The Harry Potter Marathon continues: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
So I managed to find the time to watch another one. Pretty much everyone I have talked to has said that this film is where the series starts to get really good, and I have to say thus far I agree. While the first two were enjoyable they seemed a little trite, but this one really started to feel like a progressive story.
I will say that I am starting to wonder if we are ever going to see the often mentioned (in spite of the prohibition against his name) Voldemort. For the biggest, baddest wizard in history he sure seems to spend a lot of time incorporeal, or as an animated memory, or just plain missing. It’s starting to feel a lot like Scooby Doo again, in that everyone spends all day talking about how bad ass the Phantom Astronaut is only to find out he’s a 70 year old abandoned amusement park caretaker in an old costume decorated with a glow in the dark Bedazzler kit.
As per usual, I will not burn up time recounting the story. I’m sure it is old hat for all of you. The movie was good, although as per usual plagued by the deus ex machina monkey on it’s back. In the sci fi world time travel as a plot device is the laziest tool in the writers tool shed and that carries through to fantasy as well, especially when the whole concept of any of the wizards being able to time travel was not even established until about the last 20 minutes of the movie. Also, where did the guy who was the rat come from? He just sort of appeared out of nowhere to take the blame for the death of Harry’s parents. I also have a few other specific questions that maybe someone who has read the books can help me with.
First of all, I once again have an issue with the headmaster of Hogwarts. If you bring in the Dementors (kind of a silly name, IMO. What exactly do they dement? I would have called them the Soul Drinkers. Much cooler name, and more accurately descriptive) to capture Sirius Black and guard your school, why would you keep them around after they have established an inclination towards harming the one student in the school everyone believes Sirius Black is out to kill? It’s like bringing in a pride of lions to protect a lone gazelle. No one noticed the fact that Harry nearly died from a massive fall after being assaulted by a Dementor? In general I would give Headmaster Dumbledore a D+ in the area of maintaining student health and safety, but in this case he is outright fail (Titanic epic fail image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). Also, are the Dementors even remotely competent as prison guards? They seem to move kind of slow, are easily fooled, can be pushed off by any competent wizard, and when they finally capture Sirius Black the load him into a prison cell that only has a single, easily blasted door that leads to the open sky. Good thing no one in the movie has the ability to blow stuff up or fly with magic.
Secondly, didn’t Harry assault Professor Snape? Isn’t that just cause for expulsion from the school? Snape wasn’t about to kill Sirius Black outright, so Harry would have had time to explain the situation. Snape may be a creepy weirdo, but he is reasonable and keen to the letter of the law, it seems.
Thirdly, it seems that everyone in the movie spends a lot of time huffing and puffing through monster infested woods. Wouldn’t things be a little faster and safer if they all had some kind of broom shaped flying device? Or are those only reserved for Quidditch?
Speaking of Quidditch (yes, I’m back on that again) something that occurred to me after I wrote the last post but was reminded of when Harry got his new broom at the end of the film is, doesn’t the game have any kind of rules or guidelines regarding broom specifications? I mean, stock car racing is called stock car racing because all the cars have to conform, within certain perimeters, to certain stock car limits. Baseball bats have to be wooden with no kind of weight added to the core. Pretty much every sport on the planet has specific rules regarding the types of equipment used by players in an attempt to level the playing field. This makes the games one of skill and not one of who has the best piece of equipment. A Formula One car is much faster than a stock car, but if you entered the two into a race together it wouldn’t be a stock car race and Nascar would never sanction it. However, it seems like the richest players in Quidditch have a distinct lead as they can just go out and buy the newest, fastest broom. Slytherin did it last movie and now Harry has a significant advantage going into the next season.
Finally, from what I know about wolves in general and werewolves in particular (at least, from every fiction source or legend I have read) they have a very keen sense of smell, like a bloodhound. Why, then, would Harry and Hermione think they would be able to escape it by running 100 feet and hide behind a tree? This would have been a prime opportunity to use those flying brooms, but I guess they left them back home. Not much chance at all of being pursued by some horrible monster. It’s not like it ever happened to them before. Oh, wait. It’s happened to them in pretty much every movie. Also, it really isn’t much of a stretch to take a name like Lupin and consider the chance of that person being a werewolf. If I were a werewolf and wanted to hide that fact I just might consider changing my name to something a little less leading, like Smith, or Iwilleatyourface.
I have one more big Harry Potter question, but it is more general and not specific to any movie so I will save it for one that I don’t have a lot to write about. In spite of the questions that keep coming up in my head, I am enjoying these films quite a bit. I said early on that I was going to avoid any questions related to violations of the basic Laws of Thermodynamics, and I think I am going to have to extend that to questions related to time travel paradoxes.
So I am watching the Change Up tonight and dreading it with every fiber of my being. It looks horrible with a capital H. I can’t tell you how sick I am of Ryan Reynolds and the stupid Van Wilder character he seems incapable of not playing. Hey Ryan. Want to prove you can actually act or something? Why not take a roll that is even slightly different from your usual crap? Remember how Will Ferrell did that with Stranger than Fiction and came out with a brilliant movie? Maybe play someone not so sleazy and well put together. Anyway, expect me to review that pile of refuse tomorrow (who knows? Maybe it will surprise me. If it does, I’m stopping off on the way home and buying several hundred Lottery tickets).
Movie Review: The Smurfs in 3D
Yet another opportunity for me to feel extra creepy being the only lone adult male in a theater full of rug rats. If any studios want me to review their kids movies without forcing me to feel like I should be on some kind of list, start sending me copies. However, this theater was packed full so, while I was still creepy, at least there was a crowd to blend into.
So first of all I did this movie at the bequest of my best friend, Dave. He wanted my take on it. That being said, I probably would have seen it anyway so I can’t really complain to him too much. Secondly, I did used to watch the Smurfs on TV as a kid. I remember liking a few and hating most, and in part secretly rooting for Gargamel. He always struck me as a go forward, hard working kind of guy while most of the Smurfs seemed to laze about in a peacefully indolent lifestyle that only 
helped illustrate how much my life sucked at the time. However, I always liked Papa Smurf (replacement father figure, Dr. Freud?) and, since I would frequently build tiny villages with my Legos and then rampage through them like Godzilla tearing through Tokyo, I always like it when Gargamel would rip through Smurf Village (Godzilla image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
Anyway, the movie was actually pretty Smurfy (and yes, I plan to beat that joke into the ground). It’s one of those rare kids films that actually has a level of entertainment for adults. Honestly, it was Gargamel who carried the film for me. The Smurfs did what Smurfs do; Smurfed together happily, sang that annoyingly Smurfy song, and ascribed stringently to the two dimensional stereotypical behavior denoted by their names. Brainy was the annoying know-it-all, Gutsy (a character they created for the film. I guess they didn’t want to use Hefty, although he surfaced later on. Maybe they were worried about being sued by Glad Bags) the thrill seeker, and Grouchy the group reality check (I mean downer). The only Smurfs that had anything resembling depth of character were Papa Smurf and Smurfette, if only because neither had their defining characteristics dictated by a name. Gargamel (the very talented Hank Azaria), however, was hilarious in every scene. He was vicious, crude, clever, witty, acerbic, cantankerous, and sarcastic at every turn, and they really put some effort into making his lines as funny as possible in hopes of keeping parents awake while they took their kids to see it. Even Azreal was great. I normally find animals given roles in films like humans lame (every talking dog and cat movie can officially bite me) but the way they did it added huge elements to the film.
The story is pretty basic, and reads like a two hour version of one of the cartoons. The film starts out like any number of the cartoons with Gargamel finding Smurf Village and unleashing unholy black robed hell on the little mushroom houses. At that point I suddenly realized the film could possibly not suck. The Smurfs flee, and Papa and a few others run into a cave where they get sucked into a magical vortex and are deposited in New York City. Gargamel pursues them (after tossing Azreal through first to make sure it’s safe) and the New York hijinks begin. The Smurfs befriend Patrick Winslow (played by one of my favorite actors, Neil Patrick Harris) and his pregnant wife Grace (Jayma Mays, whom I like a lot in spite of playing yet another ridiculous love interest for Kevin James in his mall cop movie). Meanwhile Gargamel is chasing them through the city. Apparently he wants to suck out the Smurf power essence, which seems different. If I recall correctly in the cartoons he started off wanting to eat them and then later found a recipe to turn them into gold.
Smurfy hijinks ensue. The Smurfs cause havoc in a toy store when every kid wants one. Papa Smurf has to figure out a way to Smurf the moon blue. Patrick works for a cosmetics firm run by a dragon lady and gets a Smurfy idea for an ad campaign from his little blue friends. Smurfette discovers there is more than one dress in the world. Azreal manages to get the last laugh, as he usually did in the cartoon.
First the stars. As much as I like to think of myself as a cold, soulless automaton I actually was pretty well overwhelmed by warm feelings of nostalgia as I watched this. One star. Neil Patrick Harris. One star. Decent story and dialogue. One star. Gargamel was Smurfing awesome in all regards. Two stars. With the exception of the blue power juice thing and a couple new characters added, the mostly kept to the original story (if only some comic book movie directors I could name could do that) including the origin story of Smurfette. One star. While the movie was sappy and sweet, at no point did I feel the director force feeding me honey to make it over the top sickening sweet pap. One star. The 3D didn’t give me a headache, and actually added a little to the experience. One star. All around a positive experience. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now the black holes. I knew this would happen going in, but I have to give the movie one for infecting my brain with that damned Smurf song. I woke up with it in my head. One black hole. The bitchy dragon lady running the cosmetics firm felt really fake and didn’t add anything to the movie. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
So a grand total of seven stars, and I feel really good about that. In the irksome category the only thing I have is not really the films fault, but the fact is the trailers for the other kids movies coming out soon made me weep for the youth of America. The new Spy Kids movie looks like it was designed to help kids stay back a year in school, and the rest of them blur in my mind of like a blender full of brain cell killing stupidity. As much as I think the Smurfs would be a good movie for kids, why does the rest of Hollywood treat children with the same respect you would give to the grout holding your bathroom tiles together? Is it really that hard to entertain kids without giving them crap?
Movie Review: Cowboys and Aliens
Before I get into this review of an excellent movie, I want to mention getting one of my pet peeves kicked in the balls before the start of the movie. I went to the mens room to take care of my business and there saw some dirtbag use the urinal and then leave with nary soap nor water touching his hands. You, sir, are the reason we all get sick every year and I hope you catch a cold a week until you learn to wash your hands.
By the way, I say pet peeve but really, if this doesn’t peeve you then you can join your unwashed dirt bag friend down in the sewer. This should be everyone’s peeve.
Anyway, Cowboys and Aliens. Really, really fun. It’s that simple. I mean, it’s a movie about cowboys and aliens! How could that possible go wrong? Well, any number of ways, but fortunatly for the hapless reviewers who have to sit through every piece of tripe that comes down the pike, it doesn’t. John Favreau manages to forge a great genre film out of two different genre’s. All around a positive experience. (Alien image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
I really don’t want to get into the story on this one, as everyone needs to see it and I don’t want to send out any spoilers. I’ll talk about the stuff you should have already picked up from the trailer. Daniel Craig wakes up in the Arizona desert with some kind of bracelet on his wrist and amnesia. He is a very stereotypical high desert lone bad ass, and proves it in the first few minutes. He heads into town where he runs into the rest of the Western stereotypical character types. There’s the grizzled sheriff, the grizzled rich rancher who really runs the town (Harrison Ford), his wimpy, obnoxious son, the upscale fish-out-of-water big town guy who runs the saloon and doesn’t know how to use a gun, the hot gunslinger girl, the Native American raised by whites, and the grizzled preacher. In fact the word grizzled can be applied to pretty much every male character in this film. All of them are really stereotypical, but honestly it’s what we expect from a cowboy movie and so actually adds to the enjoyment of the film. Of course, great acting and directing help keep them from becoming annoying.
Aliens show up and start abducting people (anal-probe-a-go-go). Daniel Craig’s bracelet turns out to be a weapon that he uses to shoot down one of them. Other alien/cowboy hijinks ensues. His memory comes back in flashbacks. Native Americans are portrayed as savage killers and then noble warriors. A near inexhaustible supply of cowboys get killed by aliens. Stuff blows up. Other stuff happens. I really don’t want to spoil anything, so I will leave it here. Short review for me, I guess.
The stars. Cowboy movie. One star. Alien movie. One star. Well written story with no visible plot holes. Two stars. Daniel Craig. One star. Harrison Ford. One star. All around great acting. One star. The aliens looked bad ass and their CGI was excellent. One star. Great special effects. One star. Scenery was over the top good. One star. Olivia Wilde was looking pretty good. One star. Generally a fun experience. Two stars. Total: thirteen stars.
Then, because I am a bitter soul who can’t let even a great movie go without dumping on it a little, the black holes. There were a couple of sequences about 1/3 of the way through that kind of dragged. It might be just in comparison to all the other action packed scenes they lagged, but I definitely felt it. One black hole. The aliens motivation for coming to Earth was kind of stupid and childish. One black hole. The writers all obviously had a huge slice of deus ex machine pie before writing the ending. One black hole. Cowboy henchmen who continuously respawn like monsters from a monster generator in Gauntlet. One black holes. Total: 4 black holes.
I don’t have any irksome-but-not-blackhole-worthy items, but I will talk a bit about one limitation from the entirety of the film. It is fun and entertaining, but makes no pretense at being anything more than that. I’m not in the business of telling a great director like John Favreau how to make a movie, but I think that if he had added some plot element to the movie other than the main story it would have made for a deeper meaning. Maybe the aliens might have had a more complex motivation for attacking Earth, or maybe they could have landed in the middle of some big conflict between the cowboys and the Native Americans. Some kind of fight between cow and sheep herders or the like. While the characters were all very good and well developed, it was the story itself that felt 2 dimensional. Very linear with no variance whatsoever. Even the whole “You’re an outlaw we are going to hang you” conflict was resolved in about 30 seconds with hardly any discussion at all. Harrison Ford’s character was portrayed as a brutal hard ass who would destroy anything that got in his way, but after the first 20 minutes never had a chance to display that quality. Again, great movie, but I think it could have been better.
Final score of 10 stars and my hearty recommendation that you all see it in a theater. You will be entirely entertained. Not good date material, but if your girl is a fan of Daniel Craig at all it might work.
Anyway, no posts until Monday. I have a Warhammer tournament I am playing in this weekend. Then I get to watch all the Harry Potter films back to back. At some point I plan to suffer through the new Smurfs film (at the request of my best friend. Thanks a lot, Dave) and review that one, so don’t be surprised if my next movie review has me feeling a little blue (haw!). Also, I need to do my next Star Trek retrospective. Unfortunately I have run out of the good movies to do and am now left with the dregs, starting with Generations. Ugh.
Some thoughts on origin movies.
So I did Captain America last week, and gave it a good review. I stand by that, as it was a decent movie with a good story. Generally enjoyable. However, I was talking to a friend of mine last night about it and he raised a couple points that got me thinking about the problems with origin movies in general.
Really, it all boils down to the fact that origin stories are really cool, but very few directors seem comfortable letting the origin run the entirety of the movie. In other words, about halfway through the movie they have introduced the superhero, told where he came from, explained his powers, and gotten his costume organized when suddenly the thought occurs to them “Oh, crap. What are we doing to do to fill the last half of the movie?”
This is not every movie. Thor more or less ignored the whole origin question entirely and just jumped into the action. X Men First Class let the origin story travel through the entirely of the film with great results. This was probably motivated by the fact that they had a dozen different characters to work with, but the net result was very pleasing. However, when I think back to Captain America I realize that the part of the film I really enjoyed was the first half. Once Steve Rogers got his team together and starting fighting as Captain America it kind of started to grind along.
I have been thinking about how to avoid this problem. Wolverine Origins labored under this (and about 10 tons of other crap). Even Batman Begins kind of had this going on. Green Lantern ground it face first into the ground, with a massive villain pulled out of their ass with all the active malice of a natural disaster, like a tornado. Even Iron Man kind of lagged after the suit was built. Episodes I-III was nothing but a six hour origin story that only focused on Darth Vader.
So what is the solution? Upon reflection I realized that the movies that do the origin story well (Spiderman, X Men, Kick Ass, Unbreakable, Hellboy, etc) all have one thing in common: they didn’t make the origin of a single hero the only thrust of the story. In Spiderman, while we are watching Peter Parker figure out his new powers, we keep cutting back to Norman Osborne transforming into the Green Goblin. X Men First Class had a dozen different characters developing. Kick Ass was mostly about Kick Ass, but at the same time you see Hit Girl and Big Daddy doing their thing. Unbreakable was more about Samuel Jackson’s character than that Bruce Willis, and that made the double origin story really cool. In each case the really good origin movies presents the origin of their hero, but don’t make it the entirety of the script. In other words, when they reach that halfway point and the story is in danger of lagging they have other elements to fall back on.
(Xavier Institute image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
I don’t know if anyone from the movie industry reads this. In fact, I doubt it sincerely. However, I think that if by some weird coincidence one of my three readers is somehow involved in film production, or perhaps one day will end up working in film, try to remember what I just said. I really think it’s worthwhile.
Movie review: Horrible Bosses
Horribly mediocre.
Yet another raunchy rated R comedy hoping to score a seat on the success train that the Hangover powered and then later derailed, I guess. Funny in parts, long and boring in others. I guess I am tired of Hollywood not doing a lot of either really good or really bad films. Best film I have seen in months was the Trollhunter, an independant.
Anyway, Horrible Bosses. It tells the story of three employees who have good jobs ruined by bad bosses. They are Dale, Nick, and Kurt, played by Kenny Sommerfield, Nick Hendricks, and Jason Sudeikis respectively but for the duration of this review I am going to call them Larry, Moe, and Curly for reasons that will be painfully obvious to anyone who watches this flick (Three Stooges image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). Larry works as a dental hygienist who’s boss is a dentist so painfully hot she made my eyes water and is consistently sexually abusing him (which of us hasn’t had to deal with that, right guys?). Moe is a white collar drone who is abused by his boss (played very well by Kevin Spacey). Curly is an accountant at a chemical firm who’s boss dies and leaves the company to his drug addicted son.
Anyway, all three of them are terribly abused by their bosses and decide they need to kill them. The go looking for a hit man at a bar they should have all been killed in and find “M-F-Er” Jones (Jamie Foxx). He tells them they should each kill the others bosses to allay suspicion. So, having decided that first degree murder is a reasonable solution for someone inconveniencing their lives, they start to plan it out.
At this point the movie, which had been kind of entertaining and had the potential to be decent, took a wrong turn and ended up in Stupidville, USA. Ever see that episode of the Three Stooges where they break into someones house who turns out to be a Nazi spy? Imagine that, but less funny. Larry, Moe, and Curly start doing everything possible to avoid making an intelligent or well thought out move. They run around the bosses houses, breaking stuff and leaving a laundry list of forensic evidence. Other stooges-like hijinks ensue. Unfunny recurring jokes are drummed on and on. Kevin Spacey turns out to be even more evil than first portrayed. The realities of living in the world and dealing with police (remember that cops can hold you for 48 hours without charging you for questioning?) or more or less ignored. At one point Kevin Spacey rams his SUV into Moe’s Prius and then tells them he is going to frame them for something and claim they tried to kill him. Really? When any idiot could look at the two cars and figure out that you just tried to flatten them? No chance of that plan backfiring on you.
Anyway, the stars. The three main characters are reasonably funny. One star. Kevin Spacey. One star. Some funny lines and decent dialog. One star. The dentist (played by my dream woman Jeniffer Aniston, who decided to drive me even more crazy by going brunette) is super hot and doesn’t mind dressing skimpy. In fact most of the women were very easy on the eyes. Two stars. Jaime Foxx was pretty damned good and dominated every scene he was in in a good way. One star. Donald Sutherland. One star. Total: six stars.
Now the black holes. The movie and plot devices got really dumb after a while. Two black holes. All the boss characters were horribly (haw!) one dimensional, especially Kevin Spacey. One black hole. In spite of the fact that the bosses were one dimensionally evil, the fact that the protagonists were planning a capital crime to make their lives easier did nothing to make me sympathetic to them, nor did they do anything during the movie to change that. I don’t really feel sympathy towards idiots. One black hole. The whole “super-hot-and-successful-chick-is-a-freak-and-feels-the-need-to-molest-a-wimpy-innocent-guy plot device is so asinine and infuriating that I wanted to punch out the theater manager on the way to my car. It would have actually made the movie so much more tolerable and believable (as well as made me more sympathetic to their cause) if the person being sexually harassed were a woman by a male boss, not to mention add a nice diversity to the main cast (I guess they wanted to keep that Stooges dynamic rolling). One black hole. All the supporting characters except M-F-er Jones were moronic and annoying. One black hole. I can’t put my finger on what the problem was, but the pacing seemed really off. It was like the movie had a 85 minute Act 1 setup, 13 minute Act 2 confrontation, and a 2 minute Act 3 resolution (thank you world wide web). One black hole. The resolution so reeked of deus ex machina that the main characters might as well have been trapped inside stasis pods. One black hole. And finally, if you are going to create a rated R comedy anyway for gods sake put some nudity in there somewhere. Rated R for language is like going to prison for stealing socks. If you are going to do the time, you might as well enjoy the crime. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
In the irksome category, I have a couple. I don’t know what planet the script writers live on, but if on their alien world all it takes is five minutes to meet a married super hot model and convince her to have sex with you in a restroom I want to move there. Same with super hot dentists willing to have sex with any stalker parked across their street. Also, during the course of the film I thought of about 10 different ways the protagonists could have resolved their issues without resorting to murder. I have to imagine at some point someone read the script before or during the production.
So a less than grand total of four black holes. Entertaining enough, I suppose. I had a free ticket so it didn’t cost me anything. I don’t think I would have been happy spending money on it. Wait for NetFlix, I guess.
By the way, I have fixed the issue with leaving comments but getting rid of that stupid capcha thing. Just try to be human when you post something. Thanks Cassady for pointing that out.
Movie Review: Larry Crowne
I don’t want to claim I have psychic powers of any kind. I’m not even sure if I believe in that sort of thing, and if I did I am sure I would enjoy spending time in Vegas a lot more than I do. The fact is, however, I sometimes get premonitions, which I actually like to attribute to my subconscious mind having a better understanding of my mental processes, schedule, and world circumstances than I could ever hope to. The fact is, when I saw the trailer for Larry Crowne, deep inside of me I something said “Yep, you are going to see that movie” in spite of the fact that I have no interest in this type pf sappy feel good dross.
Now, I don’t know if it is fair to say I had no interest in anything associated with this film. The fact is I think Tom Hanks is one of the most powerful actors around today. His performances in movies like Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, and Castaway are some of the most amazing movie experiences you could hope to see. Furthermore, Julia Roberts, in addition to being an amazing actress in her own right, is someone who turns me on like a massive Viagra overdose. Her face, her hair, and my perception of her personality based on seeing her in many films really lights my fuse (happy 4th of July, by the way). However, I just don’t normally go for films that don’t involve action, explosions, or 
human struggle against true adversity (I’d like to say struggle against adversity, but except for The Dark Crystal I can’t think of a good film that doesn’t actually involve humans in some way. I guess we are somewhat specist. Dark Crystal image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
However, yesterday was my mothers birthday, and like the dutiful son I occasionally claim to be I drove down to LA and took her out for dinner and a movie. This was the only movie I thought remotely acceptable to her that wouldn’t make me vomit or doze off. Like I said, I enjoy Tom Hanks and can watch Julia Roberts on screen all day. I think the best way to describe this movie is with the word “satisfying”. It is not a great movie. It is not ground breaking. It doesn’t have amazing performances (that’s not to imply it has any bad performances, either). There are no amazing story revelations, and you will not really feel you have learned anything or that your life has in any ways improved for having seen it. You will, however, walk away feeling satisfied that there is some justice, poetry, and beauty in the world.
So, Larry Crowne, or, as I keep wanting to say it, The Thomas Crowne Affair, the movie that introduced me to the concept of hot MILF nudity. Tom Hanks more or less blends every character he has ever done in every movie into Larry Crowne, an ex navy cook who works at a retail store that is most definitely not Walmart in spite of being similar in almost every way. The only two exceptions are that it is called UMart and Larry and the rest of his fellow employees seem happy to be working there, unlike every Walmart employee in the history of the world. Larry gets laid off for the unlikely reason of not having any college education and, after a series of long dealing-with-unemployment-and-looking-for-a-job scenes decides what he needs is to gain some education and heads to the nearest community college. There he meets a crazy seeming man who turns out to be the dean of students who recommend he takes some kind of speech class, taught by super hot TILF Julia Roberts. He also takes an economics class taught by the most pleasant surprise of the movie for me, the great George Takai. George more or less steals the show in every scene he is in, and I loved him as the stuffy professor. Larry also bought a scooter from his neighbor, who runs a 24/7 garage sale of some kind. Thanks to the scooter he meets super duper cute scooter girl Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, a girl with a weird name I have never seen before but hope to see again), who takes an unnatural interest in Larry that would be creepy and stalker-ish if it were a guy working on a girl. She and her (kind of annoying) West Side Story scooter gang take him riding, cut his hair, make him change his clothes, and completely rearrange his house until he is as cool as a 55 year old guy hanging out with college kids can be. His character does a full arc, learning in his econ class the value of defaulting on his home, changing his entire life, and eventually getting a job as a cook at his buddies diner. Meanwhile, Julia Roberts is going through her own arc as she kicks out her husband (played by Bryan Cranston, the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) for spending all day claiming to be a blogger but instead looking at online porn (wait a minute…). She kind of self destructs for a while. Anyway, community college hijinks ensues. Julia hates her students but comes to love them. Awkwardly cute romance blossoms. Talia drops out of college. Her lame over-the-top scooter boyfriend fails to get his comeuppance. George Takai is endlessly entertaining.
First the stars. Tom Hanks. One star. Julia Roberts. One star. George Takai. One star. A bunch of other guys you will recognize and enjoy. One star. The community college kids were all freakishly accurate and well cast, according to my mother who was a community college professor for 30 years. One star. Talia was super cute. One star. Dialog was smart, clever, and well delivered. One star. The pacing was excellent, especially given the evolutionary story arc Larry Crowne went through. One star. Overall satisfying movie that literally made me feel good. One star. And finally, on more bonus star for George Takai. Total: ten stars.
Now the black holes. About half the secondary characters bordered on the annoying, including the garage sale neighbor. One black hole. The whole Talia taking a massive interest in Larry sub plot felt really forced and fake. I shouldn’t have to suspend my disbelief in a movie that doesn’t involve super powers. Also, why does she collect cool men’s clothing in Tom’s exact size and want to give them to him? One black hole. Talia boyfriend as the tough, muscled, scooter guy felt really fake too. I have known any number of scooter guys and they are, to a man (for lack of a better term), wimpy hipsters with all the muscle tone of wet spaghetti. Real tough guys buy motorcycles. One black hole. The movie hit about an 8.5 on the Sap-o-meter. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
In the irksome-but-not-black-hole-worthy category, I have a few. First of all there were a couple of scooter “gang” moments that seemed to drag on forever and also suck. Secondly, Tom couldn’t decide early on if UMart and their management was a cool and fulfilling place to work or a soulless corporate beast who’s management was comprised entirely of (white) a-holes who were looking for the flimsiest excuse to fire Larry. College as a requirement to work at a Walmart? Who are they kidding? The whole disparity in tone kind of threw me off early on. Finally, like everyone else on the planet, colleges are suffering from the budget crunch. I sincerely doubt there would be enough budget for a class called “The Art of Casual Speaking”.
So a total of 5 stars. Not bad. The actors will carry you through the movie, and you will leave the feeling with a warm feeling in your gut. I would say wait for NetFlix, but if you are looking for a date movie you literally couldn’t pick a better film. If the awkward romance between Julia and Tom doesn’t melt her heart (and put her in the mood for other things, if you know what I mean) than I would check her battery levels, as it is apparent that your date has been replaced by some kind of robot and she needs a recharge.
Nerd Dating: the greatest date ever-movie night in Part 6 even more what to watch
Yes I am continuing with this. It amuses me.
Action-this is a fail hole like no other. If you suggest an action film she will make the (probably correct) assumption that you are an insensitive jerk who does not care one bit about her or what she wants to do. If she suggests an action film, this is absolutely, 100% a test to see if you are in insensitive jerk who does not care one bit about her or what she wants to do. It can occasionally be colored by a desire on her part to make you happy, but even then the test is still there and to say anything other than “I don’t know if that’s appropriate” is to fail miserably. Don’t fall into this trap.
Porn-are you really dumb enough to even need instructions on this? Unless she is actually a sex worker, as far as she knows you never even watch porn, much less have a Congressional Library sized collection.
Sexy comedy/drama-these are films which are good stories and acting combined with some hot sex scenes. These are excellent for movie night as they show her you’re interested in sex without looking like you are obsessed with it (which, odds are, you are). Also, while porn will in most (normal) cases just disgust her, seeing two attractive people roll around in bed showing a rated R amount of skin will actually peak a lot of women’s interest. Unfortunately, this is a genre that has really been dropped by Hollywood in the last few years. I guess they feel the need to cater to the freaking ankle biters. God forbid we should make a movie you can’t bring your screaming three year old to in order to make the hapless nerd movie reviewer three rows behind you miserable. But I digress. You have to go back a few years to find something that is both of good quality and has the appropriate amount of nudity. Risky Business and Fatal Attraction are two that spring to mind. Also, don’t fall into the trap of assuming anything rated R will work for this. Both of the Hangover movies were rated R and for the most part had a lot of man penis and cussing in them and not a lot else.
Romantic Comedy-ah, now you are thinking. These movies should get her laughing and also thinking about how miserable her single life really is. If you suggest one it will make you look sensitive and cool. If she suggest one she is throwing you a life preserver. Don’t fail to grab it. Modern ones are fine, but I personally find classics from the 80’s work really well.
Comedies-these can be hit or miss. She could be the type who really likes comedies and will get turned on by laughing at one. Or she could be the type who puts these in the same mental category as action films. Also, there are varying levels of crudeness in comedies and while one film might make her laugh her clothes off another film might well disgust her to the hilt and you by association. Picking a comedy is a lot like the white trash sport of noodling; sometimes you get a delicious catfish, and sometimes you lose a finger to a snapping turtle. Stay away, and if she suggest one assume it is a test similar to the action film test.
The Princess Bride-why does this film deserve it’s own listing, last on my list? Because it is possibly the greatest movie night date of all time. There isn’t a woman I have met who doesn’t love or get turned on by this film, and better yet it is cool and funny enough to hold the most macho guy’s interest. This is one you really can’t go wrong on (actually, failure is the mother of invention, so there is probably a decent chance you will still find a way to screw this up. However, I hold that unless your date is some kind of alien it will never be this movies fault). In a weird twist of mental fate no woman I know would ever actually suggest this, possibly because they assume you would hate it of perhaps for fear of being perceived as too girly. You, on the other hand, will gain massive props for having suggested it. (Inigo Montoya image courtesy of the movie t shirt category).
That’s it for movies. I need to think about where I am going next with this topic, so I may well give it a rest for a day or two. New movies coming out this weekend so look for some movie reviews soon. Talk to you soon.
Movie Review: Bridesmaids
Yes, I saw this the other night. To be honest, I was going to skip it. It really looked like a chick flick, which for the most part it was. However, just like with Your Highness, I heard very positive things about the film on the Howard Stern show, and I have to say I respect Howard’s opinion on most things. If you think he is nothing by crude, insensitive humor than it’s obvious you have never actually listened to his show. You really should give it a chance.
Anyway, the fact is I quite enjoyed Bridesmaids. It was really funny, well written, and accessible to Y chromosomes, although it was definitely chock-full-o-estrogen. It is the bastard love child of Thelma and Louise and the Hangover. I laughed my ass off continuously. It has it’s issues, like most movies do, but was overall very entertaining. (Baby Carlos image courtesy of the movie t shirts category)
Anyway, the movie. Kristin Wiig (from Paul) plays an out of luck loser and failed bakery owner who’s best friend gets engaged to some guy with a lot of money. She is drafted to be the main of honor and coordinate the bridesmaids, who don’t even know her. Meanwhile, Helen, one of the other bridesmaids, is a rich, perfect seeming bitch who wants to supplant her position as best friend and maid of honor. I don’t want to get too much into the story, but lest just say Wiig leads the bridal party from one disaster to another, most of which are her of own making. The rest of the bridesmaids appear to be as pathological as she is, in a mostly one dimensional stereotypical way. Meanwhile, her Porche driving booty call is a total a-hole (no surprise there). She meets a nice guy in the form of an Irish cop (Chris O’Dowd, from the IT Crowd, a nerd favorite) who she manages to wreck too. Wedding hijinks ensue. Wedding events get ruined, usually for crude humor reasons. There were a lot of laughs, although I feel like I missed a bunch of female specific humor. I know there were a few scenes that had me cringing while a lot of the women around me were laughing hysterically. Overall, however, a positive experience.
The stars. Kristin Wiig is great, both at an actor and comedian. She does great physical humor, and as the writer she really knew what situations would work really well for her acting style. Two stars. The movie was literally packed with laughs. You couldn’t go a full minute without laughing at something. Three stars. Melissa McCarthy was really funny as the unexpected supporting character. One star. Overall well written, although we can get into some of the writing issues later. Two stars. The evil Helen, played by Rose Byne, is super hot if you like tall, thin, waifish, elfin like women (which I do). One star. With the exception of Melissa McCarthy, the rest of the bridesmaids are pretty easy on the eyes (actually, in a surreal twist, all the bridesmaids except for McCarthy are more attractive than the bride (played by Maya Rudolph). She was hot, but the rest were hotter). One star. Wiigs super creepy British roommates were really funny and added a nice little subplot, although they were a little on the too surreal side for the tone of the movie. One star. Wiigs mother, the non-alcoholic alcoholic, was a good addition and help to add quite a bit to Wiigs character development. One star. It’s really nice to see a movie filled with actual talented comedians and people who have done stuff other than be pretty faces on a screen. One star. At the end of the movie you feel good. One star. Total: fourteen stars.
Now the black holes. The story arc (see how much like a grown up reviewer I have become? One day I hope to use the phrase “chewing the scenery”) seems a little flat. There is an obvious attempt to show some character development for Wiig, but it doesn’t really read so much like a journey as a series of discrete vignettes that happen to have the same characters in it (a little like a show that will go nameless but rhymes with Latter Day Fight Dive). One black hole. I am not really a fan of scatological humor, of which this film seems to make a lot of. One black hole. With the exception of McCarthy, almost all the supporting characters seemed really one dimensional and stereotypical. There was the a-hole boyfriend, the horny frustrated housewife, the naive recently married girl, the evil upper crust socialite, and the nice guy Prince Charming. It seemed like there was the possibility for some great secondary character development that never surfaced. Two black holes. The editing need to be more aggressive, I thought. There were a couple scenes that seemed to drag on forever (the airplane scene, for example) that could have been cut in half and still been as funny, if not funnier. One black hole. The story overall didn’t really have distinct acts. Instead it wandered from funny situation to funny situation National Lampoon’s Vacation style and then, all of a sudden, we’re at the finale, which was a little underwhelming. I know they got that from the Hangover, but honestly the events in that movie were better connected and made more sense. One black hole. While I found the movie overall really funny, the lack of a good male comedy character (ironically Chris O’Dowd was the straight man) left me, as a man (last time a checked), feeling a little alienated and disconnected. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
So a total of seven stars, which seriously is about six more than I would have thought it would get when I saw the trailer (in actuality it would have gotten none, as my first thought when I saw the trailer was “pass”). The fact that it could rack up 14 stars says a lot, and if you aren’t of a mind to pick apart the script like I am you will probably enjoy the hell out of it. There is nothing here that really needs to be seen on a big screen, so it could easily wait for NetFlix or whatever. However, this is a great date movie, as you will not be bored while your date enjoys all the estrogen flowing off the screen and appreciating your open mindedness, so if you are a gentleman dating a lady (or, for that matter, a lesbian dating a lady or even a gay man etc) buy your tickets now. You should be able to milk the credit you get from watching this with her into seeing the new X-men with a minimum of argument.
That’s it. Big show coming up this weekend so I don’t know if I will be able to blog again before Sunday. Come check us out at KublaCon if you are in the Bay Area and want to play some games. I have an idea for a movie related blog I want to do about some favorite movies of mine, so I will let that idea brew in my brainstem.
Also, before I go this guy I know is working on an animation show and I thought I would toss him a nod. His cartoon is called Feckly, and he has been working on it a lot. This one cartoon is his proof of concept, which is why it seems a little dense. I think once they actually start working on the real cartoon the writing will smooth out and not have everything packed into two minutes. I think he’s got a good concept and wish him well on it. That’s it for now.
Movie review: Fast Five
Yes, I went to see this flick last night at the fabulous Grand Lake Theater in Oakland last night. As an aside, when I say fabulous I mean that with all sincerity. It was built in 1926 and still has all the amazing architecture, filigree, and cool things you don’t see any more like a huge theater hall that hasn’t been broken up into four smaller theaters to maximize profit. The owners also championed the cause to end parking meters that ran until 8pm last year (Oakland parking is the devil) so I have to love them for that.
It seems my curse of never finding a movie crappy enough to really be worthy of my bagging skills continues. Fast Five wasn’t bad. It wasn’t necessarily good, mind you. What it was was entertaining, like watching G.L.O.W. (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling). You will learn nothing, gain nothing, you life will not be in any way enhanced from watching it, and you will be kind of embarrassed if your friends catch you watching it, but fun to watch nevertheless.
Before we get into this I should mention that I have never seen any of the previous movies and car racing movies, unless the cars have machine guns on the front (Deathrace) are really not my thing. Street racers are, in my opinion, kind of dumbass punks. In my experience street racers are guys who buy a Honda Civic for about $10,000, spend three years and $15000 upgrading it, and then sell it for about $10,000. There’s a garage I drive by at night sometimes that is closed all day long and opens about 7pm to stay open until about 3am working on these cars. While I am fascinated by the concept of a GTA style all night upgrade garage the lifestyle doesn’t do much for me.
Anyway, the story. Vin Diesel plays some kind of convicted street racing criminal who is more or less going up for life. His sister and her boyfriend bust him out so he can go to Brazil and continue his life of crime. He runs afoul of the local crime boss and decides to steal a huge amount of money from him. Meanwhile, the Rock plays some kind of Federal Agent who, with a gang of disposable heros, are given the task of capturing Vin and his friends while more or less ignoring any concept of Brazilian jurisdiction or sovereignty. Car driving hijinx ensue. Cars and a big chunk of Rio get wrecked.
What surprised me was that, while the story was shockingly decent (if somewhat simplistic and linear), it really seemed unnecessary as a functional part of the movie. The villain is grossly stereotypical (how many times can we see a crime lord kill a subordinate who has failed in our lifetime) but honestly, if he hadn’t been in the film I don’t think I would have enjoyed it less. The subplot with Dwayne Johnson actually added to and enhanced the story rather than mired it down. The driving was super cool, and believe it or not the acting as not really bad. Better than Water for Elephants by a lot, although it might have just been really good casting. Vin Diesel is at his best when he plays a roll that seems to match his perceived personality (Chronicles of Riddick, for example) but even his humanizing scenes were not stomach turning.
Let’s let the stars and black holes speak for themselves. The story was palatable, which is a lot more than I expected. One star. The driving was actually exciting and cool. Two stars. According to my research, none of it was CGI. All stunt cars and really good editing. One star. They really didn’t break the physics engine too much (more on that later). One star. The acting was either decent or just really appropriate, also something I didn’t expect. One star. Really good camera work and editing. One star. They didn’t force me to watch it in 3D. One star. While my personal taste leans towards classic American muscle cars rather than super sports cars, the cars were really cool (and they did have a couple muscle cars). Two stars. The women, while all pretty hot, felt like they actually had legitimate roles and weren’t just crowbarred in for sex appeal. One star. In spite of the fact that I was seeing the fifth movie in the series and had never seen any of the others I did not feel like I was being left on the outside for not knowing all the inside crap from the other four. One star. Total: twelve stars.
Now the black holes. While most of the driving did not break any laws of physics, the final chase scene with the two cars pulling a 10 ton safe seemed a little beyond what would be possible, assuming the bumpers didn’t just get torn off at some point. I took physics in college and there is a concept out there known as coefficient of friction that the writers might have considered looking at. I will say might have, as the entire chase with the safe was incredibly cool and exciting, and will hold them back to one black hole. There were a couple scenes where bad guys seemed to spawn out of nowhere like a first person shooter and you were left unsure who was shooting at who. One black hole. The movie fell back on the whole story dodge of “bad guys who can’t shoot straight”. I’m sorry, but three guys with assault rifles firing at a running target less than 30 yards ahead of them should fill them with enough bullets to equip an army platoon, or at least one. One black hole. The Rock, in spite of the fact that he and his squad are armed to the teeth, opts to duke it out with Vin Diesel in and extended, if exciting, fight scene. One black hole. US Agents in a foreign country generally don’t have the right to run around wrecking and shooting anything they see. Generally they have to work with local law enforcement. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
Actually, I have a new thing for my reviewing process with this review, and that is things that are irksome but don’t really rate a black hole. In this film I found it kind of annoying that a Brazilian crime lord would have a ocean container full of American money. I looked up Brazilian money and it’s all like purple and blue, so you can’ even claim it looks like US dollars. Also, while it is pretty much obligatory that if you are going to film anything in Rio you have to do a panning shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado Mountain, you don’t have to do another one every 10 minutes. Seriously, once is enough.
So a grand total of 7 stars, a shockingly good score given what I was expecting to see. If you like cars and driving then definitely see this on the biggest screen you can find. I am pretty sure it will lose a lot of its luster on your TV so try to see in a theater. This is definitely a guys night out movie, so if possible try to leave the girlfriend at home, unless she herself is really into cars and driving.
By the way, I didn’t think this was star worthy, but one thing I appreciate about this entire movie series is the fact that they give each film a related but distinctly different title, rather than simply adding another number to the end of the first title, like our upcoming Hangover 2 (Hangover image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). For the record, while not exactly pinnacles of creative achievement, the film titles in this series are The fast and the Furious (2001), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), the Fast and the Furious: Tokeyo Drift (2006), Fast and Furious (2009), and Fast Five (2011).
Movie Review: Sucker Punch
So I have been looking forward to this movie for a while now, and planned to see it Sunday. However, on Friday I started hearing that a lot of the reviews were coming back as bad, which shook me. The trailers showed a 40 foot tall metal samurai armed with a mini gun. How could that possibly be bad?
So with a certain amount of trepidation I went to my local Regal theater, spent $5 on a Sunday ticket and $15.25 on popcorn, water, and some Junior Mints, and sat in the seat. The movie started off ominously when I saw someone wheel in a stroller (note-if your child is too young to speak and/or stay awake for the entire movie he or she MIGHT just be too young to see a PG-13 movie). Sure enough, the child cried a couple times during the movie. I hold nothing against the child. It’s the incredibly selfish parents who need to be caned. What drove me even more insane through the movie was some adult who fell asleep several times and snored quite loudly. Bastard. For him it’s the scorpion pit.
Anyway, in spite of these issues, I enjoyed Sucker Punch immensely. It really appealed to the inner comic book geek inside me. Steam punk meets Kill Bill meets Brazil. I liked it so much that when I got home I had to look up some of the reviews and see what they were all bitching about. About 20 minutes of reading has shown me something I knew years ago and am forcibly reminded of periodically: most movie reviews are morons and don’t have a dook of an idea how to comport themselves geek-wise, oh my brother. Seriously, they just don’t seem to understand nerd culture. I refuse to help any of these idiots by linking their asinine reviews, but one moron from some rag called the city the 300 came from Sparda (it’s Sparta. Sparda was a demon from Devil May Cry). Imbecile.
Anyway, the movie does have it’s issues, which I will get into in a bit. The story is of a girl who gets framed by her step dad for the murder of her sister and committed to an insane asylum. She descends into a fantasy delusion where she is trapped in a 50’s (implied) brothel and has to escape. There she is forced to dance and every time she does she descends further into a delusion within a delusion (very Inception-like) where she and her friends have to fight any number of monsters, from steam punk WWI Germans, giant metal samurai warriors, LOTR type orcs, a dragon, and some high tech mirrored mechanicals (when I say mirrored I mean that. They pretty much shattered like they were made of glass). They have to find five things to gain their freedom. There’s an older guy who is her spiritual guide and/or commanding officer, a female psychiatrist/dance instructor, and her team is comprised of four more super hot girls; two blonds, a brunette, and an Asian girl. There is one main villain (the orderly at the insane asylum) and any number of lesser villains and henchmen. Violence in many different forms ensues, the story progresses in a very comic book (I mean that in a good way) style, and the story makes a lot or sense if you can let go of your need to have everything in life spoon fed to you. I don’t want to comment on the ending as it could be a huge spoiler, but I liked it.
First the stars. Visually stunning. Two stars. The CGI and special effects were awe inspiring. When you see the dragon it really looks like there is a dragon there. Two stars. Steam punk. One star. Dragon. One star. Giant samurai warriors. One star. Ever women in the film was uber hot. One star. The fight choreography was extremely good. Two stars. While a big part of the story involved Baby Doll’s dancing being hypnotic, they spared us the awkward pain of actually having to watch it and instead replaced it with more gratuitous violence. One star. Most of the sets involved a cool 1950’s noir style that I quite liked. One star. Total: 12 stars.
Now the black holes. The acting from every single character was painfully flat and mediocre. Two black holes. To compliment the mediocre acting the dialogue sounded like the writer spent most of his time writing Wikipedia articles on 13th century pole arms. Two black holes. You spend most of the movie fighting against an overwhelming feeling of injustice. One black hole. The girls names grind on you after a while (Baby Doll, Sweet Pea, etc). One black hole. Overall the film really kind of lacks depth, with pretty weak character development. One black hole (although, really, how much character development was there in 300? If you want character development see a Ron Howard film). Some pretty blatant holes in the plot (although they will bother you less if you keep in mind the whole film is seen through the eyes of an insane young girl). One black hole. Total: 8 black holes.
Grand total: 4 stars. Not a great score, and if you like movies and plots that make sense you might want to give this one a pass. However, it’s not a bad score and if you like visual movies and comic book style plots it is well worth seeing, especially on a big screen. I also give props for not forcing me to watch this in 3d, in spite of the fact that most of the scenes almost scream for it. One less headache.
Weird. I just realized my last blog post was a review of the movie Rubber. I guess it’s surreal movie week. I am sorry I haven’t had much time to blog, but you have no idea the amount of work I am dealing with right now. After Wonder Con this weekend, plus the 40 or more new shirts I need to upload, plus I am moving this week, not to mention my regular job and the fact that I am trying to get a new army painted for July and I am dating someone, I should be able to get back to my more frequent schedule.
Last post’s who-would-win question, Umbrella Corp verses Omni Consumer Products, I’m going to have to give to OCP. Umbrella might have the zombies, but honestly one ED-209 should be able to kill about 1000 zombies. They might be able to get the T-Virus into Robocop, which would be Zombie Robocop. Kind of scary. (OCP image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
For today, let’s go classic WWW. Who would win, Superman versus Galactus?
