Tag Archives: movie reviews

Movie Review — Captain America: Civil War

Posted on May 17, 2016 | Leave a comment

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The tits and fists of Marvel’s finest are on full display in the latest comic book to huge screen transfer, in a movie we’re all forced to call, Captain America: Civil War. This heavyweight’s got everything you love, from tailored black leather jackets and vests zipped halfway up, to black cotton jackets zipped half way up. It’s all bound together by out of this world action and special FX from Hollywood’s most expensive computers.

I’ll give you two guesses what this story is about… did you guess “trouble”? Trouble seems to follow these super stars wherever they go. This time around a really smart guy without any control over lightning or water named Zemo decides to split the team apart by totally outsmarting them. This is one of those nouveau bad boys who starts the movie as a “who is this guy?” then is slowly revealed as a “someone who’s pissed about something that happened before”.

Because of this guy’s bad brain, the Avengers gotta choose between fighting alongside half man/half car Iron Man, or U.S. citizen and accomplished globetrotter, Captain America. Once the teams are evenly distributed so that no one cries, they all go at it  with thousands of hard but safe punches and whatever magic Santa brought them for puberty. This raises the question, “who are the bad guys?” but is easily answered by “he who wishes to explode something”. Since none of the following are eager to destroy more skyscrapers than is necessary when fighting a huge creature, they’re still good even if they scowl more than usual.

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Iron Man’s team has a couple aliens, cat woman and his buddy who always copies him.

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Captain America signed up Robin Hood, A Falcon, Mrs. Boring, his best friend who totally rocks even though his brain is screwed, and Paul Rudd

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Heheheh is this Batman??? No way. 

Throughout this thing I couldn’t help but think of how comfortable the Avengers are at their compound where Tony Stark has provided them with unlimited furniture, leather jackets, and a screen next to every toilet.

I’d give this movie seven Marvel movies out of ten Disney Universes, and would recommend it to any shut-ins who want something bright but can’t do the sun.

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Movie review — The Witch

Posted on Mar 1, 2016 | Leave a comment

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The Witch is about a REALLY dumb family who moves away from a fairly crappy New England village full of fellow British immigrants to a dirty old field next to the scariest and wettest woods in the world. The reason? Something to do with God, I don’t know, I couldn’t understand a damn thing anyone was saying.

God is as big a part of this movie as wet wood and witches are. I learned that if you move to an isolated field in the 1600s, God becomes your neighbour, friend, enemy, boss, witch-repellent, TV, song inspiration, dinner conversation, you name it, God’s it. This family doesn’t go two seconds without thinking about God, which I guess makes sense if you 100% believe there’s a guy in the sky who can kill you at any second.

Ralph Ineson as "dad"

Ralph Ineson as “dad”

God certainly didn’t tell them that the dark, wet, cold place they decided to move would be a witch’s paradise, but they should’ve known since it’s not as if witches dig the beach. They get what they bargained for because an old witch steals one of the family’s babies then pulls all these tricks to make them go crazy. There’s also a pretty cool ram named Black Philip who steals every scene (and a few souls hehehe).

While I was watching The Witch I started fantasizing about travelling back in time and wowing the characters with modern knowledge and technology as I always do when watching period pieces. In this fantasy I ride up to their really shitty house on what you and I would deem a crummy mountain bike, only to them it’s the fuckin’ craziest thing they ever saw.

Once I make them shut up about the bike I ask them to explain why they’re so bummed. I get a bit scared of this witch shit but seeing how bonkers they went for the mountain bike, I tighten my scarf and fearlessly waltz into the woods armed with nothing more than the flash light I have in my backpack.

I spot the witch and BAM, flash light into her eyes .

“What kind of witchcraft is this,” she screams, “Dost though control the sun”?

“It’s a Coleman, 5.99 at Home Hardware,” I cockily exclaim.

She gives in to my “magic”, appoints me head witch and next thing you know I’m partying nude with a coven who can’t get enough of the duct tape I also brought along.

Two weeks in the woods and I’m like, “Aw shit I forgot about those British immigrants,” then I go back to the homestead where they’re like, “We have n’aint layeth eyes uponst the witch since the eleventeen star, wherest doth thee been?” I  casually explain what’s up and that the witches will chill as long as the family doesn’t have any more babies because witches are attracted to fresh flesh like Harvey Levin is to a hot scoop. I’d leave them wondering who Harvey Levin is then bike back to the witches and party until my Time Gauntlet signals the end of the journey.

I give The Witch, More Goats Please Out Of 10 and would recommend it to anyone who is considering of moving off the grid.

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Move Review — The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

Posted on Dec 31, 2014 | Leave a comment

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Hobbit-Heads worldwide got an extra special Christmas orange this year in the form of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the third and final Hobbit film. This new Hobbit movie is the perfect dessert after a satisfying meal of two other Hobbit movies. If you’re confused it’s because there were three Rings movies that featured more way more Hobbits than The Hobbit and to top that off, the Lord of the Rings of the Rings movies isn’t even a Hobbit.

This baby girl picked up right where we left off with the dragon burning the water city and the dwarves and the Hobbit waiting around. Then a dad kills the dragon and you think “oh the adventure is over, the gold is won”, but rather than worry where their next turnip is going to come from, beings from all over the country want some gold for themselves or maybe as a present for their sweeties so they walk to the mountain for some war.

There are supposed to be five armies fighting for the gold — the pretty elves, the funny dwarves, the boring humans, the outrageous orcs and I guess the Hobbit who manages to survive even though he’s from a town full of pussies.

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The orcs were extra scary but still managed to be killed by the hobos and children from the burned town, little dwarves wearing very heavy hats and a Hobbit who doesn’t even wear boots. This was making me mad but then I realized that the reason the orcs don’t fight well is because they don’t train! They sit around and accuse each other of being gay and wait until their big boss says “run”. Meanwhile, the little guys who kill them drape themselves in magic clothes and train all day, no joking around until after supper, that kind of thing. And where’s the motivation? If the orcs win a battle they still have to go back to the dungeon and sleep in their armour, it’s not like they have pajamas. It’s like a goth on Christmas–even if they want to get into their jammies they can’t or else they won’t be goth anymore despite how pure the flannel is. You think there are post-battle treats in the dungeons? Yeah right. Maybe a clean rat will wander in and they can split it but even still, no one would share because they feel too much pressure to be rude.

We know that everything works out fine because this movie happens before the Rings movies that we’ve all already seen. That’s cool though, it’s about the journey not the destination and if there’s one little boy who knows that all too well it’s Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, the title Hobbit of the film.

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I saw The Hobbit for free because Uncle Dave was running the IMAX projector and snuck me in. I got to press “play” in the control booth and that kind of power made me feel like Gandalf, my favourite wizard. I ate no snacks but got to leave my jacket in the booth so that I felt very free and comfortable in my seat, not worrying about any opportunists looking to pinch the jackets of Hobbit fans whose eyes were glued to the screen full of creatures. I’d give this movie a “I might as well finish the trilogy” out of 10 and would recommend it to someone who wants to annoy a friend who hates modern filmmaking.

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Movie review — Nightcrawler

Posted on Nov 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

Exclusive - Jake Gyllenhaal Films Scenes For 'Nightcrawler'

Time and nutrients have chiseled Jake Gyllenhaal–once considered America’s widest-eyed baby boy–into the man you will see in November’s Nightcrawler, now in theatres.

The new, gaunt Jake slightly resembles a golden age Rick Campanelli who like the film’s nightcrawler, changed the way we watch TV.

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If I keep going on about looks they’ll write a scathing feature about me on slate.com  so let’s chill and walk, not crawl all over Nightcrawler.

Jake plays the main crawler but there’s a few others in the movie too. The crawlers are guys in LA who aren’t scared of blood and who go around and film accidents and fires to sell to news TV. I thought news TV made their own videos but I got no problem learning new things as long as it doesn’t make me look like a stupid idiot, I mean I’m 32 for Christ’s sake.

The main cralwer starts his own crawling business and quickly rises through the ranks because he’s fucked and doesn’t care about anyone but himself and he really doesn’t mind blood at all. He’s like one of those guys in high school who I’d talk to because I felt bad for him but then after you talk to him you’re like “oh fuck him” and you’re relieved that can officially say you hate him because you’ve done your due diligence and didn’t rely on the opinion of others.

I thought we were going to see Rene Russo nude for the first time since 1999’s The Thomas Crown Affair, but nude sex between Jake and Rene was only implied and not shown. This was probably a good thing because Jake’s arms were so veiny in this fucker that if we saw the rest of him we might think he was a snake master and not a nightcrawler. I get the veins though because the movie is about news and the news always says “if it bleeds it leads” and veins make bleeding possible.

Jake Gyllenhaal On The Set Of 'Nightcrawler'

Like a grandpa who won’t shut up, this movie is telling us that we watch too much TV! But it’s also about being your own boss, which is the American dream 2.0, I think.

There isn’t much to this thing, it’s about a veiny loner who finds a new job and gets way too into it. Sounds to me like the last half of Forrest Gump, a movie about a way nicer guy.

To help me get through the movie without chewing on my jacket, I bought a combination of a medium popcorn and a medium drink. I’m such a career medium–shirts, pants, combos–that the sound of the word “medium” makes me feel at home. We were going to refill our drink on the way out so that we could sip until dinner but we forgot probably because we were mad at the nightcrawler for being such a damn doorknob.If I had a friend like that there’s no way I’d answer his emails.

I’d rate this movie “A” for “Anyway, I saw Nightcrawler” because it probably won’t be the first thing you tell your co-worker you did this weekend. I’ll probably lead with the chicken curry I made for dinner on Sunday followed by the goal I scored in hockey on Friday, then Nightcrawler. Have a great afternoon and check out the full glennmacaulay.com blog library, available on demand NOW.

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Movie review – The Lego Movie

Posted on Feb 28, 2014 | Leave a comment

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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 reviews – The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle

Posted on Jan 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

While you were sleeping on your daddy’s sleeping bag and waiting from Crisp Pringle to ski into your fireplace, Hollywood was working hard to bring you their latest stories. Amidst flurries of poultry and new socks I managed to see some of the season’s spiciest curries, which I will now review LIVE.

The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle

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These movies are similar because they’re both about bad boys living in the old days and doing stupid shit without the aid of Google. Hustle‘s Louis CK is the only chunk of husband material to be found, and even he’s so boring that he might as well have been made out of banana chips.

I thought there’d be more drugs and bare nipples in American Hustle so I was a bit disappointed. The experience was also hindered by these two pieces of shit sitting in front of us who kind of ruined the first half hour of the tale. The man slurped his soda with the power and noise of a young James Dyson on his hands ‘n knees, sucking dirt caveman style until he invented the world’s shiniest vacuum.  The guy dug so deep into his bag of popcorn that it seemed he was recording foley for a movie about popcorn. Once I got used to their constant shifting around and the woman sighing and answering phone calls I got into the movie. If not for the actors I think I would’ve given this baby spilled milk status but Christmas Bale Brad Cooper were very good in their roles as a fat trickster with fake hair that was fake because he has hair, and a curly horn dog FBI employee, respectively. I don’t like Amy Adams because she was in that Julia Child movie that was worse than watching a teary middle-aged woman write a baby blog on the third anniversary of her husband’s death, but she did show 80% of her breasts for 80% of the movie.

The Wolf of Wall Street was too long but there was enough drugs and nudity to keep me from having to imagine nudes and drugs while trying to distract myself from the pee that wanted out. Leo once again plays a character based on a real person, meaning all he had to do was hang out with the guy and copy him. Jonah Hill plays a weird heavyset type who smokes the whole time. Have you seen Boiler Room? The movie is like that but longer and better and was filmed on better cameras probably.

I’m glad that these movies are in the Oscar race because usually it’s all a bunch of ones whose synopses begin, “Due to factors beyond her control…”, while trying to get you to cry and buy the book from which it was based on. Oh, I saw Anchorman 2 as well. If I wanted to see a bunch of clowns acting like newsmen, I’d simply turn on Barnum and Bailey TV for the six o clock poos. Get it? No, it was an okay movie but I still think Steve Carell would make a much better funny dentist.

All these movies were too long. I watched Smokey and the Bandit last night and it’s under two hours and half of it is shots of police cars turning on their sirens.

Pizza The Hutt, Spaceballs

Pizza The Hutt, Spaceballs

Final Marks

The Wolf of Wall Street – Three Jack London’s not realizing that the movie he’s about to watch isn’t about wolves out of four dumps that Jonah Hill took daily on set

American Hustle – Nine stars out of who knows, it’s all a con, don’t believe in something that’s too good to be true (lesson from the movie)

Anchorman 2 – 201 pounds, a bit overweight but still worth looking at if you’re into anatomy or skin.

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Movie Review – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Posted on Dec 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

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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 – Gravity

Posted on Oct 22, 2013 | 2 comments
The boy is looking for his X-BOX, no doubt.

“Mommy, I’m God”

Gravity is a brand new movie set mostly in outer space where a handful of astronauts have some trouble at work. Sandra Bullock plays the main floater who has never been to space before but knows how to fix the big droid better than veteran astronaut played by real deal woman fucker, George Clooney. There’s one other guy whose face you do not see, but whose voice would be best described as “Mexican?”.

There isn’t much to say about the story except that humans are the only species we get to hang out with and Earth is the only planet we get laugh at. If I wanted to see some humans on earth I’d take a look in the mirror because I have a tattoo of Buzz Aldrin licking a globe.

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The main draw of this future Wikipedia favourite is the visually stunning depiction of outer space, painstakingly created in a computer program that doesn’t come with the computer you bought. No wait, who cares? Outer space is the easiest thing to draw next to the sun, which also makes several appearances.

If “gravity” is the science that keeps our poo flowin’ the right way, then the film Gravity is the film that stops us from pooing for 90 minutes because we don’t want to get up and poo during the film. As a joke, I threw a Mars bar at the screen when the credits started rolling. I give this film two thumbs on the buttons that make space ships fly and hope that it inspires someone to make a space movie with more sports in it.

DVD BONUS FEATURE

What fun snack should you eat during Gravity?

Mars Bars (sorry if I ruined the surprise before)

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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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