Tag: review

The World’s End finishes up the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy. Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead being the other two. On a side note, I searched my blog for an entry for Shaun of the Dead, but the movie came out a month before this blog started in May of 2004. I can’t believe that movie is almost 10 years old. I can believe this blog is almost 10 years old and devolving slowly to no entries.

Anywho, while this film was as enjoyable as the others, it’s not as good as Hot Fuzz, my favorite. Mostly, its unhappy ending contributed to a less favorable impression. It’s a bleak ending with the world literally ended. Oops, spoiler alert!

The film is two films: the first about reclaiming past glories and the second an alien invasion flick. Simon Pegg tries to regain his mojo by returning to the ultimate mistake of his youth, not finishing a bar crawl in his old home town. He recruits the very same crew to redo it almost 20 years later when they are in their 40s. His crew are more responsible adults. They’ve gotten on in their lives. They don’t wear the Ministry shirt and black trenchcoat of their youth. They were respectable adult clothes. Pegg is stuck in the past. Yet the future is about aliens who have taken over their old home town and the world in order to bring Earth and her inhabitants to the future. Pegg wants to stop this. He’s selfish in both dragging his pals as well as keeping the world from joining the ‘Federation.’ Who knows how to be an adult? And is it worth it? His cohorts think so.

I love drinking movies! I was all set for the bar crawl. It’s like Beerfest. Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! It’s always a riot when thinking about drinking as much as possible. I feel that even though I no longer drink that I want to get rip roaring drunk again. I’m going on my own Golden Mile.

4 of 5 stars.

I never saw the first one, but Despicable Me 2 doesn’t need you to be familiar with its predecessor. You’ll get the gist of everything you missed from the first one in the film’s opening minutes. Evil mastermind turned loving father because of the cuteness of the kids. Evil mastermind uses his technology to make kids have fun. Evil mastermind is really a softy at heart.

I enjoyed the movie. It was good and it makes me want to catch the first one.

The cutest thing ever was that costume of the princess on the unicorn. Do they make that in real life?

3 of 5 stars.

Elysium is a better action movie than an allegory for the haves and the have nots. The action is as good as the director’s previous film, District 9. The robots look real. Elysium, floating like a jewel in the sky, looks real. The space ships and tech looks real. The issue of healthcare for the poor people of Earth not so real.

Look I get it. Elysium is the 1% who can afford to live high above the rabble. What I don’t get is why the companies only service them. Those tanning medi-pods would pay for themselves if you allowed the masses to use it. Why does capitalism stop? Why does it only work for those in Elysium? It don’t make any sense. It seems as if the filmmaker wanted to use the situation as a plot contrivance. It’s ridiculous.

But I believe the action makes it better. Give me shiny explosions and mecha and I’ll be happy. As long as I don’t have to think about the plot. That’s what summer movies are for.

3 of 5 stars.

How did I find myself stuck between several groups of young girls squirming because of sex talk? I decided to catch the raunch sex comedy, The To Do List.

When I first entered the theatre for the first matinee showing at 2:00, it was empty. I plop myself down in the optimum viewing seat, center seat four rows up. Alone, I was worried that I would be spooked, but then the rest of the audience started filing in. That’s when I got sandwhiched between two groups of girls: a set of college girls in front and another triplet behind me. At least, there were a couple of older gentlemen catching the movie by themselves as well. I was not the only creep in the crowd.

The To Do List is sex from the female perspective. It’ll make you squirm if you are alone amongst a couple of rows of girls. The talk of handjobs, blowjobs, rimming, cunnilingus, pearl necklaces is funny amongst your guy friends. When done amongst nothing but girls, it’s still funny.

The movie is set in the early 90s, so is the music. It opens with 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny,” the raunchy version which when listening now it isn’t that bad. It’s still funny.

The main character, the class valedictorian, has to pop her cherry in preparation for the sex in college. So she applies herself to the pursuit of sex like she had done for her pursuit of good grades. She makes a list and crosses items off when done. Hand job — check! Blow job — check! Dry hump — check! It was all very clinical in dispatching items. No sentimentality, but that is sex nowadays. It’s just a formality like shaking hands. It’s not about love; it’s sex and it’s beautiful!

3 of 5 stars.

Admittedly, it was a low bar, but The Wolverine is a damn fine X-Men movie. It’s almost good.

The Wolverine takes the classic Miller-Claremont 4 issue Wolverine comic and translates it to the screen. I hadn’t read it in about 2 decades, but from what I can remember, all the story beats are there.

I liked Yukio. She’s bad-ass. I liked Mariko: now that’s a Japanese name. I didn’t think the baddy, Viper, was anything.

The plot kind of meandered for a bit. It didn’t make sense at times: like it needed to wrap up some time.

Stay through the end credits.

3 of 5 stars.

I saw two movies this past weekend. One of them was the most scariest thing I’ve seen in the theatre in a long time. The other one was The Conjuring.

Grown Ups 2 is the quickie cash in from those fellows in the original Grown Ups. Nothing can prepare you for the horror. The original at least had a semblance of a story — its sequel nada. I didn’t laugh once. Okay, maybe a few chuckles but not hard or loud as the crowd of 13 year olds did. They even clapped at the end! Sadly, those kids are our future and they all are knuckle heads.

Don’t watch this movie even if it comes on cable. There is nothing redeemable about it. I want to gouge my eyes out. I can’t believe I saw this.

Afterwards, I thought about the failure of Hollywood. This is what they are offering now. Unfortunately, they probably have more of the same. The action has gone to television. They tell stories there and not spectacles. They are more creative and not creatively bankrupt. They tell stories you want to see. Movies not so much.

1 of 5 stars.

Did Zach Snyder out Nolan Christopher Nolan with Man Of Steel? I think yes.

Man Of Steel was a dark tale, because of the Snyder pulling a page from the Christopher Nolan superhero playbook, by treating superheroes, Superman in this case, as if they never wore tights. I call it dark the movie put the superheroes in reality. Plus Zod was pretty nihilistic and lots of peopled died.

Because he followed Nolan’s pattern, Snyder didn’t come across as Snyder. Not many slow-fast-slow fights. There are still lots of fighting but Snyder’s trademark stop-motion does not appear in the film. He just let them fight. And Snyder likes to film them hand-to-hand. I always liked the train fight in Sucker Punch. In this film, Snyder made all his fights like the train fight.

And like any Nolan film, there are plot points and holes which make some aspects of the movie seem senseless. Deus ex machina comes into play just for the sake of things. At least, though, the fights were coherent.

One thing about DC movies lately, they aren’t full of tights.

4 of 5 stars.

How much you like This Is the End will depend on how much you like the actors ‘acting’ in the film. They play themselves so if you have any problems with Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Seth Rogen, Danny McBride, or James Franco, they may change how you perceive the film. Me? I sort of like them, so the movie wasn’t bad at all. Yet, I always find that they produce halfly funny movies. So this movie was just slightly funny to me. From the crazy red band trailers and the premise, I expected to fall out of my chair. I didn’t, but I think it was because of my bias.

I wanted a “Something About Mary” laugh riot. I got a “40 Year Old Virgin” laugh melee. My expectations were too high? Perhaps. But did you see those red band trailers?

I think you shouldn’t miss this movie though you can wait for it to repeat on Comedy Central in 16 months. But in the meantime you’ll be missing some funny stuff. You’ll miss Michael Cera stealing every scene he was in. You’ll miss Emma Watson being brave. You’ll miss James Franco full of it. You’ll miss Danny McBride being the asshole you always thought he was. You’ll miss demon dicks and tons of homoerotic bro-dom going down.

If you can wait, wait, but if you can’t I think it is worth the Sunday matinee price.

3 of 5 stars.