Tag Archives: movie

Top Ten Warning Signs Your Girlfriend Might Be a Romantic Movie Fanatic

shutterstock_3277737Oh Hollywood.  When will you ever learn that every time you put out another cheesy romantic movie, you’re causing the women in our lives to hold us up to ridiculously high standards?

Men, are your women way into romance flicks for YOUR own good?

From BQB HQ in fabulous East Randomtown, here are the top ten warning signs your girlfriend might be a romance movie fanatic:

10.  She watched Serendipity then erased her number from your phone and wrote it down in a copy of the book, Love in the Time of Cholera.  She sold the book to a used book store and then informed you that you will never talk to her again unless fate sees that the book with her number in it makes its way to you.  You call her the next day and you are all like “Seriously babe I remember your number because we’ve been dating for years” and she’s like “Why do you ruin everything?”

9.  Whenever she watches Sleepless in Seattle, she demands that you meet her at the top of the Empire State Building.  After doing this once or twice, you sit her down for a talk in which you explain that while you do love her very much, you’re going to end up in the poor house if you have to take time off of work, fly to New York City and then stand around on top of the Empire State Building like a jackass every time Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are on TV.  She laments your total lack of Tom Hanks in his prime charm.

8.  Ever since she saw Notting Hill she greets you with “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.”  It seems sweet at first, but then she starts demanding you speak with a Hugh Grant-esque British accent.  You could do it to keep the peace if you wanted to.  It’s mostly just going “um um um uh” a lot but you refuse to demean yourself.  You’re an American, dammit and she can take your regular voice or leave it.  (Psst…she’ll probably leave it.)

7.  My Best Friend’s Wedding leaves her disappointed if get togethers involving your family don’t break out in a spontaneous song and dance rendition of I Say A Little Prayer For You.  You try your best to make it happen but your Aunt Edna can’t hit the high notes.

6.  Her love of Say Anything requires you to stand outside her window in a trench coat whilst holding a boom box in the air.  She won’t make any reasonable concessions about this.  You still have to wear the trench coat in August and no matter how heavy the boom box gets, she won’t let you hold up your iPhone with Pandora blaring on it instead.

5.  Chasing Amy has led her to believe your relationship would improve if a) she were to become a lesbian and b) you tried to look more like Ben Affleck.  The lesbian thing is doable but the Ben Affleck thing is unlikely.

4.  Ever since you two watched The Notebook, she asks if you’d spend a large chunk of your life in a depressed funk if she were to ever leave you.  You realize it’s for your own good to say yes but deep inside, you know there are other fish in the sea.  Most won’t require you to climb up the side of a ferris wheel like a dumb ass either.

3.  She has long dreamed that you’d become more like Patrick Swayze in Ghost and sensually work a pottery wheel with her in perfect time with her hands.  You try your best but the apartment just ends up covered with sticky gobs of clay.  Part of you just wants to give her five bucks to go buy a damn ash tray, flower pot or whatever she’s always trying to make with that thing.

2.  She made you watch Love Story.  You’ve been on anti-depressants ever since.

  1. She’s a big fan of Titanic, so much so that you often find her butt naked on the couch, breathlessly urging you to “draw me like one of your French girls.”  You grab a paper and pencil and do your best to sketch a stick figure with circle boobs but she invariably just puts her robe back on and storms off in a huff.  Seriously dude, take an art class.
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Sausage Party -NSFW Trailer

Hey 3.5 readers.

Have you seen the trailer for Sausage Party yet?

So here’s the setup.  Seth Rogen and James Franco (the comedy duo behind Pineapple Express and also that movie that almost led to a war with North Korea) have made a cartoon.

For the first thirty seconds of the trailer, you almost think it is another Pixar style cartoon.  What’s every Pixar movie about?  Talking toys.  Talking cars.  Talking bugs.  Talking planes.  Talking fish.  Always about something that doesn’t talk only now it is talking.

This one is about food.  Yes.  All this time you never knew that food products can talk.  They sit on the store shelves, waiting for you to pick them up with the hope that you’re going to do something great with them and….

…yup…the food products engage in all kinds of obscenity once they learn what people actually do with food.

Here’s the Sony Red Band Trailer.  If you don’t want to be offended you probably shouldn’t watch:

I’ve been hearing these guys talk about this project on different talk shows for awhile now.

It sounds like a funny concept to me but I’m a male with a warped sense of humor so I’m basically their target demographic.

I give them credit for actually getting the studio to put up the money needed for Pixar quality rendering…or for getting a studio for doing something completely outside of the box for that matter.

PREDICTIONS:

  1.  People will be divided on whether it is hysterical or garbage.  There will be very little in between.
  2. There will be adults who would have thought it was funny but won’t go because they’ll think it is a kids’ movie based on a quick look at the poster.
  3. Also based only on a quick look at the poster, there will be many clueless parents who will be like, “Hey this looks like a good movie to take the kids to!” only to be horrified.

Anyway, I will have to check this out and write a review for my 3.5 readers when it comes out.

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Looking Forward to Deadpool this Friday

Hello 3.5 readers,

BQB here.  I’m looking forward to the upcoming Deadpool movie.  For those of you who have lives and like do things other than watch TV and movies, Deadpool is a different kind of super hero.

He’s the “Merc with a Mouth” meaning he spouts off terrible off-color jokes on a non-stop basis and swears constantly.  He also engages in all sorts of awful violence.

And if you have a bizarre sense of humor, it’s all pretty funny.  Watch out for this trailer though.  It’s R rated so…as mentioned above, lots of gratuitous swearing and violence.

 

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New Ghostbusters Movie -Chris Hemsworth in Nerdface – #OscarsSoPretty

Once again, they slap a pair of glasses on a beautiful person instead of giving a nerd role to a genuine nerd.

For shame, Hollywood!  For shame!

#OscarsSoPretty !

Read more on Access Hollywood

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Movie Review: Spectre (2015)

The name’s Battler.  Bookshelf Q. Battler.

And I’d like this review to be shaken, not stirred.

Aww who cares, only 3.5 people are going to read it anyway.

BQB here with a review of the latest James Bond movie, Spectre.

At the outset, let me just say this:

  1.  It wasn’t as good as Skyfall, but that’s only because Skyfall set the bar so high.
  2. But that being said, it was still pretty damn good.  A lot better than that Quantum of Solace nonsense.

I love James Bond.  Bond is the man every man wants to be.  I’d love to be able to charm the pants off of any woman I meet, beat the crap out of all my enemies and still make it to cocktail hour on time in a nice suit.

Sadly, that only happens in the movies.  Bond is so suave he can even charm top secret info out of hot enemy babes.  Meanwhile, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one day I’ll get a woman to make a sandwich for me.  Damn it Bond, you probably get all the sandwiches you want, don’t you, you bastard?

Anyhoo – OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING.

It hasn’t been easy for Bond in the post-9/11 world.  Since that fateful day, as well as after various tragedies since, people have been a lot more aware of the fact that illicit intercontinental activities can bring about grave repercussions.

Suddenly, the white cat stroking caricature Bond used to face just doesn’t cut it anymore, not when we’re fully aware there are real monsters in the world.

Casino Royale got the message.  It was lost in Quantum of Solace, which involved a plot to steal water.  Sorry Bond, but we’re done with outlandish, cartoonish plots.

Skyfall gave the series a reboot, giving Bond a team of compatriots to work with – a new Q, a new Moneypenny, a new M, new colleagues all around.  And this is the first film where we get to see them all shine.

The plot?  Bond must infiltrate the evil underground organization known as Spectre and take it down.  Its operated by a sinister ne’er-do-well aptly played by Christoph Waltz.  Waltz provides a great performance – never too emotional, speaking matter of faculty about significantly evil doings.

Wrestler David Bautista STEALS the show.  It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a good Bond henchman.  I’m not talking about the main villain but a lackey, a number two, a guy who does the villain’s dirty work.  Oddjob is the last one I remember.

Bautista hunts Bond and even though your inner voice reminds you that it is Bond’s movie so of course he can’t die, this guy leaves you thinking Bond might just end up drinking that shaken martini in the sky.

He doesn’t.  Don’t worry.  I don’t think that’s a spoiler.  You all know Bond lives at the end of these things, right?  That’s why they’ve made so many of these movies.

Ralph Fiennes, having replaced Judi Dench as Bond’s boss, M, is at the helm in this movie.  You end up feeling for the guy.  He’s plagued by red tape and bureaucracy.  He has to chew Bond out for ignoring protocol and generating bad press, even though its obvious he understands that Bond’s unorthodox methods have saved the world from ruin time and time again.

It sucks to be management.

One criticism is that there is a whole scene where the villain spills the beans to Bond as to how his whole sinister operation works.  I kind of thought these movies were pushing to get past those tropes but oh well, you have to have some, right?

Oh and I should point out, the villain does have a white cat, but he doesn’t stroke it.  Progress.

STATUS:  Shelf worthy.  Worth seeing in the theater due to great stunts, fights, car chases, special effects.

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Movie Review – Black Mass (2015)

All is forgiven for Mortdecai, Johnny.  All is forgiven.

I’d announce SPOILERS though all this stuff actually happened!  BQB here with a review of Black Mass.

“If nobody sees it, then it didn’t happen.”

So goes the advice of infamous Irish mobster James “Whitey” Bulger to his young son after he got in trouble for punching another kid at school.  It’s a line delivered so eerily that it sets the whole tone of the movie.

It gives the viewer insight into just the kind of guy Whitey is.  Most parents would tell their kid not to punch anyone.  Whitey tells his to just make sure no one’s looking before he punches someone the next time.

Step aside Tony Soprano, as this true crime gangster flick shows  Whitey as one cold, calculating sociopathic serial killer, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake during his tenure as the boss of an organized crime family known as the Winter Hill Gang in South Boston from the 1970s to the 1990’s.

I was a fan of The Sopranos and the ongoing theme of that show was that Tony often felt bad about his crimes.  Of course, that didn’t stop him from being a murderer, but after the dirty deed, he’d feel bad, overeat, not sleep and walk around in his bathrobe and get so depressed that he’d need to go spill his guts to his confidant/ shrink Dr. Melfi.

Whitey, on the other hand – SPOILER – is able to strangle a hooker then take a nap and have dinner afterwards.

In one of the saddest turn of events in modern law enforcement history, FBI agent John Connolly struck a deal to use Bulger as an informant, but as we see in the movie, John becomes less concerned about justice and more about helping Whitey, his childhood friend, not to mention getting some extra gifts on the side.

Meanwhile, Whitey plays the FBI like a fiddle.  He gives them info needed to take down a rival Italian crime family moving in on his turf, but after that, pretty much feeds them bupkis.

If this sounds familiar, you might recall 2006’s The Departed, which was somewhat based on Whitey’s reign of terror.

I’ve always felt The Departed was one of the best gangster flicks I’ve ever seen and this one does meet it.

Johnny Depp solidifies his reputation as an actor who can become anyone.  He plays the ruthless yet somewhat quiet Whitey to a T and is barely recognizable on screen.

To complicate matters, Whitey’s brother was William Bulger, President of the Massachusetts Senate.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the South Boston politician well, delivering a powerful speech about how he’ll drive crime out of South Boston just as St. Patrick drove the Romans and British out of Ireland.

Ironic, given who his brother was.

What did William know about his brother, when, and what was his involvement?  Those are questions left on the table, though the film takes the standpoint that Billy basically suffered from being tied to a degenerate brother.

Can’t pick your family I guess.

Joel Edgerton turns in an excellent performance as Connolly, the fast talking Fed who always has a comeback ready to explain to his boss (played by Kevin Bacon) as to why Whitey’s being allowed to jerk the FBI around for his own personal gain.

Jesse Plemons (aka Creepy Todd from Breaking Bad) plays another creep, Whitey’s associate Kevin Weeks.  Poor Jesse’s stuck playing creeps I guess.

Adam Scott (known for comedic roles such as his part as Leslie Knope’s husband, Ben Wyatt on Parks and Rec) makes his first notable foray into drama as a Fed who’s suspicious of Connolly.

Overall, it’s a solid cast.  I could go into more detail, but I’d end up giving the rest of the story away.

Did Whitey win?  If you’re a news watcher, you know he went on the lam in the 1990’s after being tipped off by Connolly to an impending arrest, only to be caught in Santa Monica in 2011.

You might say justice was finally found.  Then again, Whitey was in his 80’s when he was nabbed so, he did get to live out his retirement years.

This is one of the first major Oscar contenders of the year and cements Depp as one of the greatest actors of our time.

If he takes home a gold statue for this, he will have earned it.

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Movie Review – San Andreas (2015)

Holy Crap it must suck to live in Los Angeles.

At any given moment you could be burnt up in a wildfire, carjacked by hoodlums, or hell, you could be practicing your putt on the back nine when friggin’ Harrison Ford lands a damn antique World War II plane directly on your face.

On top of all that, earthquakes are always a constant danger for the west coast due to the San Andreas fault and thanks to big blockbuster special effects, audiences are given a front row seat to experience just how horrifying it would be to trapped in the middle of one.

“Shut your mouth and know your rule, you 9.0 on the Richter scale, jabroni!  Can you smell what the Rock is cookin’?”

Because…you know…the Rock used to be a wrestler and he’d call his opponents jabronis and ask them if they can smell what he’s cooking?

Never mind, 3.5 readers.  Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of this summer’s wide scale disaster film, San Andreas.

(I know.  I’m disappointed that it wasn’t about the video game that took away a large chunk of my early  to mid 2000’s.)

OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING

Trailer – San Andreas – Warner Brothers Pictures

I’m sorry.  I forgot we have to refer to the lead actor as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.  He’ll always be the Rock to me, but I don’t want to quibble with a guy who could rip my arm off and beat me with it.  I don’t think he would, he seems like too nice of a guy, but the point is he totally could so why chance it?

Johnson stars as Ray, an LA Fire Department rescue chopper pilot.  He’s in the process of a divorce with his wife Emma (Carla Gugino).  Together, they scour the California coast in search of their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), braving a non-stop onslaught of falling buildings, debris, explosions, floods looters along the way.

Blake teams up with two British blokes, her love interest Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and Ben’s little brother Ollie (Art Parkinson) as they face all sorts of mayhem on their own.

Paul Giamatti lends his fine tuned character acting skills to bring us Lawrence, the Cal Tech professor who was able to predict the earthquake was coming but no one listened.  Once the carnage ensues, people are all ears it’s it up to Lawrence to save as many lives as possible by getting across the message that more large scale seismic activity is on the way.

Overall, the film is more of a thrill ride on screen than a vehicle to deliver any sort of a plot, though it does have its dramatic flair moments.  Ioan Gruffodd of the original Fantastic Four films plays the cowardly Daniel, the man Emma’s left Ray for only to instantly regret it once his true colors are shown.

(Between you and me, 3.5 readers, in a film about a man flying around in the middle of a major earthquake, the most far fetched concept is the idea that a woman would dump the Rock in the first place.  I mean, I don’t know, I’m not a woman but I’d venture that few are able to resist the smell of what the Rock is cooking.)

If the movie serves any social purpose, it would be that once all of the CGI eye candy is digested, the very real danger of earthquakes and other devastating natural catastrophes are something that we should be preparing more for.

I’ll have to consult with Dr. Hugo because I honestly have no idea what kind of warning systems are in place and what evacuation procedures are available for Californians other than to run around with their arms flailing as the chunks of cement come flying overhead as illustrated in this film every two seconds.

As disaster flicks go, it wasn’t half-bad.  Not the worst film I’ve ever seen but not the best either.  It’s definitely something you’ll enjoy more on the big screen so it’s worth a trip to your local theater.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy

PS – Am I the only one who didn’t know that guy’s name is Ioan Gruffudd?  I feel like I’ve seen him in a zillion movies/TV shows over the years but never did I once suspect he was packing a moniker like “Ioan Gruffudd.”

Kind of sounds like he could be the villain in the next Star Wars movie.  “Quick!  Use the force or Ioan Gruffudd will conquer the galaxy!”

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Movie Review – Hot Pursuit (2015)

Reese Witherspoon is short!  Sofia Vergara’s accent is hilarious!

This movie is dumb!

Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of a movie so goofy that even the pimply faced teenaged usher asked “Really?” when he ripped the ticket I bought for it.

SPOILERS (if such a concept is possible for a movie like this) AHEAD.

“This is the performance of a lifetime!”

And thus, with a quip said without a straight face during the ending credits blooper reel, Witherspoon totally negates any ability for this reviewer to bust on the film.

This is a throwaway movie, one designed to make you chuckle, something you can check out when you’re bored but not feeling up to the emotional rigamarole of a heavy drama.  I know it, you know it and even the lead actress knows it: don’t take this flick too seriously.

It’s a mild comedy – not so lame that you won’t laugh yet not so raunchy that Grandma can’t enjoy it.  In fact, Aunt Gertie opined that it was a hoot and a half.

(I only brought her because she paid for the popcorn.  My blog stats took a major hit while she was watching this damn thing.)

The setup?  Vergara is the wife of a drug cartel informant who’s agreed to testify against his boss. Witherspoon, a police officer who’s been riding the pine in the evidence lock-up ever since an unfortunate mistake on the job tarnished her reputation, is selected to accompany a U.S. Marshall in transporting the couple to Dallas.

Shots are fired, foul play ensues, and the film turns into a mad cap buddy comedy/road trip romp as it’s up to Witherspoon to get Vergara to safety.

It’s a downgrade for Witherspoon, who we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in acclaimed dramas like the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line or the more recent Cheryl Strayed inspired film Wild.

Arguably, it’s an upgrade for Vergara, as this marks her first top billing in a major feature film.  And while this is a movie I’m not going to rush to watch again anytime soon, there were a few moments where Vergara shines, thus making it known to Hollywood that she has more to offer the world than a pair of miraculous bosoms and a funny accent.

Speaking of Vergara’s signature accent, the film even busts on that in an ironic manner.  Witherspoon uses a heavy Southern accent and at times both characters claim to not be able to understand each other.

I saw this movie so you won’t have to, 3.5 readers.  No thanks necessary.

STATUS:  Not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to rush out to the theater to take it in either.  Might be worth a rental.  Might even be the movie that allows Vergara to branch out and take on heavier roles.  Alas, doesn’t earn a coveted spot on the magic shelf.

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Movie Review – Run All Night (2015)

Bookshelf Q. Battler here.  I snuck out while the Yeti was playing Tapper to take in a movie tonight.  Hate to say it, but the Yeti has become less of a captor and more of an annoying uninvited house guest.

But I digress.

Regrets?  Liam Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon has had a few and they’re all catching up with him over the course of one non-stop, action packed night.

Movieclips Trailers

Ever since Taken, Neeson has had a resurgence, moving from dramatic actor to tough guy action star.  In most of these films, he’s calm, cool, collected.  Surprisingly, in this film we see a divergence.  Neeson still plays a man you want on your side if you’re in a pinch, but he’s also a bad guy.  Worse, he’s not just any bad guy.  When we’re introduced to Jimmy, he’s a sloppy, slobbering, lowlife drunk, depressed over a life spent being a murderer for his longtime friend and mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris).  Of course, Jimmy sobers up quickly as he can’t be expected to take out one goon after the next in an inebriated state.

Michael Conlon (Joel Kinnaman from last year’s Robocop reboot) hates his father and avoids him all costs in the name of living a law abiding life.  Unfortunately, he ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time when he inadvertently witnesses Maguire’s son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) shoot some Albanian drug dealers during a deal gone awry.

Danny tries to shoot Michael so as to leave no witnesses but ends up being shot by Jimmy.  Maguire vows revenge against his long time friend and criminal associate and has a seemingly endless supply of degenerate henchmen to lob at the father-son duo as they navigate their way through the streets of New York City.

Common provides a chilling turn as stone cold hit man Andrew Price, dispatched by Maguire to take the Conlons out.  Vincent D’Onofrio also submits an emotional performance as Detective Harding, the good cop who has been hunting Jimmy for twenty-five years, only to see every case he’s brought against the mob murderer fall through the cracks of a corrupt justice system.

And yet, the rub for Harding is that on this particular night, Jimmy is not the bad guy, so the detective is struck with the unenviable task of having to help a man he despises do a good thing – i.e. save the lives of Michael and his family.

Why is revenge such a powerful force that it makes men blind to the realities around them?  Maguire knows his son did wrong.  He knows Jimmy just did something any father would do.  Even so, Maguire is out for blood and it is a bit heartbreaking to watch as a duo with a thirty year friendship take each other on.

Nick Nolte makes a quick cameo and, well, not to put the guy down because, hey, time eventually comes for all of us, but it did take me a second to realize it was Nick Nolte.

The film moves at a mile a minute pace and never slows down.  If you’re looking for a good Spring action flick, you won’t be disappointed.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy

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Fifty Shades of Blech

I try my best not to make fun of the work of others on this blog.  And let’s

50 Shades of Grey - 20 Percent of Off

50 Shades of Grey – 20 Percent of Off

face it, make fun of Fifty Shades of Grey all you want, but the author, publisher, and now movie studio behind it are raking in the dough.

I just can’t help but scratch my head though as I try to make sense out of why today’s modern, empowered woman would be into this thing.  But that’s a slippery slope I don’t want to get onto, lest I be accused of trying to tell women what to do.

Here’s the hypothetical Hollywood pitch meeting as it plays out in my head:

HOLLYWOOD SUIT 1 :  OK.  We’ve got this great movie idea.

This mousy woman goes to interview a man, but discovers he has a secret room where he tortures women!

HOLLYWOOD SUIT 2:  Oh my God!  Sounds terrifying!  So what, I guess we brand it as a horror flick and release it on Halloween?

SUIT 1:  What?  No!  Sorry, I forgot to mention the guy is handsome and rich.

SUIT 2:  Handsome and rich?!  Well, why didn’t you say so?  Sounds like a surefire Valentine’s Day blockbuster to me!!!

Admittedly, I’ve never seen the book nor read the film.  If you have, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the main theme basically, “If you’re handsome and rich, it’s ok to abuse women?”

Eh, what the hell do I know?  I’m just a humble book blogger.  Y’all have fun at the movie.  I’ll be at home lamenting the decline of Western civilization as we know it.

In conclusion, let me be clear.  I’m not telling women what they should or shouldn’t like.  I am saying that Susan B. Anthony is rolling in her grave.

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