Loving this trailer, 3.5 readers. The Guardians of the Galaxy are back with humor, action, 1970s songs and Baby Groot.
What say you, 3.5?
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Category Archives: Movies
Movie Review – Why Him? (2016)
Why him? Ugh…why me?
The things I do for my 3.5 readers, like bothering to review this movie.
BQB here with a review of Why Him?
So, at the outset, the premise sounds like a pretty standard Christmas comedy. Dad does not like the man his daughter he is dating but powers through it and realizes that the guy isn’t that bad.
Problem is that there’s a big age difference between the couple and uh, well, it’s creepy.
Bryan Cranston is businessman Ned Fleming, who has been asked by his daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) to come out to California to spend the holidays and meet her new boyfriend, Laird (James Franco).
Problem is Stephanie is 22, Laird is 32 (although if you’re a movie buff like me, then you know that Franco is closer to 40 which just makes the whole thing odd).
Laird isn’t just an eccentric weirdo, he’s also an Internet millionaire app developer, which is apparently the only way anyone came become a millionaire these days, but don’t get me started on the economy. That’s a whole other article altogether.
Where was I? Cranston is put with the paces, cashing in on a big holiday film after breaking through with Breaking Bad. Laird is into all sorts of oddball things and Cranston goes through all of them to comedic effect.
I can’t lie. There are parts of the movie that are hysterical. It was nice to see Megan Mullally with a big film part as Cranston’s wife/Stephanie’s mother as she is overdue.
Griffin Gluck is funny as the goofy little brother. Cedric the Entertainer is great as Cranston’s second-in-command at the office. Keegan Michael-Key is a riot as Laird’s estate manager Gustav.
Kaley Cuoco (Penny from The Big Bang Theory) actually steals the show as the voice of Laird’s home AI. It’s fun to hear Penny say naughty things.
All in all, it’s got all the great trappings of a fun holiday comedy/date movie but…eh…maybe it’s my #OscarsSoPretty activism but I just couldn’t over the age difference between the Stephanie and Laird.
The age difference is addressed in the film, Laird comes across as a good dude that’ll do right by her and everything but let’s be honest:
Rich guy 40 year old dates your 22 year old daughter – you’ll probably be cool with it. It’ll be weird at first but he’s rich and shit.
Ugly broke 40 year old dates your 22 year old daughter – you’ll be reaching for your shotgun.
It’s funny. It’s actually a decent film as throw away comedies that you’ll never watch again go but…eh, the age difference weirded me out.
STATUS: Borderline shelf-worthy. No need to rush to the theater. Worth a rental.
Movie Review – Assassin’s Creed (2016)
By: Special Guest Reviewer Video Game Rack Fighter
I’m just going to say it. It’s unfair that I only get to review video game based films because nine times out of ten they suck so bad even Vinny Baggadouchio can’t cure them.
Ha. Inside humor.
Video Game Rack Fighter here with a review of Assassin’s Creed.
While we’re on the subject of films that suck, is it me or did this whole holiday season lineup kind of blow turds? Other than Rogue One and Passengers, Hollywood shit the bed this year.
Anyway, this video game based film didn’t suck as much as you might expect, though there was a certain amount of suckage. Maybe 60 non-suck and 40 suck if I’m feeling generous.
Why do video game movies usually suck? Because video games are usually written with a player in mind, not a viewer.
Case in point – in Assassin’s Creed, you, the player, are put into a machine that allows you, through advances in DNA science, to travel back in time in your mind and control the actions of your ancestor who shares the same DNA.
In other words, as a video game player, you might relate more to controlling a 15th century assassin than you would actually being a 15th century assassin. After all, what do you know about being a 15th century assassin? (Then again, what do you know about controlling one?)
It’s an idea that works well in the game, but not so much in the film. The story keeps switching between present day Cal (Michael Fassbender), a convict under the thumb of Sofia (Marion Cotillard) and Aguilar, Cal’s 15th century assassin ancestor (also played by Michael Fassbender).
Ultimately, there are two worlds and two plots, neither of which were fully explored within the movie’s timeframe. In fact, I dare say they spent too much time on the present day stuff and not enough time on the past stuff, where the best action in the game occurs. (The present day controlling your ancestor bit is basically just something that moves the game along).
The effects are great, the ancient fight scenes are awesome, but as video games so often do, it left me feeling “meh.”
If they ever do a sequel, and sadly given the ending it looks like they will, they’d be well-informed to know that the ancient assassin being controlled is the main attraction and the person doing the controlling is just a side show. I came for Michael Fassbender in a murdering people in a cloak. I got a little bit of that and a lot of Michael Fassbender being moody and grunting angrily, as he does in most of his films.
Funny, when this game came out years ago, I was excited for it as it promised to be Splinter Cell in ancient times. If you’ve never played Splinter Cell, you play as a secret agent who doesn’t win by shooting but by stealth. You have to sneak into a building, crawl around on the ceiling, through vents, up elevator shafts and subdue enemies without any one knowing.
Alas, the original Assassin’s Creed, wasn’t that well-developed. Missions called for you to be sneaky but the program was a little too sensitive as you’d inevitably be discovered and have to go on a stabbing spree just to get away.
The games did get better over the years, with games taking place on pirate ships and during the American Revolutionary War.
STATUS: Moderately shelf-worthy. Not worth seeing in the theater. Worth a rental.
In lighter news…
Captain America: Civil War is on Netflix if you bitches want to check that out.
I’m sorry I called you bitches. I meant it in a playful manner like “Hey, what’s up, my bitches?”
#RIPCarrieFisher
There is a great disturbance in the Force tonight, 3.5 readers, as Carrie Fisher, the actress who played Princess Leia, has died.
It is a sad evening for nerds everywhere.
Top Ten Reasons Why Die Hard Should Be Your Favorite Christmas Movie
Merry Christmas and Yippy Ki Yay 3.5 motherfuckers!
It’s time to talk about why Die Hard should be your favorite Christmas movie:
#10 – First action film where the hero didn’t have almost super hero like powers. In the 1980s, Schwarzenegger and Stallone put out a shit ton of flicks where they’d shoot ten million bad guys without ever reloading and never get a scratch on them. Meanwhile, McClane is a cop, so he has training, but this one man vs. a terrorist organization is a situation that your average cop couldn’t handle on his own. Though I love Arnie and Sly, I can relate to McClane.
#9 – Hans Gruber is a bad ass, a gentleman super thief who is all about the money. He love suits, love talking about gentlemanly activities, and calmly enjoys a shrimp cocktail he snagged from the Nakatomi Christmas party as he informs the guests they’ll be shot if they try anything funny. RIP Alan Rickman.
#8 – It launched Reginald VelJohnson’s career and gave us Family Matters. In Die Hard, Reginald plays working class father/cop Al Powell, McClane’s only friend on the outside. While all the law enforcement big wigs worry about rules and procedures, McClane and Al share that same cut the BS mindset. Carl Winslow is so similar to Powell that you could, if you want, just assume that Al couldn’t take all the heat after Nakatomi, so he moved to Chicago, transferred to the Chicago PD, and raised a family next door to a nerd named Steve Urkel who lusts after his daughter and blows up his house with his harebrained science experiments.
I really feel there should have been at least one episode where Carl should have shouted, Yes, Steve! You did do that! And living next door to you is worse than the Christmas I spent talking John McClane through the Nakatomi Tower terrorist bank robber attack!”
#7 – Argyle plays Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis” as he drives McClane to the Christmas party. It is truly the best of all Christmas rap songs. One might argue that “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses qualifies but…eh, it’s really an 80s love ballad disguised as a rap. The Waitresses were great, but they didn’t represent Queens.
#6 – McClane is also relatable because of his marital troubles. Sometimes a couple can have a fight and there is no easy answer as to who is right. Holly got a great job that took her to LA. Yes, McClane could have supported her but then again he had his own career as a New York police officer and she signed up to be with a man based in New York when she married him. Reverse the situation and you might think McClane to be a dick if he were hired for a job with the LAPD and demanded that his wife give up a job she enjoyed in NYC. Hell, if she makes enough, maybe McClane could have just left police work all together and moved to LA with his wife and taken a job as a security guard at Disney Land or something, though I doubt he would have enjoyed that.
#5 – McClane and Powell both have the same receding hairline, yet Hollywood suits allowed them to be main characters in a movie anyway. Sigh. If they ever remake Die Hard without Bruce Willis (blasphemy, for it really is a perfect movie) they surely will hire some hot stud muffin douche with a full head of hair.
#4 – Great lines that have worked their way into pop culture. “Yippy ki yay motherfucker!” because, after all, McClane was a baby boomer and baby boomers loved their cowboy films. A similar hero today might quote from a comic book movie or something. Also, I have found myself saying, “Welcome to the party, pal” on occasion, usually when someone realizes something way later than they should have.
#3 – Die Hard with a Vengeance is really the best sequel in the franchise. Die Hard 2 is ok and/or acceptable. However, in 4 and 5 (the films that take place in the 2000s), the franchise takes a bad turn when they do break the “average guy caught at the wrong place at the wrong time” as we see McClane starting to have those Arnie/Sly-like supernatural action hero powers. Yes, I think a plucky young cop might be able to suck it up and run through a floor full of glass with no shoes on and survive (as it happens in the original). No, I don’t a cop could hang onto the nose of a fighter jet and survive (as happens in 4).
#2 – Dick Thornburgh is an epic douche, as most media types are. See? Reporters were douches like before social media. All about hype, not really caring if they hurt anyone (i.e. barging into the McClane residence and broadcasting that Holly is married to John, thus making the situation much more dangerous).
#1 – Arnie was originally considered for McClane’s role. Arnie was great, and very much the John Wayne of the 1980s, but I’m glad Willis got the role. Die Hard might have been ok with Arnie, but a massive Austrian weightlifter who probably could rip terrorists in half off screen as well as on screen just isn’t as relatable as an average cop with a receding hairline and a wife he’s separated from.
In conclusion, Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie and it should be yours too. Thanks, 3.5
Movie Review – Passengers (2016)
J-Law! Chris Pratt! Chris Pratt’s gratuitous ass! (I swear it did nothing for me).
BQB here with a review of Passengers.
So, 3.5 readers, do you know how technology rarely works?
I mean, it works great for a little while but sooner or later it breaks down, develops a bug, has something go wrong with it and after you exhaust yourself with tech support and trying everything you can think of to fix it, you eventually pull your hair out and give up, resigning yourself to the fact that you’ll have to just live with a shitty piece of equipment until you can afford to buy a new one which…will eventually break down?
As it turns out, technology isn’t that much different in the future. Unlike the sleek, always operational ships in Star Trek, the Homestead Corporation’s ship totally sucks.
Five-thousand passengers are suspended in hyper sleep for a hundred and twenty year trip to a new planet, Homestead II.
Unfortunately, technology sucks in the future just as it does now, as Jim Preston (Pratt) and Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) wake up way too early with ninety years left before they reach their new home world.
In other words, they’re stuck in a ship for life, with no way to fulfill their dreams, doomed to wander the craft’s metal halls, perpetually bored forever with all of their plans out the window.
I must admit, I didn’t expect much out of this film going into it so I was pleasantly surprised by its awesomeness. Even though there are only two characters (four if you count Michael Sheen as Arthur the bartending Android and Laurence Fishburne as someone but I can’t tell you who yet), there are plenty of epic twists and turns as well as some fabulous special effects.
As I sat there watching it, I thought to myself, “Yeah! My laptop, TV, and cell phone all worked for about five minutes after I took them out of the box so I could totally see my sleep pod malfunctioning and leaving me to live out my life on a ship!”
See? Technology sucks, even in the future.
Hyper sleep has long been a staple of sci-fi space travel films. Interstellar, for example, opened our eyes to the concept that theoretically, it would be possible for a space craft to make it out into deep space as long as there is a way to preserve the human travelers, otherwise they’d live out their lives and die in transit so what’s the point?
But this is the first film (that I know of) to utilize hyper sleep as a big plot device. While there are moments of comedy as Pratt and J-Law plead for help from pre-programmed, bureaucratic robots who assure them that it is impossible for them to be awake, the film is also a drama, a love story, and a suspense thriller all rolled into one.
Faulty technology, incompetent tech support help and a corporation that doesn’t plan for things going wrong? Yeah, this film may be set in the future, but it does feel like life in 2016. Somehow, it seems more plausible than Star Trek.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Worth seeing on the big screen. Excellent date movie. Women, stop looking at Chris Pratt’s ass. Chris Pratt, stop showing everyone your ass. I bet no one even asked you to show it, you were all just like, “I’m gonna let my cheeks flap in the breeze!”
Home Alone Wouldn’t Hold Up Today Because of Harry and Marv
Hey 3.5 readers.
Me again with another Home Alone observation.
So, when this movie came out in 1990, the general consensus among the public was that if you were in someone else’s home and you weren’t supposed to be there, then you deserved to get bashed in the face with a paint can, get a nail through your foot, get your head burnt with a blow torch, get a tarantula dropped on you, get shot in the penis with a BB gun, break your back by slipping and falling on ice and toy cars, have your hand burned and so on.
I should know because I was a kid who saw this film in the theater and let me tell you – white, black, young, old, rich, poor, conservative, liberal, or what have you, every one was laughing at those two and the general consensus was those two got what was coming to them and good for Kevin for giving it to them.
Sigh. I feel bad there is so much division today when in 1990, we all were able to come together and agree that burglers deserve to be tortured mercilessly and caused multiple life threatening injuries by precocious children.
Today? Eh, people feel sorry for criminals today. If Hollywood ever remakes the movie, they might either scrap the abuse received by Harry and Mary altogether, or at the very least, they’d devote a portion of the film to explaining how “the Wet Bandits” turned to a life of crime.
You see, in the 1990 film, Harry and Marv were one-dimensional caricatures of criminals, a pair of incompetent bumbling buffoons who found great joy in ripping people off all day.
In a remake, you’d probably learn that Harry and Marv used to be pillars of the community, but alas they lost their jobs, couldn’t find work and ended up burgling houses in order to save up enough money to buy second-hand suits to wear to job interviews.
Kevin would feel bad for misjudging the poor souls. He’d give them a meal and some of his Dad’s old suits and hide them from the cops and let them live in his basement until they find jobs and become pillars of the community again.
Either that, or Kevin would be sued by greedy trial lawyers for all the damage he did to Harry and Marv.
“Your honor, my clients were just a couple of poor men who fell on hard times and while they are truly sorry for burgling the McAllister home, did they really deserve the brain damage they were caused by taking those paint cans to the face? I think not.”
Hey, if it is any consolation, this movie started a Joe Pesci-renaissance. This movie was the first time I ever saw Pesci in anything. He’d been in a lot of films before but then after Home Alone he pretty much got a part in like every 1990s gangster movie, so there’s some trivia for you.
What say you, 3.5?
I Feel Like the Parents Could Have Done a Better Job of Calling Someone to Help in Home Alone
Everyone I talk to about the movie is always like “Why didn’t the parents do this or that” but if you haven’t seen the film in a while, they do tie up a lot of loose ends:
- The phone lines go out so the parents can’t call Kevin directly.
- All the neighbors leave for the holidays so there aren’t any neighbors to call.
- Obviously, the parents call the police, but the cops are parodied as incompetent donut munchers who aren’t helpful.
- One wonders why they didn’t call the elderly neighbor that the kids think murdered his entire family. I realize a person rumored to have murdered his entire family probably wouldn’t be your first choice to help your kid but one would think the McAllister parents would have been wiser than the kids and would have known that the old man is just a grumpy old man and not a murderer.
- So if your local police department won’t help, wouldn’t the parents have called the state police, the FBI, or just keep calling law enforcement agencies until someone locates Kevin?
- Is there no adult in the area they could have called?
- What about the mayor’s office or the governor’s office or something?
- Does Kevin go to school? What about like calling the school and see if they’d talk to the police to do more?
Bookshelf Battle 