Now You See Me

Here is a list of things that are good about Now You See Me:

1. Isla Fisher is hot.

And here are the reasons why this movie blows giant whale dick: 

And So It Goes, Begin Again

And So It Goes

I was stuck on a 12-hour flight and my choices were to sleep (impossible), stare at the back of the headrest in front of me, or watch this nauseating piece of shit. Reading was off the table because I had stupidly packed my book, and didn’t have it in my carry-on. Anyway, I chose the movie. This 2014 movie stars Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton playing characters meant to be thirty-year-olds. They sleep around, act goofy, obsess about their careers, and stumble through life. Of course, it’s allowed to never have your life completely figured out, but the glaringly bad writing, the fact that they couldn’t adjust things for their ages, dragged this film down quickly. Douglas’ character is suddenly forced to take care of his 9-year-old granddaughter. Keaton lives next door (in a duplex apartment) and helps pick up the slack. They meander about their pointless lives doing nothing of interest. The little girl does some school project about butterflies or some shit. Eventually, the movie farts to an ending and it stops. The acting is woefully bad, with everyone phoning in their performances. Avoid this one.

Verdict: Shitty

Begin Again

On the same flight, right after And So It Goes ended, Begin Again started. This isn’t a movie I would ever have chosen to watch, but it turned out better than I expected. Mark Ruffalo stars as a music producer who used to be big, but lately has been churning out nothing but shit. His company eventually gives him the boot. Keira Knightley stars as the girlfriend of a douchey pop-star played by Adam Levine. Occasionally, she writes songs for him. They live a comfortable, yuppy lifestyle until one day he cheats on her and she leaves him. She decides to strike out on her own, playing her own music. Ruffalo sees her at an open mic night, and realizes she could be the next big thing. They pool their limited resources, and record an album (written and performed by her) in various New York City locations. Naturally, the album becomes a big hit. I liked this movie for several reasons. The characters are fairly well written, they feel organic, and interact in largely believable ways. Ruffalo and Knightley worked well together on screen. I wouldn’t say they necessarily have chemistry, because Ruffalo doesn’t have chemistry with anyone. The story moves in interesting directions, and it never once verges into cliche territory. And the highlight was the segment of them recording the album, which was lots of fun to watch. It’s a decent movie, and one worth checking out.

Verdict: Good

Where the Wild Things Are, Stop-Loss

Where the Whild Things Are

I hope they get lost in that desert.

I remember being fairly pumped for this movie when it was being promoted for theatrical release. It was directed by Spike Jonze who had also directed super awesome movies Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. It was based on a famous children’s book, and it boasted very unique character/monster designs. I never got around to seeing it in the theater, but Mrs. Brik and I checked it out on DVD a few nights back. I’m glad we saved our money.

This is one of the most boring and pointless movies I have ever seen. Basically, there is this whiny bitch of a kid named Max. He cries when his “igloo” gets crushed in a snowball fight, and then he trashes his sister’s room. He gets mad at his mom when she won’t come play with him while she’s working. He yells at her while she’s trying to get it on with Mark Ruffalo. He runs away from home after biting her. Then he hangs out with a bunch of imaginary friends (the aforementioned “Wild Things”), lying to them, bitching and moaning, throwing tantrums, and being a general nuisance. Eventually, he gets “homesick” and leaves his imaginary friends to return home to his mother. His mother welcomes him back with open arms and everything is A-OK.

Excuse me, but this is fucking bullshit. In what universe does a 9 year old boy scream at his mother, bite her, run away from home, and when he comes back he isn’t punished? I guarantee you, if this was reality, he would have been grounded and/or beaten mercilessly. You aren’t being an effective parent if you aren’t beating your children on a regular basis. I’ve never read the book on which this movie is based, but I imagine it tells children it’s OK to be disobedient, whiny liars. I’m glad I didn’t read the book as a child so I could grow up to be a belligerent asshole instead.

This movie has no climax, no resolution, no moral, and all the stuff with the imaginary friends was utterly pointless. He learned nothing from them, and they learned nothing from him. Pointless, boring, and worthless. I’m guessing that the only reason Spike Jonze’s previous movies were awesome was due to them having been written by Charlie Kaufman.

Verdict: Shitty

Stop-Loss

The cast of Stop-Loss. Notice that the movie’s only good character (Timothy Olyphant) is not pictured.

As the movie was getting started, I saw the “MTV Films” logo appear on the screen. Immediately, I knew I was in for a non-stop shitfest. This movie is ridiculously crappy. It opens with some home video montage of a bunch of soldiers fucking around in Iraq. Next, we are subjected to some stupid asshole (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, sorry Mrs. Brik) wailing and playing a guitar (badly). From there the movie is shot on actual film stock (thank god). We see men going into an Iraqi city, getting ambushed, and several of them dying. Finally, the survivors all go back to Texas, their tours of duty completed.

The main character, played by Ryan Phillipe, is shocked to find he can’t leave the Army because he’s been “Stop-Lossed.” Meaning, in his contract they can re-enlist him without his consent. He immediately goes bat-shit insane, and goes on the run. Unfortunately, going on the run isn’t very exciting. Most of the film features him driving across the country and chatting leisurely with Channing Tatum’s girlfriend.

With about forty minutes remaining, the DVD started to hang and the screen got all pixellated. Since it came from Netflix, it was scratched all to hell, and the remainder of the film was unwatchable. I was really disappointed I wasn’t able to finish this cinematic masterpiece. You can only imagine the hours of sleep I lost at night wondering what ultimate fates befell those characters.

The only good thing about this movie was that it had Timothy Olyphant. He played a badass. He always plays a badass because he’s really good at it. The whole movie should have just been Timothy Olyphant going around the country rounding up soldiers who went AWOL because they got Stop-Lossed. And if they didn’t go with him, he’d shoot them. That would be a kick ass movie.

Verdict: Shitty

Avengers Assemble for a Giant Circle Jerk

The forces of Photoshop are here to save the day!

Ever since the 2008 film Iron Man was a success, comic book studio Marvel has been trying to get people excited for a movie starring several of its most famous superheroes. Four years, and four movies, later Marvel has finally done it. Marvel has been cramming all their other movies with unnecessary Avengers bullshit, just for the sole reason of getting people interested in the upcoming Avengers movie. Did Thor need a huge Avengers sub-plot where agents of SHIELD took his hammer and he had to get it back? No. Did Iron Man 2 need a huge Avengers sub-plot with Samuel L. Jackson trying to recruit Tony Stark into SHIELD? No. In fact, that particular bullshit ruined the entire movie. And I won’t even get started on what a hokey piece of shit Captain America was. Every time Marvel shoe-horned in an Avengers sub-plot into one of their movies, all it did was serve as an annoying distraction from the rest of the film. It’s almost as if Marvel was telling the audience, “Don’t worry about all this origin story nonsense, we just want to get this out of the way so you can watch The Avengers later.”

I was certainly not excited for The Avengers. In my attempts to become a world-class blogger, I typically watch a film 6-12 months after theatrical release, just long enough for my review to be irrelevant. I figured I would try something new this time. And since I am such a big fan of Summer Shit Spectaculars, not to mention excruciatingly long lines, and headache-inducing 3D, I really had no choice but to see this movie opening weekend. And how did it turn out? Well, it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it was going to be. I didn’t feel like Marvel was taking a huge fart in my face. But that doesn’t mean the movie was particularly good either.

Screw You, Marvel

This is exactly what Marvel is doing to their properties.

All of Marvel’s upcoming movies are going to be trash.

A decade ago, movie adaptations of comic books were a joke. With the exception of the 1989 Batman and 1978 Superman films, they were laughable at best, and huge steaming piles of shit at worst. The problem was that nobody took it seriously, not even the creators. They made them campy and hokey, and self-referentially stupid. They were the lowest common denominator of movies. They became a self-fulfilling prophecy of crappy movie-making. After all, if the filmmakers themselves treated the properties like shit, then the movies would inevitably turn out to be shit. The industry chugged along, and churned out turd after turd with the occasional, anomalous decent movie like Blade in 1998.

Fast forward to 2002, and the release of Spider-Man. Suddenly, we had a GOOD live action version of a comic book movie. How did it turn out good, you ask? Well, let me answer that for you. The simple reason was that the director, Sam Raimi, had been a longtime fan of the comic book series. He wanted to stay as true to the character as possible while adapting him for the more difficult live action film environment. Naturally, certain things needed to be changed, but they were done with as much care as possible. The characters and situations were taken seriously, and given the right amount of gravity with occasional moments of levity thrown in to keep things fun. The script was solid, the actors were well cast and talented, and everything flowed together seamlessly. It just worked. Worldwide, that movie grossed over $800 million. People were screaming about how awesome the movie was, and all of a sudden it wasn’t nerdy to like comics any more.