Who would win? Peter Griffin versus Homer Simpson?
I have done a few of these who would win posts and they are kind of fun. For the most part I go with traditional combat characters but for today I am going to roll with a more comical fight: Homer Simpson versus Peter Griffin.
Now, they are both pretty stupid and quick to violence, but Peter has a certain canniness and homy wisdom that I think Homer is missing. I think if this were a more James Bond style fight, with all kinds of plots and devices, I would give it to Peter.
On the other hand, let us not forget that Homer was at one point a professional boxer, and at another point had a job having a cannon ball shot into his stomach. He can definitely take a punch, and in some circumstances Peter is more than a little wimpy on things like barked shins and so on. Almost to the point of being a little bitch IMO. I am going to have to give the regular fist fight to Homer.
This image I grabbed from Dave’s TV Show T shirts. I love this episode.
Jason
The Five-Year Engagement Review
Another depressingly competent rom com.
I have hit another one of those Twilight Zone-esque episodes in my movie reviewing career wherein everything I see is at least decent. This may not sound like a bad thing, but the fact is my funniest and best reviews are all for the worst, most disappointing movies and I can’t seem to find one. I mean really, where is Nicholas Cage when you really need him?
So this movie was well done. I have become more of a Jason Segel fan since watching How I Met Your Mother and Emily Blunt is really hot in my mind (plus a good actress). In this film they exhibit some really good chemistry and accurately portray the agony of a modern relationship (a more cynical and bitter reviewer might say they accurately portray how a woman can destroy a man in a relationship. Good thing I am so well adjusted). The film itself is well done and has some really funny moments. It does seem to drag on at times, and there are some scenes that are either completely unnecessary or extend well past their freshness date. At first I was prepared to lambast the film for the slow pacing, but as things progressed I suddenly realized that the film was accurately giving me the feeling of what a five year engagement must feel like. This makes Judd Apatow one of the smartest or luckiest movie makers in the industry.
That’s not to say there weren’t moments when I was hoping to find a fast forward button in my box of Whoppers, but overall I really like the idea of a filmmaker creating a feeling and theme without having to slap us in the face with it. There was another less subtle but still well delivered theme having to do with stale donuts as well (although I question the validity of the psychology involved) that also made for a decent subtext.
The story is, of course, of a five year engagement. Jason Segel (The Muppets, Despicable Me, Forgetting Sarah Marshal) and Emily Blunt (the Devil Wears Prada, the Adjustment Bureau, the Young Victoria) play Tom and Violet, a young successful San Francisco couple the likes of which I meet all the time out here (and occasionally want to run over with my car). He is a sous chef at a high end restaurant and she is a graduate student in psychology. They get engaged but when she fails to get into Berkeley and instead gets into Michigan he has to quit his job so they can both move to Ann Arbor. She excels in her program while he descends into a frozen hell and has to get a job in a sandwich shop. The relationship starts to really crumble and to be perfectly honest I am going to put the blame on this one directly on Violet. She is completely disconnected from her partner’s pain (sometimes literally) and even when he brings up his issues more or less sits around hoping he gets used to it or something. I actually found this refreshing as a study in relationships and it was nice to see someone other than the guy painted as the the insensitive one. Of course this role reversal kind of robbed Jason Segel of whatever machismo he might have had, and no offense Jason but you never seems to play a role overburdened with testosterone.
Left to his own devices Tom has a funny episode where he devolves into a Michigan hunting woodsman (complete with Swamp People beard) which is probably some of the funniest stuff. The relationship continues to degenerate, abetted by Violets professor Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans-Notting Hill, Anonymous, Little Nicky) untoward interest in her. The comedy kind of takes a back seat to the drama as things go from bad to worse. Relationship chaos ensues. Stuff happens.
The stars. I was laughing out loud at multiple points. One star. Well acted from pretty much everyone. One star. The chemistry between Segal and Blunt was palpable. One star. 
The supporting actors, especially best friend Alex (Chris Pratt-Wanted, Parks & Rec, Everwood. Parks & Rec image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts) added a lot to the film. One star. An honest (and successful) effort to add subtext. One star. A realistic look at a dysfunctional relationship. One star. The movie managed to make San Francisco look like the greatest city in the world (which, in my opinion, it may well be. If not it is only second to New York). One star. The Tom as a hunter scenes were especially entertaining. One star. A bonus star for overall keeping me entertained in a film that should have had me snoozing. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. In spite of believing the movie makers did this on purpose to add the feeling of being engaged for five years, you really feel every one of the 124 minutes. One black hole. There were a few scenes in particular that stretched on for an eon. One black hole. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you are going to eat an R rating anyway throw in some nudity please. There was a perfect opportunity towards the end. One black hole. SPOILER ALERT. The ending seemed a little trite and actually did not really resolve any of the main issues. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of five stars. A good score for a rom com, and perfect for a five year engagement (I swear that wasn’t on purpose). Worth seeing? Sort of, but only as a date. Good date movie? Yes and no. Yes in that it has everything a woman would want to see in a film about romance (and also you will probably compare favorably to pasty white boy Jason Segel. He’s like a young Raymond Burr). However, I am actually more concerned about what this film could potentially do to you as the male viewer. If you are of a dark or paranoid mindset the destruction of Tom’s life in the interest of Violet’s career will probably have you leaving your date at the theater in order to pursue a life as a Buddhist monk (they are cool with internet porn, right? I had better check on that soon). However, if you can stomach that this will probably make for a decent date.
Thanks for reading. More films to see this weekend, including the Raven, Pirates, and Safe. Hopefully one of them will suck (my money is on Safe). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment about this review feel free to post it here, and if you have suggestions or specific questions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
How I Met Your Mother is turning out to be a great show
Last week at the recommendation of my best friend Dave I started watching How I Met Your Mother. I had avoided it prior to that for a number of reasons. First of all the title alone makes it sound like the brainless “family friendly” pap that gave us shows like Full House. The base concept-a guy telling his kids about meeting their mother-sounds annoying to say the least. Furthermore, I figured I had had my fill of young singles living and loving in New York after years of watching Friends, a show that alternated between brilliant and painfully annoying.
However, Dave has yet to steer me wrong so I started watching it. The first few episodes started off slow but after a while I realized that the show is awesome for exactly one reason: Barney. You see, Neil Patrick Harris plays a character named Barney who is a self centered, womanizing egomaniac and like most sociopaths you don’t have to deal with in your life is endlessly entertaining. He is very well written and of course Neil plays him brilliantly. I think he is great.
The rest of the cast is a lot more bland, although that just might be in comparison. The main guy I’d like to see get punched in the face more for being kind of a Ross style putz, and his love interest drives me crazy whenever she’s on screen. Jason Segal found a role that doesn’t suck, and his girlfriend is super cute.
There are good and bad episodes, as with any show, but overall I would say check it out if you haven’t. This Awesomed shirt from the TV Show T Shirt category makes a lot more sense once you have watched the show a little.
Sorry about the short post, but I have been working my butt off getting our new warehouse set up. Movie tonight, review tomorrow. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Lucky One Review
Count yourself lucky if your girlfriend doesn’t drag you to see this uber chick flick.
Somehow I feel weirder going to see movies like this by myself than I do seeing obvious kids movies such as Winnie the Pooh. It is a bit of a puzzlement for me. I think the reason really has to do with the fact that I can almost feel my testicles shriveling up during the course of the film, whereas with kids films I can feel some level of nostalgia easing me through.
So this is a chick flick in the truest sense of the term. Don’t be fooled by the Iraq war action that goes on at the beginning. It is brief and non graphic as possible. You know how action films will crowbar in some romance to make it at least somewhat palatable to the girls in the audience? The “action” here feels like a reversal of that concept in an attempt to get guys to not pass out during the film.
But is it a good chick flick or a bad one? Kind of? It is as cliche and formulaic as possible, with the only deviation from the typical bad story happening at the end when they opted to go for an even more cheesy and pat denouement. I think the best descriptive for this movie is grinding. It grinds it’s way through the plot and each cliche in turn like one of those industrial rock crushing conveyer belt machines, turning each large, weighty cliche into smaller and much more functional cliches in turn. Long, romantic interludes drag on until you want to watch a more interesting movie on your iPhone while watching this one, and the pacing consistently is reminiscent of waiting at the DMV to get your license renewed.
The other thing that is glaringly missing from this film is chemistry. Zac Efron is a pretty boy, and probably is the heart throb of any number of women out there, but to my perception if he was supposed to be delivering smouldering looks he should have checked to make sure someone had lit his pilot light first. In fact, none of the characters actually read like real people. They all seemed like caricatures of other, better developed characters: the sexy ex Marine who is in all ways is perfect (as described by women); the cartoonish small town sheriff/abusive ex husband; the single mom trying struggling to make it in the world; the precocious kid; 
the fat Southern politician (Dukes of Hazard style. Dukes of Hazard image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts); the worldly wise grandmother. Each of them comes across so locked into their role that in spite of this movie being like 80% character development none of them seem to go anywhere.
Anyway, the movie. Zac Efron (all the High School Musicals plus epicly bad film New Years Eve) plays Logan, a Marine who while on a mission in Iraq finds a picture of a hot girl right before all his friends get blown up. This picture apparently keeps him safe (or something) and when he gets back he decides to try to find the girl. After dealing with some PTSD issues (that are never mentioned again) he decides to find her. She is in Louisiana and the best way for him to get there is to walk from Colorado (seriously, to any women readers out there are you not in the least offended by the blatant pandering that this movie is doing for you?) with his dog Zues (Zues and Logan? Come on. These names put my old friend Studly McSuperpenis to shame). The girl Beth (Taylor Schilling-Dark Matter, Atlas Shrugged Part I (ha ha ha ha ha), Mercy) lives there with her mother and son. Her brother died in Iraq. He arrives at her family owned dog hotel where he opts to not tell her about the picture because…actually there is no reason other than the need to later create plot drama. Seriously, I really doubt she would have had an issue with him returning a lost heirloom of her brother (that’s who’s picture it was) and it might have actually endeared him to her more.
Instead, he makes the stalker move of taking a job at the dog hotel. She runs it with the her mother (Blythe Danner-Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, Howl’s Moving Castle) and her eight year old son Ben (Riley Thomas Steward-the Beaver, Straight A’s, A Christmas Wedding Tail) who is some kind of chess prodigy. At first she is standoffish because…well I guess the movie directors must have needed more conflict than the whole “not tell about the picture” thing. In time she naturally does what all women most do around Zac Effron looking guys (God I hate them all) and falls in love. Meanwhile her ex husband Keith (Jay R. Ferguson-Mad Men, the Killer Inside Me, Campfire Tales) rips off every bad Southern small town sheriff stereotype as an experiment to see if people would love Roscoe P Coltrane if instead of being a bumbling goof he were an abusive jerk (with his father the town judge being Boss Hogg).
I’d like to say stuff ensues, but really not a lot does and what does happen progresses about as predictable as the tides. I won’t ruin the ending completely but will say that true love triumphs as always (at least when you look like Zac Effon. Rot in Hell).
The stars. I will give credit for this film doing what it set out to do. It was built to be a chick flick, and if you are a chick who doesn’t want to think too hard while feeling good this film we succeed in all regards. Two stars. There are a lot of really cool dogs in the movie, especially Logan’s German Sheppard. One star. Taylor Schilling is not super hot, but manages to come across as kind of a natural beauty that worked for me. Also, of all the characters hers was the least unbelievable. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Most of the characters were so over the top that they felt like those giant inflatable balloons they make for Snoopy and Spider Man at the Macy’s Day Parade. Two black holes. Hamhanded attempts at creating conflict out of nothing in order to keep the audience from falling asleep. One black hole. Sluggish pacing. One black hole. An ending at complete odds with the entire rest of the film as well as coming from deep within the writers ass. One black hole. Blatant use of the weather to deliver an emotional point. Happy times? Sunny. Conflict and bad times? Rainy. One black hole. The situation Beth was in with her ex husband felt really fake and archaic. Was this film supposed to be set in the 50’s? One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
A grand total of three black holes. Should you go see this one? If you have any testosterone and self respect at all than hell no. Date movie? Hell yes. This film was created to be the perfect date movie. If she isn’t in the mood to sleep with you (or Zac Effron) by the end of this show you should find a way to discretely check to see that she wasn’t born a man, or perhaps some kind of doppelganger alien. If she has a brain and any kind of film knowledge or taste than she will be offended by the rampant use of romance cliches, but they are cliches because they work.
Thanks for reading. Looks like all chick flicks this weekend. I guess I will suck it up and go see Think Like a Man tomorrow, although I like to believe I already know how (maybe I’m fooling myself). Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Post any comments about this movie or my review here. If you have a specific question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
American Reunion Review
I have no clever pun for my opening subtitle on this one.
If you are a regular reader and have read some of my other reviews on movies based around how much fun high school was (Project X, for example) you should know that I have issues with them, most of them stemming from the fact that high school was four years of miserable, alienating, self esteem destroying bulls*** for me. I spent most days planning to either kill myself or kill everyone else in my school. Consequently, movies about high school kids having fun (and sex) infuriates me as a broken mirror of what I could have had.
On the other hand, I have actually enjoyed the two high school reunions I attended. Granted, I have evolved as far away from Southern California beach culture primordial ooze as possible without ascending to another plane of existence, but the actual events were fun. Most of the popular kids whom I hated with the burning passion of 10,000 stars have all gotten fatter, balder, and lamer while desperately trying to hold on to whatever shred of the fun they had back then (and most still live in San Clemente, the town with all the culture of a Petri dish) while the outcast nerds and geeks have for the most part moved on and experienced amazing lives. Time has a way of balancing the books in the long run, and I love it.
That being said, American Reunion is a lot like attending a high school reunion. However, since I avoided all the earlier movies (my hatred of high school kids having fun movies extends well before my time as a movie critic) it was like attending the high school reunion with a guy you sort of know from work but have never had a personal conversation with. You spend the whole evening drinking and listening to them all talk about all the fun they had in the first three movies (I mean high school) while vaguely wondering if it is worth your time to ask for details on the guy who vomited on his girlfriends dress at the Jr. Prom. Is it fair to review this film without having seen any of the others? Probably not, and if you agree you should probably stop reading now. However, I feel any movie should stand on its own merits without requiring you to see anything prior. There should be no prerequisites for movie watching.
If this film is based on some kind of pie like pastry, than it is a very bland pie made of recycled jokes with a few flavor crystals and a bunch of chicken bones, all of which are named Eugene Levy. I feel guilty saying that as I like Eugene Levy and feel he is a talented and funny actor. However, in this film he was so out of tone with the rest of the movie (especially when talking about his recently deceased wife) that it brought whatever momentum the story had generated to a screeching halt. It was like a clock gear with a bunch of missing teeth. I guess he was supposed to be the funny straight man, but since 90% of this cast was comprised of funny straight men I don’t see the point.
Speaking of cast, it was comprised of Stifler, four other white guys who all seemed like the same character (one guy had a beard, I guess), and a handful of women who more or less lacked all personality and were mostly there to give the guys something to focus their horniness on. Except for the minor physical differences (one guy had the beard and was wimpy, one guy was tall and muscular, one guy had a moon face, and one guy was Jason Biggs) they all had the same delivery, inflection, and more or less variations on the same problems (bored relationship, chance to rekindle with on old flame, etc). In truth Stifler I should have hated the most, but he was the only thing entertaining in the entire film and I found myself grabbing onto his scenes like a drowning man trying to hold onto a piece of driftwood.
The story is, of course, of the crew from American Pie coming back for their 13 year high school reunion (I don’t know where they got 13 from other than the intricacies of Hollywood scheduling unless there is some new tradition of scheduling high school reunions on prime numbers, which as a nerd I think is pretty cool). They are Jim Levenstein (Jason Briggs-all the American Pie movies and not a lot else I have heard of. He’s done a bunch of TV stuff including something called I’m in Hell I might have to watch), a married guy with a kid who doesn’t have a lot of sex with his wife these days; Oz (Chris Klein-all the same plus We Were Soldiers, Rollerball) a successful sports caster with a super hot model girlfriend; Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas-Rookie of the Year, Let the Game Begin, Bridge to Nowhere(haw!)) a live at home house husband and architect; Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas-Freddy Got Fingered, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay) a world traveling free spirit; and Stifler (Seann William Scott-Dude Where’s My Car, Role Models, Planet 51) exactly the kind of desperate to get back to high school loser I was laughing at during my high school reunion. They roll into town with their assorted wives and girlfriends. Eugene Levy (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, a Mighty Wind) plays Jim’s Dad (that’s his credit title) and dispenses some homey wisdom and lame missed point sex jokes. Assorted wives and girlfriends tag along to add drama.
At that point the story makes the horrible plot choice pioneered in stupid movies like New Years Eve and fragments into five or more grossly underdeveloped subplots. 
Jim isn’t having enough sex with his wife Michelle (Alyson Hannigan-How I Met Your Mother, Love, Wedding, Marriage, Date Movie. How I Met Your Mother image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts) and, as either a complication or a sub-subplot his super hot 18 year old next door neighbor (Ali Cobrin-One, the Hole, Jack Turner and the Reluctant Vampire) wants him to deflower her (I don’t remember that happening to me at my 10 year. Maybe I should have attended the 13). Oz’s super hot model girlfriend (Katrina Bowden-30 Rock, Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, Sex Drive. Actually the most impressive filmography yet) is a freaky nymphomaniac but he still has feelings for old flame Heather (Mena Suvari-No Surrender, You Man Not Kiss the Bride, Restitution). Finch is supposedly a world traveler but kicks off a romance with Selena (Dania Ramirez-X Men First Class, Quarantine, Brooklyn to Manhatten) who was awful looking in high school but apparently got a full body transplant into a hottie. Stifler is a temp loser with an abusive boss who only wants the party to keep going while he forgets his pathetic life. Jim’s Dad is bumbling through life and stumbles into romance with Stifler’s Mom (Jennifer Coolidge-Legally Blonde, Epic Movie, A Cinderella Story).
All these stories are stunted and undeveloped, mostly serving as a vehicle to call back jokes from the previous movies. None of them held any interest or weight, and I spent most of the movie waiting for Stifler to do something else funny. Each story was painfully predictable and plods along to a series of endings that couldn’t have been more pat if they had all been named Patricia.
The stars. Stifler was funny. One star. Ali Cobrin’s breasts are amazing, and you get more than a two second look at them. One star. I will give this movie credit for taking a very open minded approach to gay issues, having a gay couple engaged and presented in a very positive light. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. This film more or less expects everyone to not only have seen the first three movies but be a fan. One black hole. Dull, fragmented story line that lacks a point. Two black holes. With the exception of Stifler all the characters are boring and could have been the same dude. One black hole. The Eugene Levy scenes really took me out of the movie every time. One black hole. These days rated R comedy automatically means we have to look at penis and deal with baby excrement, and this film is no exception. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A total of three black holes. Meh. Should you see it? If you are a fan of the first three probably. You will get the jokes better than I did and probably have a better connection to all the characters (and therefore be able to tell them apart more easily). Date movie? Maybe if she is a fan. If not the crude humor and negative portrayal of men may hurt you. On the other hand, none of these guys are George Clooney or Brad Pitt so you might compare favorably in the looks department. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere, but do not leave the theater from the moment the group arrives at the lake party until Jim gets Ali into her bedroom or you will miss her topless scene (well worth watching). If I were to pick one scene in particular that could be missed I would say the one where Oz is in a sub sandwich shop with his old high school girlfriend. Not a lot going on there.
Thanks for reading. I am going to see Titanic 3D tonight and will review it tomorrow. This might not seem like a big deal since the movie came out a long time ago, but I have never seen it and feel the need to do so. I don’t think I will do my normal star/black hole since really, what’s the point? Instead I will come up with some annoying questions like I did for all the old Harry Potter movies. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me suggestions or questions to [email protected]. Feel free to post comments here if you saw this movie and either agree or disagree with me. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Friends With Kids Review
It’s nice to see a movie celebrating all the worst life decisions a couple can make.
So I was feeling kind of melancholy last night when my router crashed, cutting off most of my available media and leaving me with not a lot to do. I could have worked on my commercial site, but was kind of done. This might have been a good chance to hang out with a girlfriend or something, but as I have stated ad nauseum I am miserably and soul crushingly single. So what will help with all these? Probably not a rom com (in fact, in retrospect I can state that watching a rom com by yourself in a huge theater when you are desperately lonely is possibly the worst solution available. It’s like treating heartburn with acid in hopes of burning out the nerve endings in your digestive tract. Somehow I see the Unibomber starting out like this) but that was pretty much all I had to work with (plus a free movie ticket) so I went for it.
Like most R rated comedies these days it was neither bad nor good. It cruised the middle lane of the mediocrity highway steadily for 105 minutes, then in the last two minutes ripped off the ending from When Harry Met Sally and called it a day.
Honestly it watched more like a documentary for relationship counselors than a film. Most modern films follow a three act plot process. Act 1 introduces the characters and possible problems they will have to deal with. Act 2 has the characters develop while looking for the tools to fix the problems. Act 3 resolves the problem (usually with some dramatic flourish) and delivers the characters into their new state of being.
Friends with Kids instead skips the first act, jumps right into the characters as fully developed persons, and more or less putts along at lukewarm until the end, when suddenly a single dramatic scene resolves everything forever. If drama were a bar graph this movie would be steadily at about a 3 for the entirety, with a minor spike to 5 during one dinner party and suddenly shoot up to 8 at the end.
The documentary nature of the film made a lot more sense once I learned that the film was written and directed by the star, Jennifer Westfeldt. She displays a level of self esteem issues no director not emotionally involved with the story would allow. I revise my earlier statement. This film is less like a documentary and more like a movie production of Jennifer Westfeldts personal journal.
All that being said, the film itself, like most documentaries and journals, was refreshingly honest and real. While the two main characters make a fairly long series of bad decisions they do so in a manner that anyone who has ever watched the old 
Jerry Springer show would totally understand (Jerry Springer image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts). All the characters with two notable exceptions seemed very real and extremely well developed. Dialog was brisk and sharp, and the script overall felt very current, if you know what I mean. I was also glad to see the return of comedic team Kristin Wiig and Maya Rudolph, and was pleasantly surprised to see they could both hold up a non-comedic role admirably.
The story itself feels kind of inane. Julie Keller (Jennifer Westfeldt-Kissing Jessica Stein, Keep Your Distance, Notes from the Underbelly) and Jason Fryman (Adam Scott-the Aviator, Step Brothers, Knocked Up) are both Manhattan yuppies who have a circle of friends that is steadily being siphoned away by the obligations of kids and family. She works for some kind of non profit and is super cute with massive self esteem issues and he is a sleazy womanizer who works in advertizing. Through a seriously convoluted logical train they both decide what they need to meet “the one” is to have a kid out of wedlock. The thought is as best friends with no sexual interest in each other they wouldn’t be buried in the mire it seems their friends keep getting trapped in. If this sounds like an offensively bad idea wait until you hear how much thought they put into the child’s mental well being, which is none.
Anyway, after one of the most awkward sex scenes ever they have a super cute boy, and settle into their single parent lives. Things seem to be nigh perfect. Jason run into and dates Mary Jane (Megan Fox-Transformes, Jennifer Body, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People) who couldn’t have felt more forced into the movie if she had been a pickup truck driving through the plate glass window of a Chick-fil-A. Julie starts dating Kurt (Edward Burns-Saving Private Ryan, She’s the One, the Brothers McMullen-is it me or does he seem like he’s constantly staring out a porthole or something?), who is also super amazing and kind of fake seeming. The fact that in a film filled with well developed and real characters these two seemed kind of fake (and even more fake in comparison) kind of implies that this was a conscious decision on the part of Westfeldt to make them seem like super boyfriend/girlfriend robots, thus making the two main characters seem even more human. I certainly hope so. Otherwise it was just a bad casting decision, although I could spend 107 minutes just looking at a picture of Megan Fox (yes, I am one of those guys. Don’t hate me for having testosterone).
Things sort of come to a head at a big ski trip where on of their drunken friends Joe Hamm (Sucker Punch, Mad Men, the Town) starts asking some pointed questions that should have come up before the whole thing starts like what are you going to tell the kid, etc. Things melt down between him and his wife (Kristin Wiig-Bridesmaids, SNL) while Julie realizes she has immense feelings for Jason. At that point things come to a simmer (in a more exciting movie I might have said come to a boil, but the passion in this film at no point exceeds about a 4). Emotional drama ensues.
The stars. Excellent characters with progressive development for all of them except Mary Jane and Kurt. One star. Well acted all around. Two stars. Really decent dialog. One star. Any film where I can watch Megan Fox is a plus, and while I don’t usually go for blonds I thought Jennifer Westfeldt was super hot too. She has some amazing hair. One star. There were some funny moments I found myself laughing at. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. At no point in the film did I feel like the plot pulse quicken. The entire thing was like watching slightly hardened Elmers glue pour down a slide. One black hole. The other thing about Elmers glue on a slide is you can pretty easily predict where it is going, and that analogy holds up for the plot direction too. Really predictable. One black hole. While I felt the characters and decisions were real, the situation they were thrusting themselves into was ridiculous and really badly thought out. One black hole. Yet another rated R movie with no nudity worth mentioning. Also, when did rated R in a comedy turn into feces covered baby taint? Seems to be a lot of that going around lately. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of two stars. Meh. Nothing worth rushing out to see, yet nothing preventing you from seeing it if you need to get out of the house or are hiding from someone. Overall innocuous. Nothing on the screen says see it big, so feel free to wait for video. As for my new policy of trying to identify the best place to cut out for a bathroom break, honestly anywhere in this film would work. The bland pacing and predictable nature of the plot means you should be able to infer anything you might have missed. If I had to pick a point I think you could safely miss out on the date/love scene between Julie and Kurt, which starts with them meeting at some school function and drinking punch out of plastic cups. It seemed especially worthless. Date movie? Maybe if you just started dating her. If you are in a long term relationship this might get you started on a conversation regarding kids you should be prepared to have, so only see it if you want to tread down that path.
Thanks for reading. I am going to watch that indie film tonight and review it tonight (for the record it’s called the Arriviste). Feel free to post comments here, and please follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. For specific questions or suggestions email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Hunger Games Movie Review
Decent movie, although it did feel a little malnourished.
Yes, I went to a midnight screening last night with 1,000,000,000,000 teenage girls. Fortunately I had some friends along with me so I didn’t feel too creepy. And no I did not read the book ahead of time, so I will be reviewing this movie solely on it’s own merits.
First off, this is the much better looking sister of the whole Twilight series. It has a lot in common with Twilight: fairly attractive teenage boys (or so the audience seemed to feel), a relatively bland looking main girl thrust into a horrific series of violence and action, a star crossed romance, and a plot that makes you want to disconnect the higher functions of your brain. However, in general the story is less lame, the acting almost borders on good instead of making you wish you were watching grade school kids performing Hamlet, the special effects didn’t feel glossed in to facilitate a dumb love story, in spite of the massive 144 minute run time pacing was great and didn’t slow down, everyone kept their shirts on, and absolutely no one sparkled in daylight. Overall a credible movie, and in spite of my grumpy old man approach I found myself entertained. (Buffy Staked Edward image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts).
That being said, the “violence” suffered from the PG-13 demon in a big way. The writers and director (Gary Ross-Ross-Pleasantville, Seabisquit, Big) seemed to be making an effort to remain true to the book, but according to my friends who have read it failed in some really big ways. However, that effort resulted in about a million supporting characters all screaming for some kind of back story or development left dying on the vine. Honestly, either give us something or relegate them to the faceless bad guy minion category. In an effort to lighten the plot some pretty big plot holes were added in, all of which might have been better understood by the ignorant audience (in this case, me) had they spent another 15 minutes on expository back story or just a better understanding of the characters involved. The denouement (that’s fancy review speech for the ending) felt rushed and campy, both of which could have been alleviated with more story. However, if I had gotten all the movie I felt was needed this thing would have gone like four hours and I would have missed a lot taking bathroom breaks.
Speaking of bathroom breaks, a suggestion given to me by one of my 18 friends named Mike was to look for a good chance to cut out and use the restroom. I am going to suggest the beginning of the cave/soup scene. Seemed like a lot of emotional touchy/feelie stuff that did pretty much nothing to advance the plot, and it goes on for a while so you will have time to take care of most of your business.
Anyway, the movie itself. It stars Jeniffer Lawrence (X-Men First Class (young Mystique), Winters Bone, Like Crazy) as Katniss Everdeen, a young girl living in a bucolic dystopic future where everyone seems to be in serious danger of starvation and she has to support her family by hunting with a bow. She and her 12 year old sister Primrose (Willow Shields-Beyond the Blackboard, In Plain Sight) are entered into the drawing for the Hunger Games, some kind of Battle Royale contest that happens every year where kids from the 12 districts battle to the death in punishment for some kind of rebellion or something (remember all that missing development I mentioned?). Primrose gets selected, but Katniss volunteers in her place to save her life. The other guy from her district is Peeta (Josh Hutcherson-Journey to the Center of the Earth, American Splendor, the Kids are All Right), a guy that she has some kind of ill defined previous relationship with (I’m serious here. He fed her bread or something, but did she hate him or love him? He later reveals he had feeling for her, but can someone tell me what the hell was going on between them before the games? Oh, yeah. Missing story development). He is supposed to be the charismatic one, which will serve him later as the sadistic bastards in charge of this crime against humanity opt to support the kids with cans of soup or whatnot. Anyway, the two of them and the other 22 tributes are put through a PR blitz and training/evaluation montage that, like a lot of this film, felt incomplete. There we are sort of introduced to some of the other contestants, but these supporting characters are introduced to us in the most cursory and insubstantial manner. It was like trying to grow a plant but the only source of light is a tiny pinhole (the story and characters being the plant and the light being character development). The biggest victim of this is the antagonist Cato (Alexander Ludwig-Escape to Witch Mountain, a Little Thing Called Murder, The Seeker; the Dark is Rising), who is supposed to have some kind of troubled past that is hinted at in the last scene but never comes to fruition. I just read over a list of all the contestants and they all seem to have some kind of cool story. I’m not saying develop all of them, but one or two would not have been remiss.
Anyway, during the training we get to know former victor Haymitch Abernathy (the great Woody Harrleson-Natural Born Killers, Cheers, Friends with Benefits) who is there to mentor them, and meet the president played by the great Donald Sutherland looking a lot like a skinny Santa Claus. Eventually the kids are injected into the fight arena, where PG-13 bloody mayhem ensues. It is here that a lot of the plot holes surface like unsightly pimples, and towards the end the story takes a big detour down Dopey Lane.
The stars. Better than I expected. Two stars. The story wasn’t really that bad. One star. Woody Harrelson. One star. Donald Sutherland. One star. Acting all around was commendable. Not Oscar worthy, but worthwhile. One star. Some of the futuristic scenes in the capitol city were pretty cool. One star. Excellent pacing for a film this long, and admirable camera work. One star. I really like the idea of exposing young ladies to science fiction in any form, in hopes that future male nerds don’t suffer the pain of finding girls who can talk about anything remotely interesting. One star. For all that it was PG-13 and therefore completely lacking in gravitas, the fight action was pretty cool. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Those plot holes I spotted, while not huge, were weighty and distracting, like accidentally swallowing a snooker ball. One black hole. No attempt was made at all to appeal to straight males. The girls were, while not necessarily bland, definitely not Megan Fox hot and for the most part wore baggy futuristic combat fatigues. One black hole. The costumes the upper class citizens wore throughout the film actually caused eye pain. Imagine if a troupe of circus clowns took over a steam punk clothing factory. One black hole. The whole movie was headed towards a really cool and tragic ending, but then pulled the rip cord and took the easy way out. One black hole. The sadistic glee that the adults took watching kids brutally maul each other to death was more than a little off putting. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of four stars, which is way more than I thought it would get. I honestly expected it to suck more. A pleasantly surprising movie. If I were to take into account the audience for which is was intended (teenage girls) than this movie is absolutely brilliant and accomplishes exactly it’s goal (of launching another huge money making franchise bent on depriving kids of their disposable income and some brain cells). Should you see it? If you have no Y chromosome absolutely. If you read the book absolutely, but plan on spending an hour or so afterward bitching about all the things they couldn’t fit in. Great date movie, but if you are a single male loser you might just wait for video. However, if for whatever reason you are going (date, group of friends, stalking expedition, etc) be sure to watch Battle Royale and then annoying everyone around you by telling them all in excruciating detail how it is all just a rip off of a Japanese movie made in 2000.
Thanks for reading. Looks like every other film in the world didn’t want to compete with this monster, so not a lot to see this weekend. A guy sent me a screener for his independent film. Looks like some kind of crime drama. I will watch it these weekend and review it for you. It is pretty low budget, so I will be taking that into account as I watch it. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu or email me at [email protected] if you have any questions or suggestions. Comments feel free to post here. Thanks again, and talk to you soon.
Dave
They are working on a sequel to Chronicle, and I don’t know if it is really a good idea.
After Dave raved about Chronicle I went and saw it and really liked it. Cool idea, with a twist on the dumb found footage genre. I thought overall it was a really cool story.
I read early tonight that Fox is looking into making a sequel, and I think it’s kind of a dumb idea. Two of the three kids are dead, including the guy who was obsessed with recording everything. So what are they supposed to do now? Have the last kid run around as a superhero like every other dumb comic book movie? I thought the story was of the kids developing their powers and how each took it based on their personality. I think the whole having powers thing was secondary to the development of the characters.
Maybe they will dig up the thingie that gave them their powers and let another group of teenagers wreck house, but wouldn’t that just be a remake of the first one? What was that thing, anyway? Some kind of alien device? Are aliens really sending down glowing crystals that give humans super powers? What if that thing was actually a huge pile of alien toxic waste and when the kids got their powers they also all got brain cancer? That would make for a sort of interesting sequel, I guess.
This image, by the way, is the poster Moulder had in his office on the X-Files. I got it from Dave’s tv show t-shirts, although I think he is sold out on it. Cool shirt IMO.
Jason
Wanderlust Movie Reviews
Two good comedies rolled into one decent one.
As I evolve as a critic and learn more and more about the film industry I discover things I never really realized as a simple movie goer. One is that any recent movie featuring Ron Perlman, in spite of his appeal as an actor, is likely to suck. Another is that post Holiday movie releases are the runts of the Hollywood litter. This is where films that movie makers are not really 100% sure are going to hit are relegated, each trying to be the big fish in a very small and murky pond. Never was that more apparent to me than last week when I had to sit through This Means War, Journey 2: Mysterious Island, and Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance.
However, that is not to say you can’t find decent films. They do appear. Unfortunately finding them is akin to having to go through your bowel movements to locate the gold tooth you accidentally swallowed. The film I did yesterday, Act of Valor, was decent as an action film (at least for those of us not interested in the tertiary aspects of films, such as story or acting), and, to my surprise, Wanderlust had me laughing quite a bit.
Let me say a few words about the main star of this film, Jennifer Aniston. I am a fan of hers, and not just because she has a face that breaks my heart and a body most 20 year olds would kill for. I saw her years ago in The Good Girl and realized she actually is fully capable as an actress. She is, in fact, talented in my opinion. I keep expecting her to make something worthy of an Oscar sometime soon. Unfortunately she doesn’t seem to be capable of finding the right script, as her participation in the horrible film Horrible Bosses shows. While I would term her performance in that role exactly what it called for, it was not a good vehicle for demonstrating your acting ability.
This film is better. There will be no Oscar buzz surrounding it, but at least I found it entertaining. She manages to demonstrate a nice range of acting ability while delivering comedy in a believable and realistic manner (much like a certain TV show about a close group of companions she used to be a cast member for). However, I will take issue with the fact that she filmed a topless scene that at the last minute she had them take out. The parts that are shown are pixelated, and that is a tragedy on the order of washing your new car only to discover what you thought was soap is actually paint remover.
Speaking of nudity, there was a lot of it in this film. Unfortunately the vast majority of it involved swinging man dong. What little else there was seemed to be all older women. This movie definitely earned it’s R rating, but not from nudity. Next time cast a hot girl willing to take her top off IMO.
OK, enough of my crude machismo. Let’s get into the movie. George (Paul Rudd-Parks and Rec, Dinner for Schmucks, Our Idiot Brother) is a corporate drone slaving away in NYC. His wife Linda (Jennifer Aniston-Friends, Office Space, the Iron Giant) is a woman who has yet to find her calling in life and has a laundry list of careers. Her most recent project was to make a documentary about penguins with testicular cancer, which she describes as “Happy Feet meets An Uncomfortable Truth” in a scene with some HBO executives that I found cuttingly hilarious. Her film gets rejected by HBO and George gets fired shortly after buying a tiny studio apartment. They lose the home and have to drive to Georgia to live with George’s crude, abusive older brother (Ken Marino-Gattica, Role Models, the Ten. He also has a writing credit on this film) and his alcoholic desperate housewife Marissa (Worst Enemy, the Back Up Plan, Parenthood). The drive itself is a kind of brilliant road trip/married couple montage that I felt was really well done. Along the way they try to stop at the Elesium Bed and Breakfast. While driving in they run into nudist Wayne (Joe Lo Truglio-Childrens Hospital, Role Models, Gullivers Travels. By the way, expect to see a lot of this guy in the movie, if you know what I mean) and wreck their car trying to get away from him. They end up at the B&B only do discover it is some kind of hippy commune (sorry-intentional community). They spend a magical night of happiness and free spirit (and pot). The next day they end up at the brothers house, where after a memorable day of abuse opt to go back and join the hippies.
At that point they kind diverge down separate spiritual pathways. The local hippy guru Seth (Justin Theroux-his IMDB page is broken. Justin, you might want to look into that. I do know he was in Zoolander) has the hots for Linda and works to seperate the two in a very passive aggressive manner. 
The founder of the community is none other than the great Alan Alda (Mash, Tower Heist. Mash image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category) who is a bit eclectic but very entertaining. There is some drama about the community losing it’s land so a developer can build a casino on it, but that is really secondary to the main story. Eventually George and Linda’s disparate interest create strife in their marriage. Hippy commune hijinks ensues. A lot more male genitalia than I generally like to see on a Saturday night is shown.
So what is my issue with this movie? Why am I not blaring it’s praises from the mountaintop? Well, mainly because there seem to have been two different comedy writers working in separate rooms on this film. The first thinks that insightful, sardonic wit and social commentary are the way to rock. The second is from the Change Up school of comedy writing and thinks the key to big laughs is excrement jokes and graphic birthing scenes. The two writing style kept shifting back and forth without warning. It was like watching TV with your significant other who seems enthralled by two different shows and changes channels back and forth constantly. The problem is both writers are right. During the fart and sex humor half the audience was laughing uproariously while the other half was cringing, and during the sophisticated humor the other half was chuckling appreciatively while the first half was scratching their heads in confusion and turning to groom the fleas out of their neighbors fur.
Anyway, the stars. Extremely talented cast all around who worked well together. Two stars. Decent story, if somewhat ripped off from a bunch of other “let’s join the hippies” movies. At least I didn’t feel it offending my intelligence. One star. A rated R comedy that didn’t just throw in a bunch of rated R junk to be like The Hangover. One star. Jennifer Aniston is super hot, as was another girl in this film (Malin Akerman-the Watchmen, the Heartbreak Kid, the Proposal). One star. Alan Alda. One star. There were a few scenes in particular, such as the driving montage and the HBO presentation, that I thought could be described as brilliant. One star. Overall surprisingly entertaining. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The whole “two writers” issue I bitched about earlier. One black hole. The writer who kept on sticking in the excrement humor really should have been fired. The film did not really need a lot of that sort of thing and honestly it detracted from the overall film. One black hole. The entirety of the drama for the main and secondary story goes more or less unresolved until the final ending montage, when conclusions are pulled from deep inside the writers ass. One black hole. Way too much male nudity. One black hole. Jennifer Aniston pulling her topless scene out at the last minute. Doesn’t she realize I have been waiting 15 years to see that? One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad for a rom com in my opinion, and since a lot of my black holes are related to either too much or not enough nudity if you have a different perspective on those issues you would probably rate this a little higher. Definitely worth your time, at least for this time of the year. Really good date movie as well, as the romance aspects actually seems to work well (I assume. I went solo as per usual). Nothing in the filming really seems to require a big screen, so feel free to wait for NetFlix if you are so inclined.
Thanks for reading. I am going to try to see Gone later tonight. Something in the trailers for that one have made me think it is going to suck, but I will try to enter into it free of preconceived notions. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Feel free to tweet me there or send an email to [email protected]. You can also post comments here and if you don’t cuss and have a relevant point I will most likely approve it. Thanks again. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Big Miracle Movie Review
A whale of a tale.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ll flagellate myself later in punishment. This movie was something of a miracle, in that I actually enjoyed it in spite of every expectation that I was going to be bored to tears. I found it an intriguing story, with cool characters who develop, lovable sea mammals, and a good example of what teamwork can accomplish. Be warned, however. If you have ever failed to separate your recycling, stepped on a bug, or accidentally fired a harpoon gun into a migrating blue whale the guilt you feel by the end of this film will be overwhelming.
Of course, like anything I watch these days there were nits I could pick, and I will get into those shortly. Nothing deal breaking, however.
The story is, of course, the three grey whales who were trapped in the ice in the late 80’s. I vaguely remember this story (I was busy dropping out of college and finding the most miserable job in the history of employment at the time) and looked it up. The movie stuck fairly close to the original, with a few major changes. 
Basically it starts off with small market reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski-the Office, It’s Complicated, Away We Go. Dunder Mifflin image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts) doing some human interest stories in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the US. He comes across three whales trapped in the ice and does a story on it. It gets picked up by the national news, which catches the world’s attention. Adams ex-girlfriend, Greenpeace leader, and major pain in the ass Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore-E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Fever Pitch, Donnie Darko) finds out and starts campaigning to save the whales. The local Inuit tribe wants to harvest them for meat, but head whaling captain Malik (John Pingayak-no other credits) decides with all the press around his tribe would be seen in a very negative light.
At that point the serious rescue efforts get going. Oil kingpin J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson, looking kind of sharp with white hair I must say-Cheers, Becker (a show that never got the credit it deserved. I thought it was great), Saving Private Ryan) volunteers his ice breaking hover barge as a publicity stunt but later seems to really care. Rachel extorts Alaskan Governor Haskell (Stephen Root-News Radio, No Country for Old Men, King of the Hill) into mobilizing the National guard and sending two big helicopters to pull the barge. Meanwhile the locals are keeping the ice hole open for the whale. As temperatures drop two of the Three Stooges show up from Minnesota complete with Fargo accents to deploy a device they invented to help keep ice holes clear (yes I am enjoying these jokes). A self described blond Barbi (Kristen Bell-When in Rome, Forgetting Sarah Marshal, Veronica Mars) shows up from LA to freeze her ass off and broadcast the news. The National Guard pilot, Col. Scott Boyer (Dermot Mulroney-About Schmidt, Zodiac, My Best Friends Wedding) deals with the difficulties of operating in the Alaskan weather while dealing with White House Press Secretary Kelly Meyers (Vinessa(?) Shaw-3:10 to Yuma, the Hills Have Eyes, Eyes Wide Shut).
Anyway, things go grim for a while as the whole town comes out to help cut hundreds of ice holes (haw!) to the open sea. The President is forced to ask the Russians to help with one if their ice breakers. Ice gets cut. Whales breach. You see a lot of snow and ice.
The stars. Interesting story, most likely due to the fact that it is based on a real one. Two stars. Decent acting all around. One star. Pacing, while definitely not as fast as one would expect from a more exciting film, was highly appropriate for the film. One star. The whales were pretty cool. One star. They managed to not turn the movie into a tribute to the decade I hate the most, the 80’s. One star. The director (Ken Kwapis-Licensed to Wed, He’s Just Not That Into You, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) really managed to draw the audience in and give us reasons to care about both the whales and the human characters. Well done IMO. One star. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. I found Drew Barrymore’s character an annoying off the stereotype shelf hippy Greenpeace bitch, and she felt really fake and out of place in comparison to the rest of the cast. Odds are Drew didn’t eat anything at all during the course of this film production as she managed to fill up every day by chewing the scenery. One black hole. In the real story the Inuits made the decision to help the whales on their own, but in this movie they couldn’t do anything that positive until the white man, in the form of Adam Carlson, guided them into the correct moral choice. I would find that a little insulting if I were an Eskimo. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
A final total of six stars. Really decent movie. Perfect for your family (to be honest I’m not even sure how it got a PG rating). This might also be the perfect date movie. Interesting, with whales, romance, drama, and some sadness. If this doesn’t warm your dates heart maybe she needs someone to cut her an ice hole (ok, I’m done with that). On the other hand, very little of the camera work really needs to be seen on a big screen, so feel free see it on NetFlix.
I’m seeing the Woman in Black later tonight, so look for a review tomorrow. It looks as scary as hell, and I’m in a bad spot as I am seeing it with two girls and don’t want to end up shrieking or otherwise embarrassing myself. I’d like to maintain at least the illusion of machismo in my life. Anyway, thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you all tomorrow.
Dave
