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Movie review – X-Men: Days of Future Past

Posted on May 28, 2014 | Leave a comment

X-Men: Days of Future Past

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The X-Men team is in trouble again, meaning it’s gonna be ANOTHER long stretch before they can enjoy any sort of leisure time. Do they even get paid to do any of their tricks? This time around the X-Men of the future are pissed that they’re not the best anymore so they send everybody’s favourite naughty boy, Wolverine, back in time to straighten it out before some furnace-faced bots take over.

Ha! As if it were that easy. The Canadian hero known for his six knives kind of screws up mostly because he messes with the frustratingly unstoppable magnet man who is so powerful that he should rightly be included in future editions of the Bible. They eventually figure it out of course, but at what cost? $12.99 for the ticket, no popcorn, just a stick of gum I brought from home.

Most mutants in this movie looked like a middle-aged person’s vision of a graffiti artist and every one of them knew more than enough karate to make up for the shortcomings of whatever power makes them a weirdo.

The bulk of the movie takes place in the 1970s but don’t worry, you won’t get distracted by the fact that not one character knows what you know about computers and the 24 hour news cycle–these guys are all business. Even if the movie took place today they still wouldn’t have had time to check email anyway–no one had time to eat anything in this movie or even stop for a drink of water.

The special effects made the human actors really appear to be the stylish monsters they were supposed to be, while Hugh Jackman and his team of Hollywood trainers and dietitians did a great job making his arm veins look like perfect al dente spaghetti.

The actors knew their lines really well even though most of them only had a few. Heck, Ellen Page spent the whole thing sitting down with her hands around Hugh’s head. There were lots of good lines that were mostly just variations of stuff like, “hope is the greatest human tool” and “our future is ours and hope is our future and be nice” and classic ‘blah blahs’ like that, but I don’t like small talk anyway, so who cares?

I’d give this movie a “go see it, it made me wish I had a power other than being kind”. It didn’t feel very long and I didn’t check my watch once.

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Movie review – Godzilla

Posted on May 19, 2014 | 3 comments

*Don’t read this if you haven’t seen it yet and think that it will be good*

Intro

Godzilla the lizard was first invented by Japanese men or women to represent nuclear weapons, which had previously fucked up chunks of the country during the old fashioned wars of old. The use of nukes isn’t as common today so it wouldn’t make sense for a new Godzilla to be a “bomb dude”. At first I thought that maybe this version of God is all about sports and how we cheer for monsters who need drugs to keep moving. Remember the drug in RoboCop 2 called “nuke”? In this movie, monsters eat radiation to stay alive–coincidence? I don’t know. Then I thought, maybe today’s God represents politicians whom we trust even though they destroy our cities by being rich or whatever. Then I thought that maybe Godzilla is simply the lord God, a guy we trust but can’t control. I looked up some quotes about Earth’s God and they fit so well with the film’s God that I felt like Robert Langdon solving one of Jesus’ trickiest puzzles.

Godzilla

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“God(zilla) is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

The start of Godzilla is all about no one knowing there’s a Godzilla. Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad and Seinfeld plays a dad who knows there’s something wrong in the Japanese ocean, but doesn’t know it’s Godzilla or these other two monsters who aren’t in the previews. If you’re looking for an actor who can convincingly bawl uncontrollably, this is the guy you call, and the Cranberry got in about three good ones before he unfortunately leaves the movie about half an hour in. Luckily, before he leaves Ken Watanabe is introduced as a guy who knows there’s a Godzilla but didn’t know about the other monsters. No one wants to believe either men, but believe me, in this movie there is a Godzilla.

“The blame is his who chooses: God(zilla) is blameless.”
– Plato

So anyway, Godzilla and a couple of large horny bugs start destroying Earth looking for radiation, and the only people who can stop them are the U.S.A. army, who in this movie is made up of about 500 troops, two tanks, six fighter jets and fifteen or so air craft carriers. The rest of the world’s armies don’t make an appearance even though the biggest thing to happen in history happens, but hey, there ain’t no lizard squattin’ on their toilets, eh?

Cranston’s son, played by that snotty fucker from Kickass, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is an army bomb expert who cares more about showing off he knows about bombs than protecting his son and wife, whom he ditches quite early on. Most of the movie is Johnson running around various army camps looking for his wife and guys saying “nope, haven’t seen her”. Too bad for him that his wife and son live in San Francisco, which the monsters decide to destroy in the classic movie tradition of destroying San Francisco (Star Trek 2, Pacific Rim, X-Men 3, The Towering Inferno, Big Trouble In Little China and Mrs. Doubtfire). I guess every director in Hollywood is from San Diego.

“Sir, my concern is not whether God(zilla) is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God(zilla)’s side, for God(zilla) is always right.”
– Abraham Lincoln

I know it’s stupid to point out stupid things in a movie about a monster bigger than the CN Tower, but some of this shit was too hard to ignore mostly because God doesn’t even fight until the very end. For example, Cranston’s bomb son travels from Iraq to San Francisco to Japan to Hawaii to Las Vegas to San Francisco in a span of like, 2 days and still manages to find time to save an Asian boy, jump off a bridge, jump out of a plane, blow up a monster nest and drive a boat before meeting up with the son we all forgot he had and the mother who ditched the son early on to find the dad. The movie could’ve been called The Parent Trap 3 and we wouldn’t have cared.

Godzilla looked pretty great onscreen, at least when you could see him through clouds and dirt, but his foes looked like the creatures of our children’s video games. All of their roars were on trend.

“Never trust anyone completely but God(zilla). Love people, but put your full trust only in God(zilla).”
– Lawrence Welk

Even though Godzilla isn’t supposed to be the monster version of a bomb, most of this movie is about bombs. In the end, the bomb expert couldn’t get this case off a bomb so they instead rely on Godzilla to eat the other monsters and then hopefully fuck off. I guess maybe he is supposed to represent a bomb.

Usually with these reviews I like the movie but put on a fake attitude about how dumb it was. This one was hard because I actually thought it was dumb. Everything you think would be good in this movie isn’t really in it including the top billed actors and Godzilla.

I saw Godzilla in 3D but I’d give this movie 1D and a “tighten the next one up, boys”. Before it I ate a burger and fries and didn’t have to get up once. The guy seated in front of me maintained maximum recline the whole film leading my long legs to feel slightly uncomfortable. I didn’t check my watch once but that was probably because I was wearing the one without the light.

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Alan’s Dumb House (2014)

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Now playing in most major stories told by the type of guy who lives by the sea and never wears socks.

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Posted on Apr 2, 2014 in Uncategorized

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Movie review – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Posted on Mar 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

the grand budapest hotel

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Pack a keg of sarsaparilla and hitch up the wagons, you’re about to be taken back to the Wild Wes where no there is no Internet and everyone takes the stairs or quirky, well-maintained machines that run on cables. The patron saint of the Wilson family is back with a movie about a horny concierge who works at the sickest hotel in a made up country that probably has some literary significance. The action begins with a dead old lady who stays dead the whole time, no ghosts.

In news that wouldn’t even be shocking to a cavemen who only saw a sliver of Tenenbaums before being led to a facility where scientists are to study his toenails, Grand Budapest stays true to Texas native Anderson’s signature moves. Every character is adorned with enough cute little buttons and pins that Johnny Rotten looks downright bare in comparison. And don’t think for a second that anything in the film went unlabelled. By the end I knew the name and number of every human, wall, car, door, and envelope, which was good because, you know, I wouldn’t want to worry so much about the identity of a stylistic radio communication device that I shit my slacks in the middle of the screening.

“Ease meets Wes”

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Anderson stuck to his cute little labelled guns when it came to casting as well, employing the services of Hollywood’s most trusted and of course a no-name boy whose lack of acting ability is expertly hidden amongst the lack of anything resembling reality and a forest of Oscar havers who if I acted with would make my Australian accent seem like it was coming out the mouth of Mr. Foster himself.

And what would be a review of a “babe” without talking about the her looks and her lumpy-in-the-right-spots body? Wes the Corduroy Boy is back at the easel, painting a movie full of colours you’ve seen but probably haven’t respected. The mains in this 100 minute meal were pinks, purples and oranges of bygone eras, dusted off and labelled or stitched as if to be catalogued for some art ween to re-discover fifty years later and used as the muse in an exhibit about how our generation needed hands to use computers.

There was more wood in the film’s grandiose set pieces than all the wood in the forest where Harry the bigfoot chilled in Harry and the Hendersons, which to that same inquisitive future art ween, may sound like it belongs in Anderson’s oeuvre. “Anderson’s latest, Harry and the Hendersons follows a Parisian footballer who secretly wants to fly hot air balloons to impress the President’s one-eyed daughter”. John Lithgow and Bill Murray should do a movie together where they play rival farmers, eh?

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I must’ve liked this thing because after I watched it I noticed so many cute things in my own life that I’ve overlooked like how the key in the back door always sticks and how we’ve been putting up with a faulty toilet handle for the last two months.

The  music was about the same, lots of harpsichord and shit.

Overall I’d give this movie a “go ahead, it won’t ruin your day and it’s not that long”. I didn’t wiggle around much during it and I came in second in TimePlay only because I forgot that both Affleck brothers were in Good Will Hunting. This movie is probably better than Good Will Hunting but I saw that movie when I was more impressionable and was probably like “oohhhh that smart hothead is everything I want to be except poor”.

 

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Movie review – The Lego Movie

Posted on Feb 28, 2014 | Leave a comment

lego-man

The Lego Movie has been one of the most successful movies of 2014 so far because everyone from those who like licorice allsorts to those who think they’re worse than hay on a pizza, wants to see it. Here are some other things that appeal to both adults and kids in case you’re looking to beef up your portfolio or beef down your obsession with talcum powder:

Food
Zoos
Bicycles
Pond Fishing
RollerBlade

The Lego Movie is about a normal Lego construction worker who tries to save his world by stopping a bad guy who wants everything to be normal — sounds like the hero to me. Anyway, the construction worker gets together with some other Lego licensed products and they fly around crashing into things.

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Mad Magazine, February 2014

Everything in the movie is supposed to look like Lego even though it was all done on computers, teaching children everywhere that Lego is too hard and computers are easy. Can you imaging if Grumpy Old Men had cast Tony Hawk instead of Walter Mathau?!

The voices of the Lego men are provided by stars Chris Pratt of NBC and Morgan Freeman, my favourite freckle face.

The message of this toy story is to be yourself and to not worry if you’re a boring idiot. The message of Toy Story was to not throw out toys because they’re really alive even though they don’t have blood. It also had some really funny parts where Tim Allen got amnesia outside of the Home Improvement universe — worth the price of admission alone.

There was a bit of eating in the movie and not one bathroom scene although they mentioned butts quite a lot. I think babies find butts so funny because parents take them so seriously. It’s like “put your butt here” and “aim your butt THERE” while the kid is all “I don’t know how to use this thing”. It’s the classic parent/child relationship doom pit where kids like whatever parents don’t  (drugs, forts).

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A guy made of Lego and a guy made of clothes bought at Winners

Did this movie make me want to get up and buy Lego? Of course it did. Did I buy any after I saw the movie? Not yet. I actually got into the movie for free because we got some passes for Christmas instead of Lego. The only reason I’m including this paragraph is for tax purposes. I was audited once back in ’07 and if I hadn’t blogged about the adventure that led to me finding 50 free guitar picks, I would’ve owed Harper my entire ’08 garlic budget.

The Wizard took a lot of flak for being a big ad for Nintendo but it least it wasn’t called The Nintendo Movie. Obviously the promotional aspects and title didn’t hurt The Lego Movie’s box office returns but maybe if they had called it Toy Dude and The Problem it would’ve attracted parents and children of the Ivy League and beyond.

I can say that I enjoyed the movie because it was colourful and I don’t think Amy Adams was in it. Since this is technically a kids movie I can let you little guys know that the part your peers laughed at the most was when the hero tumbles down a pit for half a minute. By that logic, they’d find the Hobbit Part 2 funnier than Dora the Explorer shitting her pants in the jungle.

I’ve been a Lego fan my whole life except when I was a teenager because my mind was on zits, toilets and girls. That being said, The Lego Movie brings back fond memories of screaming at my sister for dismantling my sets and then being frustrated by not being able to build what was in my head in real life. The movie tells us that it’s easy to do anything if we put our minds to it, but that’s not true. Ask me to draw a simple fuckin’ guy playing golf and no matter how hard I try his arms won’t look like arms at all.

I shared one popcorn and had one drink to myself. I’d say go see this unless you’re super poor.

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Movie Review – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Posted on Dec 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

littleGuys

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is number two of three in The Hobbit movie trilogy based on the popular book by Junior Tolkien.

This baby starts off pretty strong with about fifteen different creatures in the first fifteen minutes alone! You’d think Jack Hanna directed it, but it was actually Peter Jackson, a New Zealander who lost weight a few years back.

After a short stay at this big bear’s house the team is back on the trail, heading for the mountain filled with treasure and slept on by a very cocky British dragon. This ain’t no trip to grandma’s house though, as the band of little tough guys once again have to deal with a lot of shit along the way.  Middle Earth is supposed to be a relatively sick place to live, but jeez, is every forest in the country totally fucked? The forest in this movie drives our boys mental and is filled with giant spider-sized spiders who eat meat, not bugs. If this wasn’t bad enough, Bilbo and company are once again relentlessly pursued by Metal Blade Records stalwarts GWAR, who die so easily you wonder if their skin is made of parchment paper.

Oderus Urungus, Flattus Maximus and Jizmac Da Gusha of GWAR

The Hobbits also encounter the elves of the forest, made up of Orlando Bloom and another fairly pretty guy who looks like he won’t let anyone else use his bathroom. There’s also a new girl elf who falls in love with the cutest and tallest dwarf, which is totally stupid. What’s next, a snake and a Bible going on a date?

You can expect big time action and lots of scenes of good guys falling into pits and hanging onto ropes. Surprisingly there isn’t much eating in this one save the opening scene where the main dwarf (and second hottest) takes a pretty good bite out of a chunk of brown bread.

It all culminates at this piece of shit human city called Lake Town, a place people call “home” even though there’s no food anywhere and everyone is miserable. They must have a top shelf rugby club or something.

If you can’t afford to see The Hobbit 2 because you spent all your money on the year’s best fast food combos, here’s how the movie goes:

Establish with sweeping crane shot through stone gates and trees –> Dwarves and Hobbit walk around –> They get captured –> Action Beat escape scene –> Scene between two characters talking seriously about things we already know because we’ve seen Lord of the Rings. Repeat.

I didn’t like this movie as much as the first Hobbit, but I had a cold when I saw this one so maybe that’s why. I give it two human thumbs in a mincemeat pie. Happy Christmas!

Oh, and Gandalf fights a cloud of ink while making a poo face.

Find my review of the first Hobbit film here.

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Movie Review – Fast & Furious 6

Posted on Jun 10, 2013 | 1 comment
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Paul Walker stars

Fast & Furious 6 is the latest in a series of films about cars and the men and women who use them for everything but transportation.

Former wrestler and current mainstay at MTV- based award shows, Dwayne “A Rock” Johnson plays some sort of law enforcement official named Hobbs who’s having a whale of a time tracking down “Shaw”, a really smart hunk who is really good at crime and making cars that are better than regular ones. While investigating the bad guy, Hobbs realizes that one of Shaw’s teammates is Vin Diesel’s wife (Michelle Rodriguez) who had died in part 3 or something. He convinces Vin Diesel to ditch his new girlfriend and their lavish oceanside Spanish villa to get his old wife back and save the world too. But he can’t do it alone because there are too many favourites in the series to simply ignore. He convinces Paul Walker to ditch his wife, oceanside Spanish villa and newborn baby boy and join the mission, then puts in phone calls to the rest of the gang: Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, an Asian guy with great hair and an Israeli supermodel, who are all living great lives thanks to all the money they made killing the last bad guy. But hey, when your friend asks you to help him find his dead wife who happens to be in cahoots with the world’s most dangerous man, you drop everything fast and furiously.

What follows is two hours of fights that leave combatants un-cut, shootouts that leave our heroes un-shot, and car chases that result in thousands of civilian casualties.  All the while Vin Diesel works very hard to refresh the memory of Rodriguez, who contracts a mean case of amnesia when she almost died that one time.

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 I’d say this film was well worth the money I paid to sit in front of it because it was full of the kind of shit that make movies fun to go see, which in this case included a tank chase, a plane chase, computer screens with maps and bar graphs on them and a post-credit sequence starring British-born actor Jason Statham. There were also some great quotes that reminded me of the dialogue I’d make-up in my head when I’d play with actions figures as a child. Here are some:

Paul Walker: Letty is dead Dom.
Vin Diesel: I need to know for sure.
Paul Walker: Then I’m going with you.

Vin Diesel: [Hands over the microchip to Hobbs] So this is worth billions.
Rock: [Smiles] Name your price, Dom.

[Long pause]

Vin Diesel: [Referring to his old address in Los Angeles, which is a piece of shit in East L.A.] 1327.

Rock: If you want to catch a wolf, you need a wolf.

Go see Fast & Furious 6 if you don’t care about what your smart friends think of you, or if you want to impress a girl who is new to North America. I’d give this movie a multi-star high five out of ten.

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