Tag: review

I was awoken on Saturday by the hammering and the pounding of the work that’s happening on the buildings of my condominium development. They’re pulling down the siding and the brick and installing a better building wrap. The workers are all over and I get worried about the car out back. I needed to get the car out of there. So I go about and find an early movie to watch. Not really caring what it is, I pick The Three Stooges. I’m hoping to see heads being banged together so that I don’t rage and bang some heads together around my house. I want to go all Moe on someone.

The nice part about The Three Stooges is that they did old school style. Three different vignettes. Three different two reelers. Just like they had been presented back in the day. The also had the intro with their theme song and their floating heads — I’m hearing “3 Blind Mice” in my head now. This was nice and unexpected. They strung their story in these three segments.

The first was the Three Stooges origin story. They’re orphans raised by Larry David taking a nun’s vow. Larry David as a nun is funny. The second was the Three Stooges out at work. They were doctors and carpenters. They caused mayhem. The final was a big hoighty-toighty party. I was expecting many pies thrown. They disappointed me.

It was a fun and funny time waster. You couldn’t ask for anything more. I laughed. Everyone laughed. Guffaws! I’ve never heard a real deep belly laugh until the first noggin was knocked together. This lady laughed real loud for every head slap and eye poke. She infected the audience as she made us laugh when at times we didn’t need to. She made it enjoyable.

3 of 5 stars.

The Cabin in the Woods is Scream for the Saw age. It takes the “wink-wink, nudge-nudge, no whatta mean-no whatta mean, say no more” snark and self-consciousness to another plane and cuts it up like a funny man. It’s so post-modern it’s back into the pre-historic days.

I couldn’t get into it. It writes itself; you know what was going to happen. Even the big “twist,” you’ll see it coming. Then you wonder if they would go there, and they went there.

2 of 5 stars.

Usually, I am in tune with pop culture. I know of, watched, or read lots of what’s been in pop culture. The Hunger Games came out of no where for me. Even when I spent weekends upon weekends in the bookstores, I’ve never heard of it until they started the advertising blitz last year. Should I read the book before the movie comes out? So I went in to the theatre last week blind. I didn’t even read the wikipedia page.

As I sat there I had to process the film on several levels. The first being as a film in and of itself. The second being the adaption of a book I didn’t even read. The third being the film as a pop culture phenomenon.

As a film, I liked it. It was enough action to keep me interested. Yet, I was bugged by it. As an adaption did it miss something from the book? I felt that it did, as plot points and themes that the readers of the book would figure out. I bet there was plenty I missed from not reading the book. It’s funny because my brother complained about the film and most of his complaints could’ve been handled if he had at least read the blurbs on the back of the soft cover his son was in the process of reading.

So the readers of the book could love this movie. There are points that those who haven’t can feel attached to the story, but it could be better if you know about the book before hand.

3 of 5 stars.

This Means War came out around Valentine’s Day. I only got to watching it today, and while watching, I can see the trappings of why it was released as such. You have lots of action: things blowing up good, guns a’popping, and fists and punches thrown. That would bring in the male demographics. The fact that the men doing the action are the pretty boys, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy, would also bring in the ladies. The female demographic can also settle for it being some kind of love/relationship story. The marketing threads are so apparent for this movie that it is no wonder that they went for the bang on Valentine’s day.

The movie as much as it was marketed for the ladies spends much of the time with Pine and Hardy. They’re good buddies in the CIA after the deadly Jonas Brothers. After a botched (incompetent) opening, one of the Jonas Brothers was dead and the surviving one has vowed revenge. He’ll be important as the third part will have to resolve this part of the story.

Pine and Hardy after that incompetent opening are desk bound. They’re left to wonder about what to do. The slack in the story allows Hardy to go all emo and Pine to go all debonair. Hardy has a kid and an ex who doesn’t want a wimp as a lover. Pine has his fun chasing women. What he doesn’t have is a copy of the bro code. Hardy starts web dating and meets up with Reese Witherspoon’s character. She, as all female leads in rom-coms, is a successful entrepreneur who isn’t successful in her love life and has to rely on her wacky female friend to put up an entry in the internet dating site. Witherspoon and Hardy meet and hit it off, but soon after Pine bumps into her trying the pick her up. She goes out with both.

Pine, no matter how close he’s to Hardy, goes against the bro code once it is revealed that they’re now dating the same girl. He doesn’t yield to Hardy’s emo. He doesn’t respect his buddies choices. Instead he lets his girl-getting ego take over and challenges Hardy to her. Then they both end up using government assets to spy on each other to slow the other’s progress with Reese. Bro code be damned!

Nothing good will come out of a marketing driven movie. I can see all that they threw to attract both males and females to this movie. I couldn’t take it serious. This was a product meant to attract the most movie goers. It’s just that. Guns and love. Everything is nothing.

2 of 5 stars.

I’ve whooped it up at a couple of epic parties like the idiots in Project X. The best one was the 10th Floor around the world party at The U my freshman year. The one that ended up like the house in the movie was another around the world party at The U in my junior year when we demolished our floor and got our RA fired from a job he hadn’t even started yet. Epic parties — you can only handle a few in your life, but if you have an epic party be careful with it and don’t let the party get out of bounds like the one in the movie.

The movie purports to be a chronicle of some geek’s buddies making his 17th birthday day legen— wait for it — dary. The mastermind is an obnoxious New York transplant who keeps complaining about not getting girls like he did in NYC, but you find that hard to believe from a guy hanging out with those losers. There’s the chubby guy who is McLovin’ but not as dorky. Then there’s the birthday boy (I don’t remember any names) who agrees to a smallish party which escalates and escalates until it became legen– wait for it — dary.

One last part of the group was the birthday boy’s childhood friend that was a girl. You know that they should hook up, but childhood friends shouldn’t be a couple. Thought they remind of the anime trope of childhood friend. It could happen. It will happen. That’s how they make this movie not as obnoxious; someone learns something in the end.

The party was epic. If it had been real, it would’ve been truly insane. Hundreds of people. One small neighborhood. Tons of booze. Tons of drugs. Girls. Girls. Girls. A pool. Two DJs. A bouncy castle. A dog. Boobies. High school boobies. Middle school security guards. A taser. Hapless neighbors. Angry drug dealer. A gnome. All of it contributes to the insanity.

I don’t know whether to be scared of how crazy dumb that generation is or to be jealous of not getting to experience anything like that in my crazy dumb days. I missed the boobies.

One thing I noticed is that even though there was beer, liquor, sex, and drugs there were no cigarettes. NO SMOKING! In all that mayhem, there was not one cigarette onscreen. And if there was I missed it.

2 of 5 stars.

Even without the master, Hayao Miyazaki, at the helm, I was going to watch The Secret World of Arrietty because I am a fan of animation and of anime. So I found myself at the local nickelodeon for a Saturday matinée surrounded by a full house of parents and kids. I try to avoid the kiddy matinée, because the restless kids don’t make for a good movie experience. I had to ignore all the fidgeting and the fusty parents, and when I did I had a wonderful time.

Every time I watch a Studio Ghibli film, I am left to wonder how can a male dominated society like the Japanese produce wonderful animated films with realistic female leads. Pixar is just finally finished its first film with a female lead. Disney has its princesses and all that they connote and denote.

3 of 5 stars

The Iron Lady isn’t a sequel to Iron Man. I think I would’ve liked it better if it did feature Margaret Thatcher in an iron suit taking on the Argentinians in the Falkland War. That sounds more entertaining than what this movie ended up being.

Meryl Streep channels Maggie Thatcher. Except at times I was waiting for her to break character and channel Julia Child. It could’ve been a very good movie if I couldn’t tell which character she was playing. The young actress, Alexandra Roach, had the thankless task of playing the young Maggie Thatcher. People will talk about Streep. They should talk a little more about Roach. She won’t get any mention, but Streep will get a nomination. No idea why.

The problem with this film is that it didn’t give an idea of why Thatcher became who she was. Her dad was conservative. Did she get it from her dad? Why? Which part? No idea why she decided things. She just became Maggie Thatcher. The film also doesn’t touch on why she was the leader for that time. What did she do to make England better? The Falkland War? No idea. The film misses out on why she lost the backing of her party. Was she driven? Did she drive too hard? No idea.

At some point, we should understand who Margaret Thatcher was. It was Meryl Streep and that is all I got from the movie.

2 of 5 stars.

I’ve never been so on edge during a movie that had barely any action than I was during Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It’s a straight up action flick with no action, and yet surprisingly it will have you on the edge of your seat. It reminds me of the 1970s action with no action flicks which is fitting considering its setting, London in the early 70s.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy starts very opaque, fragmented, and hard to follow. The facts as they were: there’s a mole in the British spy agency and it’s up to Gary Oldman to find him. Oldman was retired from the agency because of his mentor’s screw up in his first attempt to find the mole. As his investigation proceeds, it all starts to make sense and the mole gets flushed out. If you don’t see it, you already know who it is.

I liked this movie. So far it’s been nothing but good films this year. Of course this is only the second one.

4 of 5 stars

EDIT: Misspelling! Damn Lion autocorrect!