I was surprised as well. Overall, I'd give the film 8/10. To be fair, I really like humor that is unexpected. The interviews with Eminem and Rob Lowe had me in tears. When Lizzy comes to the door to meet with them initially and Franco is asking Rogan questions - I damn near had a heart attack. The tiger scene - one of the best one liners delivered perfectly. Spoiler Kaplan: "They (tigers) have night vision" Franco: "They have night vision goggles?!?!" I'm a bit nonplussed at the whole 'he really didn't look like Kim Jong Un" - as if without looking at a picture right now everyone would pick him out of a lineup with 5 asian dudes instead of Mr. Myagi. Rogan was a tremendous straight man, which he had to be because Franco was so over the top (in a really good way). This movie is very quotable, has a funny premise, and is just flat out fucking fun.
I kept on wondering where I'd seen him before. He plays MN Senator Danny Chung (R) on Veep. Saw interstellar this afternoon. Pretty meh. I left the theater feeling pretty melancholy, so maybe it had an effect on me... 6/10 because some of it is pretty.
I caught a couple flicks with my daughter: Into the Woods It was inevitable that Stephen Sodemheim's greatest and most prolific musical would eventually hit the big screen, I think it's the best theatrical musical ever made.... And despite the cast this is a miss, thanks to poor direction, lazy special effects, a poor climax and the fatal flaw of turning the Big Bad Wolf-- a character who is what he is in the play-- into a full-blown human pedophile although Johnny Depp plays his 3-minute cameo with brio. Still, lots to get your attention in the performances. The entire production hinged on how well Little Red Riding Hood is done and the actress playing her nails it, Chris Pine is hysterical as a not-entirely-charming prince and the lovely Anna Kendrick really shows off her singing talent as Cinderella. Film also faults by lightening up on its notoriously dark and violent second act, excluding the death of Rapunzel (who is also not portrayed as a lunatic like the original. Worth a look, but to me disappointing. Why Tim Burton wasn't hired for this is beyond me. 6/10 Penguins of Madagascar I was surprisingly entertained by this fluff. This was funnier than all three Madagascar movies put together, with great supporting work from John Malkovich as a villainous octopus and Ben Cumberbatch as "Classified". This is far from brilliant or original, but funny and never boring. Thumbs up. 7/10
American Sniper Hell of a film, Cooper really shines in this, I'd give it an 8/10. Few points taken off for glossing over the tragic ending but still solid.
Inherent Vice I really like some of Paul Thomas Anderson's work. Inherent Vice as best I can describe is a movie in the same vain as The Big Lebowski story wise. It's a stoner comedy/mystery with a lead that gets caught up in increasingly bizarre circumstances in a convoluted who-done-it kidnap plot. Unfortunately it becomes a little too convoluted and there is a huge lack of insanely memorable characters that filled The Big Lebowski. The main problem I think was PTA shot the scenes in the same style as he's done for his more serious movies. Long moody takes that would normally ratchet up the intensity of the movie, think There Will Be Blood, are used throughout. I didn't even know until after seeing the movie and googling it, it was supposed to be a comedy. There are a lot of stoner gags peppered throughout but the tone was just off for it to feel like a comedy as a whole. It could have used some trimming. I bet a good 45 minutes could have been shaved to make it more palpable to regular audiences but it's an art house movie and I guess that'd be sacrilege. You can tell PTA has no one telling him no. Like my thoughts on The Master, the best thing going for this movie is the cinematography. Beyond that everything else is kind of ehhh. Normally PTA is good at getting insanely great work out of his actors. No real stand outs here. Not that there aren't a bunch of characters with a lot of potential. Martin Short as a coked out dentist and front to major drug smuggling ring, Benico Del Toro as an eccentric lawyer, Owen Wilson as an undercover saxophonist, and the biggest whiff was Josh Brolin as a straight laced LAPD detective. All criminally under utilized. 6/10. Do not see this film if art house stuff really isn't your thing.
American Sniper is fantastic. Eastwood was able to do with it what Jolie was not able to do with Unbroken. A compelling character piece that showed something about a man. Bradley Cooper was superb. First afternoon show was sold out. Saw the second one 15 minutes later and it was packed. Hearing some "hooyah's" from in front and behind me during the show was pretty cool. Go see it.
Because the film did so well this weekend, and is getting lots of national attention, I expect the financial and entertainment discussions to slide to the background as political or justifiable (or not) war discussions take over. That shouldn't take away from people seeing it anyway. I was trying to have this conversation with some friends, but couldn't articulate it as well as Mark Hughes does. His review in Forbes contains some spoiler information, but these quotes from it don't:
Saw American Sniper last night and thought it was very well done, the toll of war on soldiers and families is very high. You can armchair this one all you want but until you go see it you really can't have an opinion. I did not see the war propaganda, I saw people killed, maimed and ruined for the rest of their lives because of war. I saw a Seal community that is so indoctrinated to kill the enemy they can take all emotion out of the fact that it is another human, I saw a spouse that hated the Seals because her husband loved his guys more than his family. When the final scenes of the movie played and the pics of the funeral were being shown you could hear a pin drop in the theatre and it was very somber as everyone walked out. There was no high fiving for all of the 160 kills because he was dead too.
Boyhood: engaging throughout. I never stopped caring. A masterpiece of modern cinema. A fucking mediocre movie No throughline, no structure.... If you loved the "Before" movies, as I did, this will disappoint.
I honestly think calling it mediocre is being generous. I am at a complete loss as to why the critics are fawning over this movie. You basically take the most average uninteresting person you can conceive of and then watch him grow up for 3 hours. Eventually he's painting his fingernails and vomiting out some typical teenage angsty tripe. I can't think of one noteworthy thing that happens in the entire movie. Neither him nor his sister have any personality throughout, except maybe in the last 20 minutes when he's an emo tool. Seriously, what an overrated heaping pile of shit.
The idea, I guess, is to look at it as a cinematic achievement and not as a boring, contrived coming-of-age story. Because that is exactly what it is. Linklater will never top Dazed and Confused or Slacker in my book. Ever. Oscars HAVE to pander to Idiot America by always giving them at least one movie to "root for" for best picture. Sometimes it wins (Forrest Gump, The Artist, Chicago) sometimes it doesn't (The Full Monty, Four Wedding and a Funeral, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close). Truth is, those films should NEVER win.
The Interview is on Netflix streaming now. I wouldn't say dumb but good, but I'd give it a dumb but entertaining. Had some pretty funny bits.
I am no great reviewer, I did run cross country and I do live in central California. McFarland USA does a good job of showing small town poor Central Ca, underdog cross country and just feel good movie cause it is mostly true. I could nitpick, but why bother. Go see it.
American Sniper Little late here as I saw it a few weeks ago. Honestly, I just thought it was OK. As a singular tribute to one larger than life soldier, it really did the man justice. As a film, over all, stacked up against other heralded war movies I just felt it was clunky and poorly executed on Eastwood's part. He's done a lot better crafting powerful and emotional films to the fullest extent of the craft. It just didn't feel up to snuff to me. I don't know if it was translating the source material or if he didn't have a clear picture of what he wanted the film to be. It really felt like a lot of cobbled together war scenes randomly interspersed with Kyle's family story. I think I can best explain it like this, the movie's trailer left me more breathless and impacted by its theatric execution than the actual scene played out in the film. I didn't feel any emotional appeal to many of the start of the films early set up scenes. The first deer hunting scene, the school yard fight/sheep/wolfdog scene, a scene where he randomly finds his girlfriend cheating on him, and most importantly for me the scene where Kyle meets his future wife at a bar. Again the bar scene was clunky and it was hard to see any chemistry from the actors in it that would help pay off later when they are struggling with his military rotations. You'd expected more panache or charisma in scenes like this. As much as they stretch other stuff from real events I was hoping for some more Hollywood flourishes. One of my bigger complaints was the cartoonishly evil, yet confusingly semi humanized, counter sniper named in true Disney fashion "Mustaffa." They could have at least named him the cooler sounding and more dangerously real "Juba" after the Iraqi sniper Mustaffa was partially based on. I heard Steven Spielberg added this rival sniper character to the script when he was still attached to direct and it wasn't featured in the book in nearly the same capacity. A now cliche in sniper movies, Clint should have dropped it. It'd have been a lot cooler in my mind if they pulled more of a Full Metal Jacket move where we didn't see him visually through out the movie until Kyle kills him. Instead we get a few scenes where we pan through his apartment as he takes calls for troop movements. We pan across his wife or girlfriend and his Olympic medal picture. Odd to me he was humanized at all given the rest of the film's tone. I think the sniper show down of sorts took away from the emotional core of the movie, which was Kyle's struggles with home life. I think the part the film did best was portraying Kyle's almost fanatical patriotism with the real struggles brought on by warfare. He is so fucking gung ho that he seems in denial that anyone, including himself, could be effected negatively by their duties as soldiers. It's a very interesting dynamic the film, and Bradley Cooper for his part, pulled off really well. All this criticism save for one scene. The ending credits packed more punch than the entirety of the film. Powerfully real images of the final salute to an American hero. 6/10. In the pantheon of war films I just don't think it was as good as half a dozen other classic war films.
Road Hard I like the podcast, listen to it daily, I wanted to love the movie as well. I think Adam is funny and he should be doing more than just a podcast and a shitty show on Spike tv. That being said I laughed less than 5 times during this movie, his rants would have been more laugh worthy if you're not a podcaster but I think the repetitive jokes hurt the film rather than helped it. Larry Miller stole this film, and I want Nick Offerman's woodshop, but I am glad I didn't pay to see the movie in a theater. 5/10 Worth a rental.
Youre being generous. The first half was not bad, the second half was typical rom com bullshit. And sadly, Adam cannot act to save his life. The Hammer was funny and had a decent storyline, this movie just isnt that good. And Larry Miller is good, but he is definitely not the same after his accident. 3/10
Just watched this last night, and I really think it's one of those "insider" movies. If you're a comic you might find it entertaining because you can relate to a lot of the shit in the movie. As a standalone movie, it pretty well sucked... but being somewhat involved in it by listening about it daily on the podcast, it was more interesting than it probably should have been. I didn't mind it, but I'm not going to be watching it again soon, if at all. It was cool that they used Nick Offerman's shop, though... and I also thought it was funny that Molly got a cameo (the one-eared Golden on the front porch of not-his-house-anymore).