Back In Full Swing Of Things

It has been a little while... can't blame me, a week on the beach will slow down my movie watching. Plus, before that I had my friends down here and a crazy week and a half of work... So here we go...

12. Parker
I'm not saying Jason Statham makes great movies... but sometimes he can come out with an entertaining action flick. THIS WAS NOT ONE OF THEM!!! So corny! The villains were ridiculous, so horrible. Jennifer Lopez was in this... why JLo in this, I don't know. Not that she's a good actress, but it just felt weird to see her here... must have been hurting for some money since American Idol/divorce from Marc Anthony. This might be Statham's worst flick yet. AVOID!!! F-


11. Why Stop Now?
This is one of two Jesse Eisenberg movies this entry... and both were let downs. Why Stop Now? has piano prodigy Eisenberg trying to get his druggy mom, Melissa Leo,  to rehab on the day of a music school audition. What got my hopes up was that Leo wanted one last high... so they had to go to her dealer, Tracy Morgan. Tracy was disappointing, and I don't think it was his fault. The writer seemed like he couldn't pick if he wanted to write a comedy or drama... it couldn't decide. So a lot of the humor Tracy would have had was lost somewhere. Eisenberg plays they same narcotic-cocky-Woody-Allen-wannabe... just like 90% of his movies. C-




10. After Earth
Bored one afternoon... nothing at home... lets go see Will and son. Most people know about this one, so I'm not really going into detail. This movie for me was "it is what it is". Going into it, I wasn't expecting much and I ended up not getting much. For M. Night, this was a win/loss I think. Win: it wasn't nearly as bad as The Last Airbender or Devil, and Loss: was his 3rd to last worst movie. PS... if you saw this, could someone explain to me Will Smith's accent?! PPS... hopefully this is Jaden's last movie.


9-tie. Bronson
I'm not on the Tom Hardy train like everyone else seems to be. I think I might get some slack from some people for not loving this one. It seems like this movie has a "cult classic" (at least in Austin for some reason), which built up my expectations. But it was a let down for the most part. It was weird and interesting at times, but I can't forgive Hardy for making Bane a pompous-British-sounding-Darth-Vader. Also I could care less for who this movie is based on, "professional prisoner" Michael Peterson (who changed his name to Charles Bronson). I watched it because people suggested it... but if you love Hardy, you might like it. C

9-tie. Now You See Me

Movie two with Eisenberg this week... this one made me really not like him. Magic movies aren't that impressive when they try to be "awesome" with the tricks... with editing, it just seems stupid. Especially with this, they used a lot of CGI which makes the idea of these illusions even worse. Give me some good old illusions on live TV... I know it's fake, but it's more enjoyable to me. Another thing that really annoyed me was the "fight scene" with mini-Franco. Just because you do magic has nothing to do with your fighting skills... that whole scene got me so angry. It was like he had mutant powers. Very annoying. At least the French girl from Inglorious Bastards was easy on the eyes. By the end, I could care less about the twist and turns. C, could almost be a C-.




7. Freeloaders
Saw a preview for this on some straight-to-dvd movie. It looked mildly entertaining, but it had Nat Faxon in it. I tend to laugh when he is on screen... basically in anything. Turned out this wasn't as funny as I hoped, but it was still a bit fun. Probably wouldn't recommend this one to most people, they might get bored w/ it. But if you're game, might as well. Had a unlikely music artist role/cameo that was surprising. C+




                                                                         6. The Hangover: Part III
Well, at least it wasn't Hangover 2. Ok, so to be fair, it was good... for a random comedy. But comparing it to the first, it sucked. They did a lot better job with pretty much all aspects of the movie versus part 2... especially with Galifianakis. He still had predictable jokes, but not as bad as 2 (are you picking up on the theme... not as bad as 2). I was a bit surprised that it didn't have that Hangover situation... the events just started to happen. This shouldn't have been a part 3 as much as a Mr. Chow spinoff movie. The "celeb" cameo was pretty great (did you know the tattoo artist in 2 was originally supposed to be Mel Gibson, but someone got pissy on set about having him there. So they go that nobody for it). Now that the trilogy is over, I can go back and watch the first and enjoy it again knowing there won't be anymore sequels to ruin it. B-

5. Seven Psychopaths
This is the 4th movie with Christopher Walken I have watched in the last few months. Everyone talks how crazy amazing he is... or is it amazing crazy? Either way, they are both right. You can't help but love when he is on screen, whether he is a fallen angel in The Prophecy (worst of the 4 I've seen), a world renowned cellist, a dog thief (in this movie), or a retired gangster (see the #1 movie of this entry). Plus you have Sam Rockwell, who is my favorite underrated actor. Plus again, you have a fun-crazy-weird movie. Drawback... I'm not much of a Colin Farrell fan. Nothing really in particular that I dislike, just not a fan. 100% worth watching, especially any Walken or Rockwell fans... the last Walken scene is worth it (you know what I mean if you saw it).




4. For A Good Time, Call...
Call me crazy, but I actually thought this was really funny. Feel free to judge. Going to leave it at that... no I"m not. New crush = Ari Graynor. And Justin Long was hilarious for such a small role. There... now I will leave it at that.
B

3. The Internship
I'm keeping this one simple: This is exactly what I expected...

Fun. Funny. Not as good as Wedding Crashers (Me = Okay with that). If you go to see it, don't think it's a Wedding Crashers 2. B









1-tie. Stand Up Guys
Here's the 4th Walken film. Compared to the other 3, it might be tied with A Late Quartet... but they are two totally different movies, so it's hard to compare. Stand Up Guys find Al Pacino getting out of jail after 30'ish years. His old friend and fellow gangster Walken picks him up and takes him out for his first night out of jail celebration. Alan Arkin comes into the mix half way through the movie and is funny like always... half thought he was going to say "ArgoFuckyourself". The last few movies with Pacino have disappointed me (remember Jack & Jill?!), but I really enjoyed him in this one. It actually had some heartfelt moments that I didn't expect. Go support Family Video and rent this one... I may even buy this one for the collection. A-/B+ 

1-tie. Man Of Steel... some mild spoilers

Ok, so maybe #1 might be giving this one too much credit. But it's the first Superman movie that got it right... or at least as close to right as possible. For that, I'll give it a tie for the first spot.

The basics: The fight scenes were what you would hope for. Well, maybe a little less destruction would have been better. I did not like everything about this movie though... the big thing, Amy Adams. She is a good actress, but she's no Louis Lane. The Christopher Nolan'isms were there, but I'm glad he didn't completely commandeer the movie from Zach Snyder. I know Sucker Punch and Watchmen were disappointments, per the masses, but visually I think he's a genius... Look at 300 and argue that fact. Well don't, because I just won't agree with you in the end, so what's the point? Michael Shannon, better than I thought. Russell Crowe, great... more involved than I (or anyone) thought. Is this the official return of Kevin Costner?! I welcome him back. Detective Stabler, small role but good. The female villain... hubba hubba. Diane Lane... even as old Ma Kent, I'll always have a thing for her. Overall, made me miss regular Smallville watching.

Definitely suggest seeing this one in the theater. If you wait to rent it, you better watch it on a huge TV with surround sound... it's one of those movies. This year, we'll have Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, Thor 2, and The Wolverine (as the "big comic book movies")... it's hard to say where this one will fall.
B

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Next week: World War Z. Zombies that run. WTF?