Tag Archives: Movies

May 06 2017
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Movies

Movie Review – Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2

I am Groot.  I am Groot?  I am Groot!

What’s up, 3.5 Groots?  BQB here with a review of Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2.

The Guardians are back and better than ever in this, the 15th film in the Marvel cinematic universe.  Can you believe it, 3.5 readers?  Fifteen interconnected films in nine years and that’s just the Disney side of things.  Other studios are still putting out Marvel’s other works, like X-Men.

This go-around, the galaxy’s most jerk-tactic heroes are back and better than ever.  When Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) engages in some epic schmuckery, he puts the Guardians on the bad side of a vengeful high priestess, causing the gang to go on an intergalactic adventure to yes, once again, save the galaxy.

Along the way, Peter Quill aka Star Lord (Chris Pratt) meets up with his long lost father, Ego (Kurt Russell).  Drax (Dave Bautista), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Yondu (Michael Rooker) all return.

Meanwhile, Vin Diesel comes back as the voice of the one, the only. Baby Groot.  Yes, he’s a tiny tree and he steals the show.

I love this franchise.  It’s space opera with a sense of humor.  Outside of Star Wars and Star Trek, this series is one of few, if any, modern attempts to do this genre right.  Action, humor, heart – it’s got it all.

One thing that surprised me.  “Shit” is said – a lot.  The word “douchebag” is thrown around freely and oh yeah, there’s a scene with robot hookers.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love all that shit.  I mean, shit, I’ve been waiting my whole life for some scientist to get up off his lazy ass and invent me a robot hooker.

I’m just surprised that Disney is dipping its toe into these waters.  The film goes right to the edge of PG-13, hovers its toe just over the line only to quickly pull it back.

Somewhere in a musty boardroom in Disney HQ, I can picture a group of nerdy writers figuring out just the right formula necessary to make these films edgy without causing Walt Disney’s frozen head to spin around in its freezing chamber.

God, I do love a good Walt Disney frozen head joke.

It’s a brave new world of filmmaking, I suppose.  Disney realizes there are adults who grew up loving cartoonish movies that push the envelope, so Guardians is their way of appealing to them.

I’m mildly worried that parents might look at the talking raccoon and the cute little tree and think it’s cool to take a little kid to this film.  And while it’s nowhere near as risqué as the Fox/Marvel Deadpool collaboration, I personally would follow that PG-13 guideline.

Let me put it this way:  it’s nowhere close, at all, whatsoever, to being the dirtiest film ever made.  In the great history of cinema, it’s pretty tame.  However, it might be the dirtiest film Disney has ever made, and for a company that spews wholesomeness out of every orifice, that’s saying something.

Teenagers will be fine.  Kids might end up warped.  Don’t worry about the adults who are into this sort of film.  They became warped a long time ago and it is too late for them now.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  Worth a trip to the theater.  The Summer movie season is here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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May 04 2017
6 Comments
Movies

May the Fourth Be With You, 3.5 Readers

May the Fourth be with you, indeed.

I need to make this post longer.  What is your favorite Star Wars film?

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May 03 2017
3 Comments
Movies

Movie Trailer – The Dark Tower

Hey 3.5 movie lovers.

BQB here.  Did you see that the trailer for Dark Tower is out?

I feel bad that I never read the book.  It came out many years ago.  I have nothing but excuses, sadly.

What say you, 3.5 readers?

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Apr 30 2017
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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme…etcetera, etcetera…

BQB here with a review of Disney’s latest adaptation of a classic story about bestiality and Stockholm Syndrome.


3.5 readers, do you what the hallmark of a great salesman is?

The ability to sell you something you’ve already bought before.

Animation was once the last true bastion of creativity.  If you could imagine it, animators could draw it, no matter how ludicrous.  Today, that’s all changed thanks to CGI as it is now possible to make live action films that are just as ingenious as their animated counterparts.

And with live action remakes of their classic animated tales (Cinderella, Pete’s Dragon are just two recent ones that come to mind), Disney is making big bucks.

I presume that the cryogenically preserved head of Walt Disney, which still runs the company by the way, is laughing his way to the bank…or at least he would…if he weren’t just a head.

Anyway, at the outset, this movie is beautiful.  Emma Watson shines in her first really big post Harry Potter role as Belle.  Yes, I know she’s been in films since Harry but honestly, can you name any of them?  Didn’t think so.  Between this and The Circle with Tom Hanks, Emma is having a good year.

Kevin Kline, a blast from the 1980s past when he and his mustache were big and second only to Tom Selleck, is great as Belle’s father, Maurice.

Meanwhile, it’s a veritable Who’s Who of British celebrities playing French servants because our American minds here a British person speak and we instantly think, “European” and therefore it doesn’t matter if the actor is not French.

Highlights of the servant turned household item cast include Ian McKellan as Cogsworth, Ewan McGregor as Lumiere and Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts.  German actress Audra McDonald brings her musical stylings to the singing wardrobe, Madame Garderobe while Stanley Tucci plays the piano (as in he literally plays the role of a piano), Maestro Cadenza.

Yes, it’s a tale as old as time, but new life is breathed to the animated cartoon.  We’re given a little bit more of an understanding as to why Gaston is such a villain, as well as more of an explanation as to how a beautiful young woman falls in love with a giant frigging hairy sasquatch man.

Luke Evans captures Gaston in all of his “in love with himself” glory.  Meanwhile, Josh Gad plays a super gay version of LeFou.  Whereas in the animated cartoon, LeFou was just a sniveling toady to Gaston, this version of LeFou clearly wants access to Gaston’s butt.

What?  What?!  That’s not PC to say that?  Sheesh.  I can’t keep up with all the rules anymore.

I mean, obviously LeFou doesn’t come right out and ask for access to Gaston’s butt.  However…the back rubs, the ear massages, the longing stares…LeFou wants Gaston’s butt.

This actually leads me to think maybe Walt Disney’s frozen head isn’t in charge anymore, as he probably would not approve of such a thing.

It’s an interesting development to say the least.  As far as controversies go, this one kind of fizzles out.  Gaston and LeFou don’t come right out and play a game of pitcher vs. catcher or anything, but it’s definitely a shot across the bow from Disney in which they are testing the waters to see whether or not all hell would break loose if they were to make a movie with a gay lead character.

As this is a not a political blog, I’m not going to touch that one.  All I know is…LeFou wants Gaston’s butt.

Arguably, LeFou wanting Gaston’s butt is not even the most controversial part of this movie.  After all, it is a story about a kidnapped woman who falls in love with her captor, a dog monster, thus promoting Stockholm Syndrome, abusive relationships, and bestiality.

Also, and I can’t say this enough, Gaston is the true hero, both in the animated version and the live action adaptation.  I mean, all the dude wants to do is slay the Beast and knock boots with Belle.  Belle gets kidnapped by a hairy dog monster and she doesn’t even thank the guy that’s trying to rescue her.  The nerve of some people.

Still, the tale that is as old as time does hold up after all these years.  Ultimately, the message is to not judge a book by its cover.  A handsome prince who treats ugly people like crap gets his comeuppance by becoming a super ugly beast, suffers for years as an ugly beast, learning how all the ugly people must have felt when he treated them like crap.  Eventually, he learns to not be such a jerk face and is rewarded with the love of a hot studious French chick.

Sadly, like most things in life, it falls apart after closer inspection.  Are we really to believe that Belle would love the Beast if there wasn’t a chance that he might turn into a handsome Prince?  Would Belle still love the Beast if he weren’t rich as all get out and the owner of a fat ass castle?

I mean, hell, women say they’d never touch an ugly guy all the time but then they usually do if the ugly guy has money.  Something tells me Belle wouldn’t stick around if the Beast was destined to remain a Beast forever while living in a rent controlled inner city apartment or in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere.

But then again, I am cynical.  Perhaps I am like the Beast, super jaded for no one will ever love me due to my super ugliness.  Maybe we are all like the Beast in one way or the other.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  Worth a trip to the theater.  LeFou wants Gaston’s butt.

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Apr 29 2017
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Movies

BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

“It’s all in the reflexes.”

BQB here with a review of the action/comedy/martial arts fantasy, Big Trouble in Little China.

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Like Escape from New York, this is another film I got through my 1980s childhood without seeing until now.  Also like Escape, it features Kurt Russell being directed by John Carpenter.  However, while Escape’s Snake Plissken was a gruff man of few words, Big Trouble’s Jack Burton is a boisterous big mouth, thus allowing Russell to show off his versatility.

Our story begins with Burton, an overly confident truck driver who refers to himself in the third person via a radio show of sorts that he performs on CB radio, pulling into the Chinatown section of San Francisco.  After a long haul, he meets up with buddy Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) for a night of rowdy drinking and gambling.

When Burton gives Wang a ride to the airport to pick up his fiancee who’s about to arrive from China, said fiancee is kidnapped by brutish kung fu thugs and the adventure is on.  As Jack and Wang follow the trail, they end up in a world of martial arts, monsters, and magic, culminating in an epic battle royal with the vile sorcerer Lo Pan (James Hong aka the old Asian guy in practically every movie that requires an old Asian guy.  Hell, he even voices the goose that adopted Po in Kung Fu Panda).

Along the way, Jack and Wang team up with good sorcerer Egg Shen (Victor Wong aka James’ Hong’s longtime rival for the part of old Asian guy in every film that requires one).

Jack even finds a love interest in Gracie Law, a lawyer who, I don’t know, is investigating the trouble in Little China.  It’s not really explained that well.  All I know is that it was nice to see a young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Kim Cattrall in this movie, long before she became jaded, unapologetically slutty Samantha on Sex in the City.

And yes, the character’s name is “Gracie Law,” because the writers really wanted you to know that she is a lawyer, but “Briefcase McCourtOrder” would have been too obvious.

I had a buddy in elementary school who gave me rave reviews about this movie.  He kept those reviews up long into adulthood, often telling me I needed to check this out.

I checked it out and…hmm…how to explain.

I don’t want to call it the worst movie I’ve ever seen, because it is far from it.  In fact, I can picture a 1980s audience full of big haired, big shoulder padded people being blown away by this film.  It has a lot of heart and there is a definite intent to entertain.  Even some of the cheesier moments of the film can be laughed off by remembering this movie isn’t just an action film, but it’s also an action comedy.

My main criticism is with the overall story, or rather, the film’s storytelling abilities.  Not much of an overall explanation is given about why this magic world of martial arts magic exists.

Instead, Jack, like the viewer, is thrust into the story face first,  He, and you, the viewer, learn bits and pieces of what is happening along the way.  Oddly enough, every Asian person in the film knows everything there is to know about this magical martial arts world, as if it has always been around and only dumb honkies like Jack are oblivious to it.  Even Wang, a restauranteur by trade, displays some off the chain, bad ass kung fu moves, yet there isn’t really any explanation as to why this guy who cooks food by day knows how to fly through the air with a sword at night.

I’m very, very far from politically correct, but I suppose the modern day social justice warriors have brainwashed me into thinking, “Huh.  This film seems to suggest all Asian people are kung fu masters.  That doesn’t seem very woke.”

But then I just tamp down social justice vibe down deep and eat a cookie for fear I’ll become some kind of gluten sucking, fedora wearing hipster.  Boo…hipsters.

Bottomline, it’s a fun romp and there some great scenes.  I just wish a little more work had been done on the story.  Then again, someone wiser than me might say that throwing Jack headfirst into the action and letting him catch up is a great storytelling device all on its own.

After all, how many times in your life has anyone really sat you down and told you everything you ever needed to know about a given situation?  That rarely happens, if ever.  Like Jack, we rush in, put on a brave front full of false machismo, and hold onto our butts, all the while hoping we’ll figure it all out before it’s too late.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  Watch it on Netflix.

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Apr 28 2017
2 Comments
Daily Discussion with BQB

Daily Discussion with BQB – Life…uh…Finds a way

Life…uh…finds a way, 3.5 readers, and it has been reported that Jeff Goldblum has…uh…found a way into the Jurassic World sequel.

Is this a good development?  Bring an original cast member into the project?  Is it silly?  Should the folks behind the new film bring us new characters and not recycle old ones?

Also…does life really…uh…find a way?

Will life…uh…ever find me with more than 3.5 readers?

Discuss, 3.5 readers.

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Apr 28 2017
8 Comments
Movies

BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Escape from New York (1981)

A big ass scoped revolver!  A silenced Uzi!  Kurt Russell in his prime!

BQB here with a review of the 1980s action thriller, Escape from New York.

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I’m surprised I never got around to seeing this one, 3.5 readers.  Made in 1981, it envisions a futuristic 1997, one where crime has risen so dramatically that the entire island of Manhattan has been turned into one giant prison to hold all the riff raff.

While the outskirts of the island are heavily guarded by a security team lead by Warden Hauk (Lee Van Cleef), prisoners on the island are allowed to wander about freely and do whatever they please – killing, maiming, and destroying as much as they want.

Seems like a foolproof plan for ridding America of it’s ne’er-do-wells…until the President’s plane crashes right in the middle of it.

As luck would have it, war hero turned bank robber, the ultra macho, constantly brooding, eye-patch wearing Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is about to be deposited on the island as a prisoner when the shit hits the fan.

Hauk and Snake play let’s make a deal.  If Snake saves the President (Donald Pleasance), he’ll go free.

High stakes, huh?  To double the stakes, the President was on the way to a conference with important information in his possession that could stop a nuclear war from breaking out.  Thus, the world will be screwed if Snake fails.

Moreover, to triple the stakes, a device is implanted in Snake’s neck that will blow his head off if he doesn’t return with the president within twenty-two hours.  No pressure.

It’s Snake to the rescue as he fights all sorts of weirdoes, and even makes some allies along the way.  Ernest Borgnine provides comic relief as Cabbie, a molotov cocktail wielding yellow cab driver.  Harry Dean Stanton stars as Snake’s frenemy (friend/enemy), “Brain” while Adrienne Barbeau is eye candy Maggie, although she has sort of an odd hair style that never really made it out of the 1980s.

What’s a movie without a villain?  That role goes to Isaac Hayes, “the Duke of New York,” who holds the president hostage.  He does his best to be menacing, though whenever he speaks, I have a hard time not thinking of Chef from South Park.

Meanwhile, Van Cleef’s Hauk is sort of a good villain, a man who puts the screws to Snake in order to get him to do something good.

Van Cleef, who passed away in 1989, was mostly known for playing villains, especially the roles he played opposite Clint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

I’ve seen these films, but it took me a minute to recognize him without a cowboy outfit on.

The 1980s is the Golden Age of action cinema.  The special effects were just starting to get good.  Audiences were less turned off by violence.  The country was still getting over Vietnam, so moviegoers were sympathetic to an action hero trapped in a shitty situation by forces bigger than he was.

As a kid, I grew up on a steady diet of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, so I am surprised it took me so long to see this one.  It’s got all the standard action tropes, but for whatever reason, I just don’t recall it being as popular as say, The Terminator, a film that everyone was talking about in those days.

One part that made me sad – the World Trade Center plays a prominent role in the film.  To avoid detection, Snake flies a silent glider into the city and lands it on the roof of one of the towers, with the intention of flying it off the tower later, seeing as how it is the only building tall enough for a glider to take off from.

It made me sad, seeing as how those buildings aren’t there anymore, though I suppose technically, the movie still holds up as they were there in 1997, the year the film is set in.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  There is some cheesiness and the special effects, though not up to modern snuff, were likely the best available at the time.  Also, it was directed by John Carpenter, who gave us the Halloween franchise.  Watch it on Netflix.

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Apr 26 2017
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Movies

Movie Trailer – The Kingsman: Golden Circle

Hey 3.5 readers.

The Kingsman is back.  After a couple years, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is back with Colin Firth and his band of British gentlemen spies.

I’m not entirely sure of the plot.  However, the trailer reveals a plethora of celebrities.  This is usually the case with a film like this.  When the original outperforms expectations, every actor and actress and their cousin wants to be a part of the sequel.

What say you, 3.5 readers?

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Apr 23 2017
3 Comments
TV

TV Review – Mystery Science Theater: The Return (2017)

Lousy old time science fiction movies!  Snarky robots!

BQB here with a review of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return.

Big time nostalgia factor for me here, 3.5 readers.  When the original MST3K film came out in the 1990s, my buddies and I watched it over and over again.  Oh, how we laughed and laughed.  We used to run around quoting lines like, “Science!  Men with screwdrivers!  Twisting things…and turning them!”

Ahh, you had to be sentient in the 1990s to get it.

Hmm…now I think I realize why I ended up as a lowly blog proprietor with only 3.5 readers.

Anyway, if you’ve never checked it out before, now’s your chance.  It’s back, this time with a series on Netflix.  Oh, Netflix.  Is there anything you won’t green light?

The premise is basically the same as the original.  A human is trapped in a space lair of some sort, forced by an evil villain to watch terrible old science-fiction movies for hours on end, supposedly as part of some study of how the brain operates while watching crappy movies.

The majority of the show is devoted to the human, Jonah Ray (Jonah Heston) and robot sidekicks Crow and Tom Servo, watching these horrendous films and busting on them with reckless abandon.  When you watch, you’ll see the film in your screen, with just three little shadows of the hecklers in the lower right hand side.

The movies are awful, old, poorly thrown together, devoid of any kind of decent plot, and usually suffer from a combination of laziness and a lack of special effects technology, because, you know, they were made a long time ago.  Also, they’re often foreign.  At any rate, there’s a strong chance that but for MST3K, you would have never have even heard of any of these films, that’s how bad they are.

The movie is broken up with Jonah and his bot buddies in various segments, doing interesting, wacky things.  Noted Internet nerds Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt star as Kinga Forrester and TV’s Son of TV’s Frank (crazy name), the villains who are keeping Jonah and the bots captive.

The segments are produced with low quality, low budget effects, assumably to mock the films that are being watched, but more likely because the studio didn’t want to shell out the cash.

I can’t quite put my finger on it.  It may be that when I was younger, I had a less discerning sense of humor.  Or maybe the original movie was great and then other versions, i.e. the 1999 show, the web show, or this Netflix show, are just attempts to recreate the glory of one very awesome film.

Maybe the 1990s were just a happier time where people weren’t as jaded and thus they laughed easier.

Maybe the big joke behind the concept was original then, but now it’s sort of played out.

I’ve only watched part of the first episode, Reptilicus, thus far.  In this one, the boys heckle what is essentially the 1960’s Dutch version of Godzilla.  It’s about as 1960s as you can get, complete with male scientists being surprised that women might know anything about science.

Much to my surprise, Erin Gray, aka Kate Summers aka Ricky Schroeder’s step-mom on the 1980s sitcom Silver Spoons, has a cameo.  I know.  I am ashamed of myself for knowing who she was.  Still, for a broad in her late sixties, she looks pretty good.  I would watch shitty movies with her anytime.

Overall, it’s a fun distraction and something to put on when you want to be entertained but don’t want to expend a lot of brain power.  It’s also a fun exercise to see what movies used to be and how far along they have come.

Moreover, it’s a tribute to the olden days, a time when networks would actually try to keep you entertained between commercials.  Local TV stations would often run a movie, then have some kind of weird character introduce it and talk about it between the commercials.  I mean, so I’ve heard.  I’m not that frigging old.

At some point we learned that the movies should not suck of their own accord and that a host shouldn’t have to keep the movie interesting.

STATUS:  It’s fun.  One issue is that the movies are, you know, long movies, so the episodes often run like an hour and a half.  That’s a big time commitment but hey, in true Internet style, if you put it up there, someone will check it out.  3.5 someones in my case.

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Apr 22 2017
4 Comments
Movies

Movie Review – The Promise (2017)

Romance!  War!  Fezes!  So many fezes.

BQB here with a review of The Promise.

In the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, a love triangle forms between Armenian medical student Mikael (Oscar Isaac or “Poe Dameron” as Star Wars fans know him), American journalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale), and French Armenian artist Ana (Charlotte Le Bon).

Both men yearn for Ana’s heart (and cooter) but there’s much more evil doings afoot.  The Ottoman Empire becomes Germany’s ally in World War I.  Now stronger than ever thanks to their German benefactors, the Turkish majority army sets its sights on the country’s Armenian minority.  Armenians are savagely executed, brutalized, rounded up, sent off to forced labor camps and so on.

Although the film is a love story and a war story, it’s much more than any of that.  As far as I know (and perhaps historians/film buffs can prove me wrong), it’s the best, most compelling story of the Armenian Genocide, a horrific chapter in Turkey’s history that should be more well known to the world than it is.

As the film states, the French Navy was able to rescue 4,000 Armenians.  However, a staggering 1.5 million Armenians were killed.  To this day, the Turkish government denies that the Armenian Genocide ever happened.  This sucks, especially since Turkey is a NATO ally.

It’s an Oscar-ish movie, though I doubt it will see any gold statues as it was released too early in the year.  Oscar Isaac gets to shine in a non-comic book/sci-fi movie. Bale is an impressive adventurer/man of the world.  Le Bon puts the filling in my Crepe Suzette and is so beautiful that you almost can’t blame Chris and Mikael for stopping periodically during the war to vie for Ana’s hand (and cooter).

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  A must see and it is a movie that does the world a service by shining a light on a tragic part of history.

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