama, then alternates back and forth between a haunted house and whodunit with a miserably predictable ending. It looked great as a psychodrama, decent as a ghost movie, and painfully stupid as a whodunit. I can almost feel the inexorable hand of the studio pulling the puppet strings to cause the tonal shifts.
The other weird thing about this film was the two stars, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, met and fell in love in real life while working on the movie yet the on screen chemistry seemed a little off. I think the problem is they acted like a new couple, which in real life they were, but in the movie they had been married for at least seven years.
Anyway, the movie. Daniel Craig quits his job as an editor in NYC to move to his new house in the burbs. His hot wife Libby (Rachel Weisz – the Mummy, the Mummy Returns, the Constant Gardener, the Fountain) and two super cute daughters (Taylor Geare – the little girl from Inception and Clair Geare, the younger little girl from Inception) are glad he is going to stay home. Things seem idyllic but there is some guy running around outside, and some teenagers holding Black Mass in the basement. Turns out the family that lived there before were all killed by the father.
I don’t want to get too into the story, as this is a mystery and a spoiler would definitely detract from your enjoyment of it. Mystery/ghost movie/psycho drama hijinks ensue in almost equal portions. The story kind of plods along, and the whole mixing genres manages to take 90% of the horror out of the film, especially at the end. There are a few startling moments, but nothing that really shocked anyone.
The stars. Daniel Craig. No one does intense like him. One star. Overall the acting from all parties was really solid. One star. Some decent camera work to reflect the shifts in tone needed for the psychodrama shifts. One star. Dialog was decent, and most of the relationships on screen seemed solid. One star. Total: Four stars.
The black holes. The movie couldn’t decide what kind of film it wanted to be when it grew up. The genre shift was really annoying, especially at the end. One black hole. The police acted unlike any police I have ever seen or heard of. One black hole. The movie kind of trudged along. Pacing was really slow. One star. The ending had a funny smell on it from being pulled out of the scriptwriters ass. One black hole. A suspense film with little to no suspense and a thriller with no thrills. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of one black hole. Kind of a neutral score, which reflects how I felt coming out of the theater. Not really dissatisfied, but not really satisfied. Is it worth seeing? Not at full price. Is it worth $5 on a Sunday? Sure, if there is nothing else playing. Honestly, if you are looking for scary seen Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. More thrilling Real Steel. Better drama 50/50. I think the biggest problem this movie faces is that there are a bunch of other, better movies out at the moment.
Thanks for reading. Sorry about the short review but when a movie doesn’t really grab me or annoy me I find it hard to write about. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I might do a list tomorrow, or another Star Trek retrospective. I’m up to Insurrection, which means I am almost at the worst of the dross. Oh, well.
Dave
Killer Elite Movie Review
Neither killer nor elite.
Before I get into this movie, can I say that I wish Hollywood would get over the idea that parkour is still cool. Sure, it’s fun to watch idiots jump off buildings in a Darwinian attempt to improve the human race, but in movies, when we know there are all kinds of wires, safety bags, and, most importantly, stuntmen, all it does is remind us that what was cool in 2004 is lame in 2011. Hollywood has only itself to blame, as years of quick edit movies and television has given America the attention span of a three year old, and expecting us to like something even six months after it was cool is ridiculous. (I do all my own stunts image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Anyway, Killer Elite. The trailer was amazing. Robert DiNero, Jason Stratham, and Clive Owen in an action packed Bourne Identity-esque assassination movie? How could that go wrong? Unfortunately, the only thing they kept from the Bourne Identity was the horrible quick cut action scene editing thing that annoys me so much, as it means you can never really follow the fights (normally I would say this is due to the actors not being coordinated enough to do a single punch at a time, but I thought Jason was an experience action star). The story is ass, Robert DiNero spends most of the movie looking and sounding like a drunken homeless man, Jason Stratham’s character doesn’t seem motivated to continue breathing, much less do any action stuff, the romance story was crowbarred in so strongly they bent it, and a huge piece of the basic premise behind the story I found disturbing on a serious level.
What do I mean by that? Basically Jason’s character Danny is being blackmailed into killing three men. Who are these three men? Dangerous crime lords? Small country oppressive dictators? Ruthless corporate heads who advance themselves through the immoral exploitation of the little man? No. They are dedicated British SAS military officers who’s only crime was obeying their orders. Sorry, but I think this “Dark Horse Hero” trend in movies has just jumped the shark. You want to root for Danny, but he is killing innocent men. The so called “villain”, Clive Owen as Spike, is an ex SAS man who only wants to protect his fellow soldiers yet is painted as the evil antagonist.
Anyway, the story. Danny starts off as a hit man in Mexico, but decides to get out of the business when he comes close to killing the little girl of the man he just shot in the face (in front of her). I guess Hollywood can recognize a limit after they bulldoze right past it. He retires to Australia where he starts an awkward romance with all the chemistry of mixing dirt and water to get mud. Meanwhile, his mentor, Hunter (I don’t want to be a party pooper, but Hunter was the name of Brock Sampsons mentor in the Venture Bros. Can you guys even try to be original?), the great Robert DiNero, got himself kidnapped by an Arab sheik for the crime of not killing the SAS men who killed the sheik’s sons (in case you were thinking that maybe the SAS men were out of line, in three separate flashbacks they showed the death of each son and in each case they were armed). He is going to be executed unless Danny completes the job. Unfortunately he is only given the name of one of the men, and has to get help trying to suss out who the other two are. That tips off Spike, who works with “the Feather Men”, a cabal of ex SAS officers turned businessmen who work to make sure the ex SAS men are all protected. He is the only character worth anything, and he sets out to find Danny and save the lives of his compatriots. Assassin chaos ensues. Stuff gets blown up, innocent men get killed, and in the last 20 minutes of the movie the story, which until then had been so linear it looked like they used a laser to align it, takes so many turns and convolutions it ended up looking like someones small intestine. I thought about it all day and am still not sure what the hell was going on.
The stars. Robert DiNiro. One star. Clive Owen’s character was actually kind of cool. One star. Spy movie. One star. Decent action, at least as far as the gun play goes. One star. Decent special effects with minimum CGI. One star. Set mostly in England, which I kind of like. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. Except for Spike, there was no sign of a motivation from any of the character to do anything, including the peripheral characters like the British government. One black hole. Bad romance. One black hole. The story was stupid simple for the first 80% and then stupid complicated for the last 20%. One black hole. The story was written like the writers all had accounts at Unnecessary-Flashbacks-R-Us and they were having a two for one sale. One black hole. A complete misunderstanding of what insulin is and how it works (I am a type I diabetic and should know). One black hole. Somehow Danny sneaks into a high security SAS base, joins a huge unit of soldiers, and walks out with them on a maneuver, and none of them ever say “Hey, who are you again?” One black hole. For some reason Jason Stratham never, ever shaves, even when he is sneaking into a hospital to disguise himself as a doctor or into a military base disguised as a soldier. He must have the five o’clock shadow thing written into his contract. One black hole (speaking of guys in need of a shave, Robert DiNero looked like a bad Santa Claus for a lot of this movie. I won’t give them a black hole for it, but still). The sheik says he wants the British to know that the war isn’t over and he wants to make an example of the SAS men, then orders Danny to make their deaths all look like accidents? One black hole for stupid script writing. The whole quick cut bad fight choreography thing. One black hole. The victims were pretty much undeserving of death in any way. One black hole. Total: ten black holes.
So four black holes. I don’t know. If you like Jason Stratham go see it. If you like Robert DiNero don’t go see it. It had some entertainment value. Just not a ton of it.
By the way, I’d like to tangent off a little and talk about something related to this movie but more related to nerd dating and my current lack of success in it. In this movie Jason Stratham enjoys an awkward and stilted love interest with a hot girl (Yvonne Strahovski). I think a lot of that ended up on the cutting room floor, but I noticed that during the course of this film Jason never ever seems to say more than five words to her at a time. There is no easy banter, no sharing of feeling, none of the crap that women claim to want from a relationship. I thought back to every other Jason Stratham film I have ever seen and realized that he pretty much does the same thing in all of them. I guess if you’re good looking enough you don’t need to do any of that pesky personality and relationship stuff, and if you aren’t all the being witty, caring, funny, interesting, having a cool t-shirt selling website, and writing a detailed and well thought out movie review blog means diddly. Women, you can collectively bite me. Not that I’m bitter.
Meh. I’ll feel better tomorrow and probably apologize. Don’t listen too much to me when I am like this. Speaking of bitter, I’m off to see Abduction and expect it to suck like the world’s biggest vacuum cleaner. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Straw Dogs Movie Review
Hollywood faces a dilemma. You see, with the rising multicultural awareness and political correctness we have enjoyed over the last fifteen years or so, there is no longer a go to race we can paint as the villain. For years it was Native Americans (then called Indians), but the slow realization that we more or less were the real bad guy in that dynamic and the fact that they were never really a threat and perhaps not as bloodthirsty or dangerous as they were painted to be kind of killed it. With WWII we had Germans and Japanese for a while, but now the Japanese are like another state and we are hoping the Germans can keep the EU from economic collapse. For a while it was the Vietnamese, but the guilt and shame we feel about that war and they way we treated our returning veterans doesn’t make for a real feel good situation (look at how Rambo returning to Vietnam was received). In theory it could be the Iraqis or the Afghanis, but since we are trying to build stable governments there from locals that are friendly to the US we can’t really demonize them as a race. Really it should be the Chinese, but since we count on them to manufacture 80% of our country and they are also responsible for a lot of overseas movie sales we can’t really alienate them. And the one group who actually could be seen to deserve being the villain in a lot of situations, white people, is the group for the most part Hollywood is trying to sell it’s product to.
Who, then, to make the bad guy? Well, the answer is pretty obvious. Redneck hillbilly white trash. Poor in culture, hygiene, and tolerance of outsiders with a bent towards drunken violence and a tendency to own a lot of guns, they are the clear cut winner in the “What marginalized group can we ostracize without getting into trouble with the rest of them?” contest. The funny thing is, most white trash really don’t have that much of a problem with it. They kind of see things in movies and are for the most part cool with it in ways no other group would be. It’s a weird phenomenon. (Trailer park image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)
So, Straw Dogs. I know it’s yet another remake of a film shot in 1971 staring Dustin Hoffman, and a few of the reviews I saw try to compare the two, but I never saw the original and therefore will review this film on it’s own merits. I think the movie had issues from start to finish, the main one being I couldn’t figure out who to have sympathy with. In theory it was the protagonists, Hollywood script writer David Sumner (James Marsden – Cyclops from X-Men, Superman Returns) and actress wife Amy (Kate Bosworth – Superman Returns, 21, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (?), the Warrior’s Way (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I forgot she was in that one. God awful)). They are the outsiders coming into town and getting abused. However, he comes across as way too good for the locals and does everything in his power to alienate them, including bailing out of church service mid sermon in order to take a nap in his $100,000 car. It’s like he taped his own “Kick Me” sign on his back as he rolled into town. She is originally from the town, but does all she can to stir up trouble. I totally support a woman’s right to dress as she sees fit, but at some point you have to take reality into check. I don’t care where you are living, if you have a crew of men including your ex boyfriend working on your property try wearing something other than super short short shorts and a braless tank top, if only out of respect for them. She also manages to avoid visiting any of her old friends, which kind of pisses them off. In a way, you could have some sympathy for the local yokels who later attack them, headed by Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard – Zoolander, True Blood), as they really were just minding their hillbilly business, but then they turn out to be rapists. There is a developmentally challenged young man you could be sympathetic to, but then he actually commits the crime everyone was afraid he would (blatant rip off of Of Mice and Men). There is a young girl who you might care about, but she is obviously trying to create problems for the challenged guy. The guy I felt most sympathetic for was the local Sheriff (Laz Alonso – Avatar, Fast and Furious 2009, Jarhead) as he seemed to be trying to keep the peace in a really tough situation, but even he seemed to not want to really take any kind of stand. By the end of the movie it becomes apparent who you are supposed to be rooting for, but the murky nature of what was going on really drained a lot of my sympathy.
Anyway, this movie starts off with David Sumner and hot wife Amy coming to Blackwater, Mississippi. She spent most of her childhood trying to escape this backwater and really doesn’t want to come back, but he seems to think it would be a great place for him to work on his script about Stalingrad (absolutely no foreshadowing there. I guess subtlety is not director Rod Lurie’s strong point). Also, he must think forcing your wife to relive childhood trauma is good for a relationship. Anyway, her father passed on and they are going to live in his old place. The barn was damaged by Katrina and he hires Charlie and his crew of white trash stereotypes to rebuild it. Turns out Charlie was Amy’s ex boyfriend, something 30 seconds of conversation might have established before offering him the job. Charlie and crew do the whole creepy eye thing with Amy, which bugs her at first but then, after a fight with David, encourages by undressing in front of an open window. She and her husband bumble about town alienating the locals. Eventually they have to fire the crew.
I’ll say that up until here I was with the movie. Seemed a little annoying, but solidly in the 3-5 star range for me. Then, while most of the work crew take David in a snipe hunt (if you don’t know what that is Google it) we get to the horrific, graphic multiple rape scene. I am pretty sure this scene was part of the 1971 version and kept in for artistic integrity, but it really threw the whole film off the rails and into a deep canyon. The scene itself was eye gougingly, skin crawlingly creepy and awful as possible. The worst part was the progression. At first it looks like it could happen, but you keep thinking, “OK, David’s going to come home and interrupt, or the guy is going to feel like he made his point and cut out.” But no, it keeps progressing to it’s as bad as you can imaging ending. Then, another guy comes in for anther one. Sorry, but as I mentioned yesterday in my Drive review violence against women is something that I do not abide, and rape is so disgusting an act that it makes me ashamed to be at all associated with men capable of that, even genetically. Then, to make matters worse, Amy does the rape victim thing and does not report it to anyone, not even her husband.
Other stuff happens. The very predictable sub plot of the developmentally challenged kid comes to fruition. David and Amy end up besieged in their house by Charlie and his crew. Stuff blows up. David uses a lot of ingenuity to shoot, burn, nail, and at one point bear trap the hated white trash foe. The end.
The stars. Good acting from the entire cast. One star. The dialog and screenplay was well written. One star. Filming and editing was really good. Some of the hunting scenes were really well shot. One star. Kate Bosworth was looking really hot (although given what happened to her character I feel dirty saying so). One star. In spite of Hollywood’s attempt to demonize them, I find Southern culture and accents charming. Everyone is so polite. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes. Horrible, graphic rape scene (come on guys. We weren’t making the Accused here. I’m going to have to play a lot of video games to wash those images out of my brain). Four black holes. Every interaction David and Amy had with locals had an obvious “We are going to kick your ass” undertone that neither of them seemed capable of perceiving. One black hole for stupidity. The last 20 minutes of violence, while entertaining (and, to be honest, cathartic), took on a Wile E Coyote slapstick comedy note that was not really in tune with the rest of the movie. One black hole. The whole not sure who to be sympathetic to thing. One black hole. And one more black hole for exploiting every southern white trash stereotype possible. Total: Eight black holes.
So a total of three black holes, a pretty bad score. Unfortunately the actors did a better job than this, and if the writers had tightened things up a bit and done something different with one scene it probably would have scored in the stars region. It was kind of entertaining if you can ignore a couple things. See it on your TV, as most of the film work does not require a big screen to see it.
Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu for laughs and annoying questions. I’m going to try to see something tonight or tomorrow. Maybe I’ll suffer through that Bucky Larson fiasco. Should be fun to review.
Movie reveiw: Our Idiot Brother
Not as idiotic as I thought it would be
I’m not saying this movie is great. It is not a milestone in road of cinema history. It is not even a cobblestone. On the other hand, it’s not a washed out bridge either. I think the best way to describe this film is with “in-” words. Inoffensive. Pleasantly innocuous. This movie is like watching two dogs play in a park. Fun to watch, but except for a warm, pleasant feeling you won’t gain a lot from it. It sets out to make you feel good, and accomplishes that goal.
I’ll say this has been a lesson for me in the “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover” vein, although in this case it’s you can’t judge a movie by it’s poster. I never saw a trailer but when I saw the poster said to myself “There is no way this cannot suck”. I really thought this was another load of excrement dumped into the sewer of bad rated R comedies I have been drowning in all summer. Wrong. It was really not bad. I left the theater feeling OK about the universe.
Not that the movie doesn’t have it’s faults, which I will get into shortly in excruciating detail. I also have a couple of personal issues with the premise, the first being that I have moments of absolute contempt for the whole hippy movement. I grew 
up in the 80’s, and there was very little that annoyed me more than aging hippies telling me how great the free love was back in the 60’s and 70’s. Sorry, but I couldn’t even talk to a girl without tripping on my tongue back then and the whole free love thing had been replaced by leg warmers and big hair. Listening to some long haired smelly old pot head drone on about it is the equivalent of a rich man going to a Greyhound station and telling everyone how great it is to live in a mansion. Screw you, hippy! (South Park image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
The other thing about this movie is I have two sisters, and have been called the idiot brother myself. That being said, I don’t think my interaction was ever this weird with my sisters.
Anyway, the movie. Ned (Paul Rudd, who until now has mostly had supporting roles in movies like Knocked Up, the 40 Year Old Virgin, and Dinner for Schmucks) is a Jesus looking smelly (I assume. None that I have known were renowned for their hygiene) hippy who gets busted for selling pot to a uniformed cop. This sounds like the dumbest move ever, and actually threw up a warning flag for me early on, but as you get to know Ned you kind of get where he was coming from. Anyway, he spends eight months in jail and comes out to find that his girlfriend is kicking him out and keeping his dog, Willie Nelson. I mention this because the dog is pretty much the only motivation Ned has to do anything during the entirety of the film. Anyway, he heads into New York city to couch surf with his three dysfunctional sisters: a bitchy, bossy high strung magazine writer (Elizabeth Banks-the 40 Year Old Virgin, Spiderman), a bisexual girl with no apparent job who can’t control her libido (Zooey (Zoo-ey? How do you pronounce that?) Deschanel-Almost Famous, Your Highness, a bunch of other stuff I never heard of), and a downtrodden housewife married to a complete lame, pretentious intelligentsia filmmaker who is working on making some dumb documentary and raising the wimpiest kid in human history (Emily Mortimer-Shutter Island, Lars and the Real Girl, 30 Rock, and a bunch of other movies I never heard of. Her husband is Steve Coogan, from Tropic Thunder and the horrible Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief) who also can’t control his libido (relationship betrayal is something of a theme for this movie). Anyway, Ned is a loose cannon in all of their lives, seemingly wrecking them all, but the truth is he is more exposing the hypocrisy they all had riding under the surface. He didn’t cause any of the people with relationships to get into cheating situation. Just exposed it all. Throughout the film he bumbles along with a faith in people and an innocent belief that if you trust each other you won’t get burned. It is kind of annoying at first but by the end I was kind of buying into the vibe (time to go download some Grateful Dead songs, I guess).
Anyway, sibling hijinks ensues. All three sisters have their lives turned upside down and then somehow set back upright again. Ned gets his dog back.
The stars. I felt kind of good watching this movie. I can’t put my finger on why, but I left with a warm feeling in my cold, dark heart. Two stars. All the acting was really good. One star. The dialog felt like brothers and sisters arguing. One star. All the sisters were pretty easy on the eyes, especially Elizabeth Banks, and they had a bunch of other hot sophisticated New York women, particularly my future wife Janet Montgomery (the casting person obviously shared my preferences, as there was not a blond to be seen). One star. There was a supporting hippy character that was actually really funny, and his sisters lesbian girlfriend was pretty cool too (Rashida Jones, whom I fell in love with in the Office). Also his parole officer was cool and added to the film. One star. The dog was really a cool looking dog (a beautiful Golden Retriever). One star. They didn’t try to shove a love story into the film for Ned. One star. Ned’s nephew was in training by is overprotective parents to be a victim for life but kind of turned out cool. One star. Overall a pleasant movie going experience. Two stars. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. Hippies. One black hole. The love interest for the bitchy magazine sister kind of bugged me. One black hole. The three sisters, in spite of having completely different lives, were kind of interchangeable to the point that I had to struggle to keep track of which one was which. The only one that stood out was the housewife, and that was only because she was the only non-brunette. One black hole. While Ned’s innocence and trust was refreshing, I found myself wanting to reach into the movie and shake him for being such a dope. One black hole. The filmmaker character kind of bugged me too. He was sleazy from the get go and gave the film a greasy feeling every time he was on screen, to it’s detriment (greasy film? Me so funny!). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
Total of six stars, a great score for a Rated R comedy. I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience, and this film is a candidate for best feel good film of the year when I get around to doing my end of the year awards (probably some time in June, given how I keep up on these things). Definitely worth watching, definitely a good date film. It won’t stick in your brain and you won’t be quoting it, however. Nothing in this requires a big screen, so if you want to wait for NetFlix that is cool. Thanks again, and don’t forget to sign up for the RSS feed and follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Talk to you soon.
