IHAO on ... Galavant season 1

ABC has been doing a pretty cool thing.  You see, television is changing as a medium to broadcast entertainment.  With Netflix and the increase in DVD sales, but mostly Netflix, television channels need to produce content not only more often, but more efficiently to keep the audience tuning in.  But there has been no way to improve the actual amount of time it takes to make an episode of a television show: roughly 7 days for a complicated 30 minute show and 9 or 10 days for an hour-long show.  Yeah, look at those numbers.  Simple math let's you know that they have to start airing things before they are done filming an entire season.  On top of that, human decency means that there are times when those actors, grips, props guys, producers and the like all get time off, like Christmas.  Add in scheduling conflicts and random accidents, making a television show becomes a much larger endeavor.

So, like I said, ABC has been doing a pretty cool thing.  They have been creating short-run shows, with smaller episode orders, to fill in the gaps of broadcasting when their regular shows have to take the breaks in broadcasting that are inevitable.  Agent Carter is the post-WW2 super-spy Marvel show that filled the gap of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  But considering I just cannot get into Agents of SHIELD, I also didn't really give Agent Carter much of a thought.  But I have heard good things.  Wait, I'm getting off track.

So, as I've said a few times before, ABC has been doing that pretty cool thing.  And even cooler, their big show Once Upon a Time had to take a break, so they brought together a super talented group of people to make a short 8-episode musical comedy miniseries show, Galavant!  Hit the music!

See what I did there?

Galavant is a musical, made by everyone involved that made Disney's Tangled, except it is a tongue-in-cheek live action comedy.  It is ... pretty good.  Good enough that I wanted to talk about it with all of you folks.  The characters are all interesting, the performances are all fun, the sets are amazing, the costuming mostly great, and the story is classic.  It is one of my favorite things to talk about, actually, when it comes to how "silliness" affects narrative.  There are a few ways to do it.  There's to have a silly premise and then treat everything as seriously as you can, despite the silly, which I have really loved in One Piece.  Then there's having a serious premise, which then some silly things can happen but you stay true to your goals, which is how I like to run roleplaying games.  Then there's Galavant, which takes the piss right on the whole binary concept I just made up and goes straight down the middle.  The characters are all thought out and serious, except thy are ridiculous and silly.  The plot is a great fantasy plot, except some of the details are just ridiculous.  The musical nature of the show leads to comedic songs all the way through and meta-jokes, like asking when someone learned how to dance after a number, but then there's other moments of just straight drama.

Galavant is not going to be for everyone, mostly because it doesn't do one things straight through.  It enjoys every element it can have.  Serious songs, silly songs, important character beats, ridiculous ones, they are all mixed in.  And with that mixed bag, I would absolutely call Galavant a mixed bag.  I enjoyed quite a bit of it, and then I found myself going "meh" for bits of it.  Especially some of the songs, as they tend to always shoot for joke songs, and I really would like there to be a non-joke song every once in awhile so that I could just hear these good actors sing.

So why should you be excited for it?  Because it is a cool new way of thinking about television!  It is higher quality programming with a smaller episode order that is used as a win-win between bigger shows, but in fact is way better than the bigger show that surrounds it.  Once Upon a Time looks fake and CGI-y all the time, and the acting is so ponderous and heavy that it gets bogged down.  Galavant is able to do most of the same tropes, with better sets and costumes AND actors, with an amazing team, but it is a quarter of the length, so you can enjoy it and be done with it.  On top of that, the season finale absolutely shows that ABC is planning to give its audience even more, which is only a good thing in my book.

I would say give it a shot.  At 30 minutes and episode, and only 8 episodes, even if you don't care for a small part of it, it'll be over quickly, and you can move on to great other things.  Me, I'm excited.  Rutger Hauer, Vinnie Jones, that guy from Frankenstein's Army, two hot chicks, Magnitude, and the only good thing from Psych, all working together to make something with the guys who made Tangled, the last Disney musical.

Grade:B+

IHAO on ... Troop Beverly Hills - READER REQUEST

requested by Paul Conroy

For a long time this has sat on my pile of films to watch.  Luckily I waited long enough, because it popped up on Netflix December 1st, and I've finally found myself time to review it!

Before it started, I had a few expectations of Shelley Long.  I had seen her previous in only two places: Cheers and a made for TV ABC special version of Freaky Friday.  I loved Freaky Friday and I hated Cheers.  When watching Frasier, the episode with Shelley Long in that was a Cheers parody came up and I was shocked by how much I enjoyed it, and her.  And I realized that I had been placing blame of a character and writing style that I didn't like on the actress.  So I started this film with a fresh mind, especially considering how many times the requester told me how much he loved the movie, and he and I have some pretty common ground when it comes to film comedies we think are funny.  But is this movie funny?

Absolutely.  Absolutely is it funny.  I want to sit down and do a double feature with it and Major Payne some day, because both movies are similar in plot: major character is odd and going through personal things while having to help a bunch of kids who all have their own problems and issues, and together they all help everyone while also stopping the evil bad guys.  Troop Beverly Hills' plot and characters are for the most part less nuanced than Major Payne, which is one of my few true criticisms of the film, but it makes up for it by being exceptionally clever.  I have never laughed so hard at the opening of a jar of mayonnaise, and it is all in Shelley Long and Craig T. Nelson's acting and comedy chops without an ounce of dialogue.

I wanted to put the mayonnaise joke here in gif form, but I couldn't make it.  So I put this instead.  No reason.

The acting all around in this film is fantastic.  The script is mostly really great, though the villain is so cartoonishly villainous after seeing such interesting nuanced characters in the Neflers.  The real drawback is that the film has some crazy editing and direction in places, and some very on the nose music choices.  Every now and again a scene will cut to the new scene the second a line ends, which is crazy abrupt and the lines always felt like Phyllis had more to say.  Then there are emotional insert scenes that, while good, are shot as if they were a completely different movie, like the scene where the "spy" played by Mary Gross throws away her spy equipment, triumphantly ignoring the villain's wishes.

The movie is really fun and endearing, with some cliches that make it a little harder to swallow, but think of those cliches and bad bits of filmmaking as just a gel-cap that dissolves away making you in the end just feel better.  The movie doesn't break any new ground, but watching Shelley Long and Craig T. Nelson and all the girls do such a great job acting is really worth price of admission.

Grade: B+

Tomorrow will be the set up for the rules of the IHAO Dirty Santa game, with the next day being pictures and thoughts about the whole game!  I hope you are all excited, because I put a stupid amount of work into this that is almost entirely unnecessary.  Buh-bye!

Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Christmas Movies (in my collection)

Holiday times are upon us!  As I run around shopping for presents and planning parties and getting ready for Christmas wrestling this weekend, I find I am running out of time to just sit and watch films, even less to head to the movie theatre.  So I though I'd look about my collection, and the holiday spirit hit me!  I have so many wonderful things I own and want to watch in time for Christmas, and I know I won't have enough time!  So I decided I'll go ahead and just do an Arbitrary Numbers so I can talk about as many as I can as soon as I could so that you all can try to find them and add them to your shopping carts and get them just in time for the Holidays!  So let's begin this special Christmas task!

The Top 7 Christmas Movies 

(in my collection)

((that I feel like talking about))

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I really love Rankin and Bass cartoons.  Their claymation stuff gets a lot of attention, but their cartoons are especially ... special for me.  The Hobbit, the Last Unicorn, these were for me the first forays into my favorite genre, just as I was reading the Hobbit and the Belgariad and the Dragonlance books.  The Rankin and Bass Christmas stuff is probably even more well known, but I want to talk about my favorite one, which like I said, is animated.

Twas the Night Before Christmas is a fun musical addition to the poem, talking about a clockmaker trying to help the town but everything gets screwed up because of the mice in his house, who are anthropomorphic (big plus for my viewing as a kid).  The entire special, which is not long, ends with the poem itself.  I love this little thing, and am so happy to have it in my collection.  It isn't perfect, it's short, and the animation is probably too off-putting or "ugly" for some I suspect.  But like I said, I love it.

Grade: B++

It is very sad to know that Arthur Rankin Jr. had passed away this January.  I didn't even hear about it until recently.  Thank you very much for this little special, and so many others that touched my heart, as well as basically everyone else's.  RIP.

Ernest Saves Christmas

I talked about this in my machine gun style review RIGHT HERE.  Go check that out, because this is great.

Grade: B++

Mickey's Christmas Carol and The Muppet Christmas Carol

I bunched these two together because they are my favorite Christmas Carols on film!  These are filled with music and characters and wonder.  But they also do not miss the tone of the book, the ghost story and morality story.  You see Mickey cry for goodness sakes!  I love them both and watch them both every year.

I should also point out that I have the blu-ray of Mickey's and the DVD of Muppet.  Why?  Well the new blu-ray of Mickey's has a bunch of other winter and Christmas specials that make the whole thing a wonderful collection piece to own, only missing one Donald Duck short I remember from my childhood that I wish I had, which is hardly a knock for all the other things it adds.  But why didn't I upgrade Muppet Christmas Carol?  Because the blu-ray is missing a song!  A beautiful song sung by Michael Caine and Scrooge's lost love.  It is amazing and heartwrenching and beautiful and necessary in my eyes for the story.  You see, it isn't in widescreen, so the blu-ray just didn't include it.  But it is in fullscreen, which I can watch with an option on my DVD.  So there you go!  I'm sure you were all curious.

Grade: A+++ for both

Rare Exports

Wanna watch a weird quirky adventure film about Christmas and demons and hunting and little boys and Norway?  Rare Exports is a beautiful film.  It is a touching film.  And it is an exciting film!  Most people talk about Die Hard when they need a Christmas action movie, or Gremlins for a Christmas fun comedy horror.  But both of those films are really only kind of Christmas-y.  Rare Exports hits all the buttons those two films do, but it is all so much more about Christmas.  Rare Exports should not replace either, but it should sit beside them!

Included on the blu-ray are the two original shorts that brought the full film into being.  Both shorts are great, with the second being my absolute favorite, and are both a little more tongue-in-cheek and crazy.  As an entire package, it has become a yearly tradition, and I love sharing it with people.  So I'm sharing it with you.  See it!  Find it!  Do it!!

Grade: A++

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

I feel like I talk about this special all the time.  There are actually two versions of the Sesame Street special for Christmas that came out at the same time.  THIS one is perfect.  The other one is garbage.  This one is about a sweet story of Big Bird worried that Santa can't fit down the chimneys, it is filled with wonder, it is filled with amazing music and great jokes, it has Bert and Ernie being ridiculous and doing the Gift of the Magi, it has Oscar singing a song about hating Christmas, it has the most amazing pratt fall sequence just ... at ALL.  *sigh*

I love this little special.  Even better, it is on DVD, and I'm pretty sure it can be found at Best Buys just around.  So take a look!  You will not regret it.

Grade: A++

Now, I could talk about a lot more movies and specials I own that mean something to me and I love watching, like Jingle all the Way or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or Reindeer Games, which are all great and different for a bunch of reasons.  And who knows, I may just write reviews for them anyway later on this month.  But I really want to talk about a cool documentary I bought for my wife as a gift instead to close this little article out ...

I am Santa Claus

In this documentary, we follow five men, all "real beard Santas."  We see their life struggles, their regular world life, and we even get to see one man's quest to be a good Santa.  That man is Mick Foley, Hardcore Legend.  This documentary is not for families.  It is very adult.  And it is very touching.  

We watch four men, all vastly different, talk about what it means to be Santa Claus to them, all of them from different parts of the country, all from different walks of life, and all of them real people.  This isn't a "happy endings" kind of documentary.  This followed all of these guys for one year and cuts between and juxtaposes them as the film goes along.  You are allowed into their lives and get to see their hardships, their delights, just ... life.  It was a great documentary, and really touching as well as sad and poignant.  I cannot recommend it enough, and I am NOT a documentary person.

Grade: A+

There we go!  Now, I gotta go wrap more presents and other stuff.  Oh, did I tell you, I'm hosting a Dirty Santa party?  Do you wanna know what that is?  Well you are in luck, because I will be explaining it entirely and showing pictures of our game and party in ONE WEEK, on the 18th, which is one week before Christmas!  See ya then for that!  Also look forward to lots more Christmas reviews, wrestling reviews this Friday and on Monday, and a lot of great End of Year reviews!  Buh-bye!

IHAO on ... Penguins of Madagascar

Dreamworks animation has never really done it for me.  Either it is trying to hard to have cute slick Pixar-style characters but they never move correctly, like Shark Tale or the Madagascar films, or they have slightly weird off-putting characters but the motion and visuals created are perfect, like the Croods.  Penguins is much like any of the other Dreamworks films, in that the characters are sometimes cute, sometimes ugly, sometimes move really well and sometimes move really weird.  But to combat all of that, they wrote a script that works with the cute/ugly stuff and the cartoony movements versus the more Disney-styled real movement of the penguins.  It is a weird bag.  A good, weird bag.

What's the story?  You learn the origins of the Penguin characters from the Madagascar films, then you skyrocket (not joke) into the story as they do a heist, are captured by an evil Grinch-mouthed John Malkovich-ian octopus that has some kind of large evil plan for the penguins.  Then they meet with the North Wind, another spy agency except they are a real one!  Personalities clash, plots are schemed, morals are learned, action is had!

This movie would be perfect if Terry Crews was in it.  As a human.  Non-CGI.  

Terry Crews is perfect and I wanted an excuse to use this happy dance gif, is what I'm saying.

This film is very pulpy and cartoony, which is fun.  I love a good pulp adventure and I like my spy stuff to be treated more fun and silly, cutting some of the talky talk mumbo jumbo politics stuff and getting to the James Bond action and such.  The characters of the Penguins are completely realized, full fledged characters, as should be expected from their 4th film and a television show under their belt.  Malkovich is funny and over the top, which are two things I never thought I'd say about him.  The actual morals of the film are kind of standard kids faire ... but they are done in a very interesting, subversive way to begin with and then it becomes a literal plot point instead of a symbolic one for our heroes to deal with.  The plot twists and turns and has great fun.

I feel like I need to say something negative about this movie.  I feel like it doesn't quite stack up ... but it totally does stack up in every way.  Hilarious lines and jokes, great emotions, a clever plot, great morals, Penguins is a really good movie.  Check it out.

Grade: A+

IHAO on ... a bunch of movies!! - 26 Reviews

Hello everyone! 

Time is an enemy to everyone who is trying to do anything important.  Or at least time-sensitive.   I love being able to write reviews for everyone about everything, current, old, wrestling, television, just on everything, as well as writing all the sillier or more intricate reviews, like the Arbitrary Numbers and the Fantasy Bookings.  But that leaves very little time for me to be able to actually cover everything.  I can’t put out two reviews a day, because that is too much to ask you folks to read.  And I only put out 5 a week, but every week there is probably on average one new film or wrestling event to writing about, and that takes a slot.  Then there are weeks with many films, like I’ve had recently and will be moving into with Oscar season continuing.

So I came up with an idea.  I asked my facebook to give me a list of movies that they did not think I had seen.  I absorb entertainment and media like a sponge, and have watched a LOT of movies.  This way I can give shorter reviews on a bunch of things people might not think I’ve seen, as well as have a fun bank of things to come back to when I need inspiration.  In the nice long list of films, I probably saw a fifth of them, which is a great number.  So I’m going to review all 26 of the movies that were suggested that I have seen.  This will be a rapid fire barrage of reviews.  Let’s get going!

 Dinosaurs! – Nicole Clockel
An edu-tainment Claymation-y fun short about dinosaur life.  I remember specifically sitting with my best friend at the time, Karl, when we were 7 or 8 at his house, and between playing TMNT SNES games or with figures or running around outside, we watched this little video.  I’ve seen it since then as well, but it is a silly thing to talk about.  It is purposefully silly, and all kinds of weird, but really enjoyable.  It is on youtube, and I’ll linky it here.  I definitely think it is worth your time, because of nostalgia for some of you and just for fun in general.  It isn’t great by any means, but it is fun.
Grade: C+



Rat Race – Lenton Lees 
The semi-rebooting, more “another version” of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Rat Race features an incredible cast, and is a big ole chase/race comedy.  It is hilarious, has some heart, and some awesome music.  It is probably one of the best comedies to introduce people to a bunch of great comedians all at once, including Mr. Bean, Seth Green, Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese, Breckin Mayer, Amy Smart, and Jon Lovitz.  Really enjoyable, though it doesn’t quite shoot that extra mile.  It sits in a nice comfortable zone that most good comedies do, where it is real good, but the actual film never tries to be any greater than that.  Highly recommend.
Grade: B++

The Longest Yard – Lenton Lees
Wrestlers!  Sandler the last time he was funny!  Except there’s sequences of it totally not being funny, too, because Sandler has to always ALWAYS write his characters as having enormous penises or getting the hottest women in the world.  But that’s fine, because that has very little actual impact on the movie.  This is probably one of my favorite sports films I’ve seen.  It actually goes that extra mile in film quality and technique, as well as just having incredible actors in Burt Reynolds, William Fichtner, Terry Crews, and a slew of awesome wrestler … not “cameos” as everyone’s screentime and character weight is larger than that.  It is an incredibly fun sports movie with a moving story, it is really funny, and even though it blatantly steals an entire scene from the British remake of the Longest Yard, Mean Machine, it is still a really fun movie that is also really good.  Probably my favorite Sandler film, and easily the one I think that is his best film.
Grade: A++

Ernest Saves Christmas – Lenton Lees
Here’s the thing about Ernest: you either love Jim Varney’s shenanigans, or you just don’t get it or see a point.  I personally find Ernest endearing.  In fact, this is the first Ernest film I saw, which is good, because it is also easily his highest budgeted, best looking, best acted, best directed, BEST Ernest film.  It tells a great story, has fun comedy, and is a Christmas classic in the Jessel household.  On top of that, I do believe it has my absolute favorite Santa Claus in film, played by the same dude who is the Sultan and Jasmine’s father in Aladdin!  He is perfect as Santa, and adds some amazing gravitas to what could have just been a frivolous and silly kids movie.  It isn’t one of the best movies ever made, and the effects are absolutely dated, but it is a wonderful movie.
Grade: B++

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut – Lenton Lees
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have made all of two things I like: South Park and Book of Mormon.  I do not like BASEketball, I don’t like Cannibal: the Musical, I don’t like Orgazmo.  But this movie is excellent.  It is an amazingly well made musical parody of just about every single style of musical, from Les Mis to Disney to Sound of Music.  The story itself has a purpose to exist as a film because it is about censorship, parental choices, and really nice satire of the “crusade” against cursing.  I really think this movie does everything right.  And its unique animation style makes it in a sense timeless, which is great!  Great movie.
Grade: A+

Much Ado About Nothing (Whedon version) – Lenton Lees
Not every movie that is a good movie I like.  Wes Anderson movies prove that.  As does this one.  One of the best things about Shakespeare is that every adaptation is 100% the director’s intention.  And some of Joss’ choices are awesome.  And some are not.  I think Whedon was able to really elevate the parts of Claudio and Don Pedro fantastically, making both parts have a lot more weight and interest than most versions of the show.  He also made some very good comedic choices early in the film.  But very quickly, the comedy of this comedy goes away.  And that’s … just … wrong.  Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy, pure and simple.  And Whedon treated it as a drama.  And that is a disservice to a lot of the characters, a lot of the language, and a lot of other choices.  Dogberry wasn’t particularly funny, even though he’s written to be.  Don Jon isn’t very menacing because everything is treated so seriously so he isn’t a foil.  Benedict and Beatrice don’t have a banter-filled romance because the banter is more catty and snide than humorous and joyful.  There are some bits I really enjoyed, generally whenever he had the actors get more physical, because otherwise they just pontificate into the wind at each other.  In the end, Whedon focused on the “Much Ado” while forgetting the point that it is all about “Nothing.”
Grade: B-

Oversexed Rugsuckers From Mars! – Jason Abraham
I’ve been saving this one for a Nanarsday review, but I’m MORE than happy to talk about this HORRIBLE MOVIE now!  It is a gloriously terrible movie about a man who has sex with an alien vacuum cleaner, and it becomes a rapist and rapes a woman, who gives birth to a human-vacuum hybrid baby.  It is gross, and hilarious, and terrible.  One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen and I LOVE IT!  I found it randomly years ago, and it is a pride of my collection of films because of its ridiculous-ness.  Really, if anyone ever wanted to watch it, FIND ME and we’ll watch it that second.
Grade: F+

Chasing Amy – Jason Abraham
I have a love/hate relationship with Kevin Smith.  I either love his films and buy into them completely, or hate them and find them worthless.  Chasing Amy falls in the worthless category.  The script is preachy, the situation is so narrow that no one can relate to it, making the characters unlikable and just complainers.  Smith doesn’t direct Affleck very well here, which is crazy considering how great Affleck is in other Smith films.  It just … I just hate this movie.  Give me Dogma, Mallrats, or Clerks II any day.
Grade: C--


Dawn of the Dead; Day of the Dead; Land of the Dead – Tony Daniel
I love this little bit.  I may have never seen Night of the Living Dead, but I have absolutely seen and own all of the Romero trilogy of Dead films.  Comes with being married to a zombie lover.  Let’s touch on all of these:

Dawn of the Dead – This film is perfect.  Acting, tension, shots, characters, story, everything.  This may just be my favorite zombie movie, period.  I was blown away because what I THOUGHT this movie was and what it actually is are two VERY different things.  The effects are real old and not very good looking, but I like to see them like a time capsule of effects, and completely buy into them.  I say it all the time, but dated-ness is not a real negative, and these may not be the best effects, but they are great effects for what they are.  I cannot recommend this film more highly.  Grade: A++

Day of the Dead – I thought this would be my favorite, and I do really like it.  It is much more of what I thought it would be.  And it easily has one of the best villains a zombie film has ever had in it.  It also explores the zombie mythos more, which is very cool, and Romero continues to push the envelope with his characters.  It has better effects and is really interesting … but just not as good as Dawn.  I don’t know if I can put my finger really on why, but I think it is something to do with our protagonist, who while being interesting just isn’t as good of an actress, and the pacing of the film itself is a little off, leading to some boring stretches.  But the effects, and the other characters, are all well worth price of admission here.  Grade: B+

Land of the Dead – So Dawn of the Dead got a remake, and Romero was all “I can make a ‘modern’ zombie film better than that.”  So he continued the story of his world of zombies.  And man, I love it.  It isn’t as good as the last few, but it has some GREAT characters, some awesome world building, and while the plot is less interesting, the overall effect leaves me very happy.  I love this movie, even if it began the decline in quality of Romero’s writing.  Grade: B++

The Man Who Knew Too Little – Beth Lyons
This comedy was actually suggested to me by Beth probably a year or so ago, so I bought it, and I watched it.  I wish I had been writing reviews then, because then I wouldn’t have to think about this movie again.  Oh, yeah, that should make it obvious, I don’t like the movie.  I don’t think it is bad, I just didn’t find most of its comedy very good.  The entire idea is fine, and some of the scenes are fine, but the whole product just leaves me cold, as our protagonist has to be continually stupider and stupider to allow the very thin premise of “believes all the spy stuff is fake, accidentally gets caught in real spy stuff” to continue.  The climax of the film is just long and tedious with the whole Russian dance sequence and the bomb and … ugh.  I just did not care for the film, and really do not think it is very good, and mostly forgettable.
Grade: C--

The Bank Job – Jason Schmidt
Good ole Jason Statham.  Action star, good actor, British.  Ok, so Bank Job isn’t a GREAT movie.  It’s a real good one, though.  Based on a real heist, with some good actors and some great camera work, the film works.  I’ve seen a lot less memorable Statham films, though this one only barely jumps above that pack.  It isn’t great, but it is fun.  And if you are a history person or a heist person, this one may do even more for you.  For me, it was just a good movie.
Grade: B

Jackie Brown – Jason Schmidt
Jackie Brown is a neat little movie.  That actually sounds more belittling than I mean it to.  It has a slow first act, but not a BAD first act, just a slow one, that builds really well to an amazingly well made finish.  Lots of great actors all throughout the film, including the wonderful Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson playing the character that we all actually attribute to him in the modern zeitgeist, and Robert De Niro who may have … 8 lines in the whole movie?  But it is still one of his best roles.  I really like this movie.  It isn’t the easiest sit because of that long first act that really needed an editor, and Robert Foster is good but doesn’t quite keep me as interested for those long sections as Tarantino has found Christoph Waltz can.  But it is still a very good, very ambitious movie.
Grade: B+

State and Main – Jason Schmidt
David Mamet is a playwright, director, and a screenwriter and director.  He is known for things like Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo, but he’s done a lot of other stuff.  State and Main is one of those other stuffs.  It … isn’t particularly good.  There are bits and pieces I really like in there, but there is also some stunt casting that does nothing for me and some of the comedy beats come across VERY Mamet, in that every character rushes through their dialogue as fast as they can.  The actual movie is about the filming of a movie in a little town because they like a stained glass window, and all the turmoil it causes everyone.  I don’t really think it is worth a watch, but for some people, all that fast-talking is actually a turn-on.  If you are a Aaron Sorkin fan, this may just be up your alley.
Grade: C-

Devil’s Advocate – Jason Schmidt
I love talking about good Keanu Reeves films.  Mostly because I think he is an underrated actor.  As an actor myself, I can see the actual “craft” in what he is doing, and I get why for some he doesn’t come across like he acts.  He is very stoic faced a lot of the time, and his voice is generally calm no matter the emotion.  But what Keanu does really well is expression of emotion through his eyes and his body.  There are very few actors who can pull of supreme confidence just by standing there saying nothing like Keanu can.  And there are very few that can show the deterioration of a soul like Keanu can, that slow wearing down that was necessary for this film.  Devil’s Advocate is a GREAT movie.  It is a morality play in a time period when morality was pretty gauche to begin with.  Al Pacino is fantastic in the movie as well.  It is a great film.  One I used to own, and I need to buy again.  I recommend.
Grade: A+

Man on the Moon – Jason Schmidt
The biopic on Andy Kaufman, made by dear friends of Andy Kaufman, paying homage to the man, played by the only person anyone that knew Kaufman thought could play him.  This is a great biopic.  It has great music.  It has great acting.  It has a compelling, albeit very movie-fied as admitted by the prologue of the film, story of the real life of this enigmatic actor.  I own the soundtrack.  I own the film.  I love both.  It is a shame that Jim Carrey did not get the Oscar for this performance, but of course he should have since 1999 was the year of terrible Oscar decisions and Shakespeare in Love sweeping through almost everything.  Man on the Moon was called by some the best picture of 1999, and others just didn’t get it.  Which is kind of perfect when it comes to talking about Andy Kaufman.  I highly recommend to anyone that loves comedy and the history of comedy.
Grade: A++

Mars Attacks! – Jason Schmidt
My dad took me to see this movie.  My mom didn’t like that he did.  It is a weird, silly, off-putting, crazy kind of film.  Definitely not for everyone.  It is absolutely unique, and everything I want from a Tim Burton film.  It also holds the honor of being the only live-action film based on a trading card series, which is a mindboggling piece of information by itself.  A tongue-in-cheek homage to 50s sci-fi horror films, and filled with just … craziness.  Man, I just … this is a weird movie kids.  Too weird to be good, too weird to be bad, it is its own brand of quality.
Grade: W (for weird … I actually give it a C)

The Departed – Jason Schmidt
Hey, wanna know a great movie?  The Departed.  Done.  Go watch a great movie.  What you need more?  How about its pedigree of actors and directors and cinematographers?  I’ll wait while you imdb it.  I know right?  How about the incredible filmmaking just in general?  Or the tight script?  Or the intriguing characters?  Or the amazing conceit?  Or the original that is ALSO good, but this remakes for western audiences in an old school mafia way that transcends the original?  This movie is great.  Period.  Watch it.
Grade: A+

Black Swan – Jason Schmidt
Darren Aronofsky is so so good.  And Black Swan is amazing.  Tense, thrilling, psychological, amazing acting from Natalie Portman (got an Oscar for it, well deserved), this movie is phenomenal.  The music is of course going to be great because it is Swan Lake.  But really, this movie is amazing.  It should have gotten at least a cinematography and a best director nod.  It got neither.  These kind of psychological thinky thrillers tend to not do well in the Oscars.  Aronofsky deserves awards.  And this film is one of his best, written as if tailored to his style specifically even though it wasn’t.  Watch this very very intense film some time.
Grade: A++

Waterworld – Jason Schmidt
Waterworld is one of the biggest financial flops in history.  Doesn’t make it a bad movie, though.  It makes it a great punchline, but as a fantasy movie, it is actually all kinds of AWESOME.  The setting is all practical and all amazing.  The acting is great from Dennis Hopper and even Kevin Costner.  The script is a great story filled with little nods and secrets to the what happened in the world.  The action is awesome.  I love the movie, and really don’t understand why others don’t.  Maybe because they only know the joke and never actually watched the thing.  Give it a chance.
Grade: A++

12 Monkeys – Jason Schmidt
Time travel movies are difficult, and sometimes their plots just don’t quite add up.  Other times they are too simple.  12 Monkeys is both.  Confusing and simple.  I don’t think it is a bad movie, it has some real interesting parts to it and some good acting.  But I ultimately found it boring.
Grade: B-

Four Rooms – Jason Schmidt
Four very different vignettes from four pretty different directors all based around rooms in a hotel.  Uh … I guess I’ll say this: Tim Roth is great.  Each individual sequence is so incredibly different I’ll just grade each one.
Part 1: D
Part 2: C-
Part 3: A+
Part 4: B+
So when I watch it, I just skip to the middle.  Yup.

Deathproof – Jason Schmidt
Man, I do not know how to talk about this one ... ok, lemme list the things that are good. The direction is fantastic. The movie looks and FEELS good, from a filmmaking and thematic standpoint. Kurt Russel is AMAZING as Stuntman Mike. The action and car sequences are really amazing and frenetic. A lot of the things that I love from Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained are here and this is the prototype for him directing like that. This movie is a bridge from his old style (which I generally don't care for) and his new style. There is a lot to like. But this movie SERIOUSLY needed an editor. A stronger edit would have helped this movie incredibly. And another sequence of Stuntman Mike doing what he does would have been perfect. Trim down all the standard Tarantino talky talk that didn't really do very much and give us another Stuntman Mike sequence. Tarantino learned to trim himself for Basterds and Django, making much stronger, engaging films. And that's the problem, I suppose. I really wanted to be engaged the whole time, and was really only engaged when Kurt Russel was onscreen and for the basics of the chicks. The genre subversion at the end was interesting, but for me, abrupt, and right at the end, I actually found myself rooting for Stuntman Mike because I knew more about him and understood him better, and he had less dialog than the chicks that I was supposed to be rooting for. Showing, not telling, made him a stronger, more engaging character. And they just left Mary Elizabeth Winestead with the crazy redneck! What the heck!? This movie is hard to grade. I can see myself wanting to watch it again, and I LOVED everything with Kurt Russel, but I dunno if I wanna slog through the rest.Grade: B-

High Fidelity – Jason Schmidt
One of the first “serious” comedies I’ve ever seen, it made a huge impact on me.  I am a collector and sponge for media much like John Cusack is in the film, though my own life and his represented in the film has nothing in common, and I don’t actually relate to him, but that doesn’t actually matter.  He resonates.  And his relationship struggles opened my eyes.  The film is unique, which is a huge plus.  It is a really well written and well acted film, so that’s real cool.  Honestly, though, it just didn’t stick with me like I thought it would, and I don’t care to see it again.  I don’t hate it.  I just don’t like it.  I remember how good it was, but that’s the extent of it.
Grade: A

Harvey – Cindy Carrin
The only Jimmy Stewart film I’ve seen and loved.  It is a great play, a great old movie, and just awesome all around.  A classic.  You absolutely should watch it.  Everyone.  Do it.
Grade: A+






And there we have it!  A LOT of films reviewed in a handy dandy quick way with beautiful pictures that took me way too long to format.  Thanks everyone, and I am positive I will do an exercise like this again!  Until tomorrow, where we have some newer films, a Wes Anderson film, some wrestling, and probably other stuff!

IHAO on ... A Monster in Paris

My wife loves all things French.  Food, decor, film, music, the whole she-bang.  One of my roommates loves animation, in just about every form.  I love gothic storytelling.  So this movie hit all our buttons, in different ways, and we all walked away feeling good about this movie, though some a little more good than others.

A Monster in Paris is a French animated film.  The story is that the Seine has flooded most of the low portions of Paris, and the people are looking for a new leader.  At the same time, two young men are looking for love.  After curiosity strikes and they accidentally create an enormous singing flea monster, the monster finds his way to burlesque (basically) where the main singer and star names him Francoeur.  It soon becomes a big monster hunt as our bad guy tries to make Francoeur out to be a monster, and our protagonists all look for love and music in their lives.

The film is very beautifully animated, and very fast paced.  A little too fast paced for me, actually, as I wanted much more of Francoeur and much more singing.  The film is not quite a musical, as there really are not enough musical moments for that to be the case, so it comes across as this really nice semi-gothic, Phantom of the Opera meets Jules Verne adventure movie.  It is absolutely a family friendly film.  It is clever, inventive, beautiful, and very well made.  I wish there was more music moments, and more of the beautiful beautiful Sean Lennon (yes, that Lennon, he's Yoko and John's son) singing.  I cannot give this film less than an A, but I am conflicted on how much I like the film.  In the end, I'll never forget it, and talk about with many people, and really, there isn't a better way to say you like something.

Watch this movie.  It'll will be worth your while.

Grade: A+

IHAO on ... the Maze Runner

Young Adult has a series of very interesting little tropes to themselves.  Most of the young adult films are female focused, featuring Mary Sue protagonists, fighting against some form of oppressive society, generally being forced to kill folks.  The protagonists are always somehow special and different from everyone else, as well as having to figure out their own personal choices and more than one romantic opposites who are vying for the protagonist's heart. Maze Runner is a "young adult" film that breaks every single one of those tropes, and really all the young adult tropes ... until its last few minutes.  I actually hate calling Maze Runner "young adult" at all, because it is a mature, sophisticated, and interested science fiction film that just happens to have young adults as the protagonists, antagonists, really all the characters.

Plot: Thomas, wakes up in an elevator, going up into a glade in the middle of an enormous maze.  There, he learns the society the boys there have set up to survive, as there are monsters in the maze.  But somehow, things are different, things are changing.

I would love to give more, but there actually isn't a lot more plot to share without getting into spoiler territory.  Luckily, the plot is not the best part of the film.  In fact, the plot itself is pretty predictable for a science fiction story like this.  But that predictability is not necessarily bad.  How?  Because of the actual film-making.  The movie does an incredible job of shooting its scenes to really get us into the mindset of Thomas.  We experience what he experiences, how he experiences it, and the film is made all the better for it.  This is a TENSE film, with some really emotional scenes and just ... it is a really well made film.  The dialogue is solid, the plot is perfectly fine, but the acting is glorious by all these kids, especially Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, and our lead, Dylan O'Brien.  Wes Bell, a virtually unknown in directing does a MASTERFUL job.

I have two complaints about this film.  First, the finale.  Hard to not give spoilers, so I will be as vague as possible: this film would have been better served if it was not the first part of a young adult series, because the finale made this film feel just like every other young adult film out, which is awful, because this movie was AMAZINGLY good (if you could suspend your disbelief for the genre stuff) until the exposition dump and sequel bait of the finale.  Secondly, the only female character in the whole film would have been better suited to the story if she had been a box.  Yeah, she is more than pointless.  She is a waste.

^^^ = better love interest than Teresa.

The sequel coming has me a little worried, because the finale of this perfectly good film in my opinion really sours the movie.  But with Wes Bell making it, and the same kids for the most part, I am going to give it a chance.  A hesitant one, but one nonetheless.

I loved this film.  I think it is a really really good one, and one I will 100% own.  I do not want my kids to miss this film.  It is adult in nature, but perfectly acceptable for older kids.

Grade: A+

IHAO on ... Saw V

This is a GREAT poster, by the way.

We reach a point in these Saw films, after watching so many of them, that if the writing isn't really good then it all starts to blend together.  I'm not saying that the writing for this Saw is bad, but ... ok, lemme do the plot rundown.  I'm doing my best to keep the spoilers out of these, but as we get deeper and deeper in the story, it becomes harder and harder to avoid spoiling some of the overall plot.

The two stories here are one dealing with Detective Strahm chasing down Jigsaw, because now it is personal, and then five people, connected by their traps and their lives, have to try to live together or not.  Their traps are all tied to working together, which becomes the crux of their story.  We also get the backstory of the Jigsaw apprentice and how he got involved with Jigsaw, which started with a copycat trap.  I love the very loaded critique "inferior blade" Jigsaw gives him, and it is paid off in the acting, which is great.

Saw V has some bits I really like and some bits I really didn't.  All the flashbacks and the detailing of the apprentice and his interactions with Jigsaw are really great.  I very much understand some folks not liking the apprentice's acting, and I certainly didn't care for Strahm, but I like Clayface (our household nickname for the apprentice).  I also like the overarching schtick of the test plot, though its actual formulaic-ness ends up forcing characters to alter drastically between scenes in at least one case ... actually, I guess I could put that on the actress and not the writing.  The final scene in the test is phenomenal, truly horrific and the best scene of the film.  It isn't the final scene of the film, which is also pretty good.  You know, the more I talk about this film, the more I like it.

It is also the most cringe-making Saw I've seen yet as there is a sequence that, while it has some build up, the actual damage hit me like a sack of bricks.  It was very effective.  But once again, I do not feel it was unjustified or glorified.  Actually all the traps, except one, are great.  That one is awful.  Truly stupid.  Oh, wait, the first one is also, while a classic and pretty good, isn't as good as many of the others from pure filming perspective.  Really, the cinematography in generally is just a little under par.

This film is hard to for me to quantify.  It is definitely not as good, but it is still good.  Essentially, it just doesn't excel, but it is good.

Gameover.

Grade: B+

IHAO on ... Gone Girl

David Fincher.  I'm shocked this is the first film of his I've talked about, considering how few I've seen and how well liked he seems to be in the general public.  For me he is a mixed bag.  Se7en is flawless, Fight Club I found incredibly dumb, Social Network was uninteresting and unlikable, Zodiac boring.  I dunno, I guess I respect the dude but just generally haven't cared for his films.  And that isn't particularly his fault, I don't believe.  Fincher seems drawn to very complicated plots and scripts, which I very much like.  But he also doesn't have a great ear for believable characters or dialogue.  I believe he eschews those things and prefers to focus on crafting a thrilling plot.

Gone Girl is no exception to anything I've said above.  I was very lucky to have found a movie friend who can go with me to matinees, which means I can hopefully be seeing a lot more "just out in theaters" films, and I was lucky enough to get a chance to see Gone Girl, which I'm positive will get some Oscar buzz.  Of course, I said that last year with Pain & Gain, so I'm probably super wrong.

Gone Girl is a tremendously tense thriller.  It is filled with complicated characters making difficult decisions, lies, and false public faces.  There are a lot of twists and turns, none of which I will spoil, but let me give a quick basic plot rundown.  A dude, Ben Affleck (who after seeing the film, neither I or my movie friend could remember his character's name, which is bad writing) is an unhappy husband who, on the day of his fifth anniversary, comes home to find his wife missing.  His wife, Amy (played by the phenomenal Rosamund Pike), is a semi-celebrity, being the inspiration for very popular children's books written by her mother, so the crime is immediately followed up on.  But things start to unravel quickly, as the crime ends up being more than originally thought.

The movie is tremendous.  And it is still flawed.  Some of the flaws are super super obvious, like the ridiculous amount of product placement.  And not just reality product placement, like at one point Ben Affleck has a headache, so he puts a Diet Coke to his head, though the logo is covered.  Nah, I'm talking center screen, characters move props to better show logos, ridiculous riDICulous garbage.  It completely junks up the movie around the halfway point and is terribly distracting, especially this one Mountain Dew bottle.  BAH!

On top of that, these characters are ... difficult.  They aren't quite real.  They aren't quite grounded.  That isn't necessarily bad, but it means that a lot of time in Act 1, before the plot really gets moving, we are listening to these not quite believable characters say not quite believable dialogue.  The movie is FILLED with great actors all acting very very well, including Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry of all people.  But the dialogue writing and character choices written in the script boggle my mind a little.  Also, a few plot points are brought up more than once but never followed up on, which was incredibly odd to me.  It makes that dialogue come across as completely useless and a waste of time, and the movie is not short.

So yeah, I said a bunch of bad stuff with some good stuff mixed in, but let me reiterate: this was a phenomenal movie.  The ending is a little odd and might turn some viewers off, but the ride is incredible.  Amazingly enjoyable, and Rosamund Pike just does an amazing job.  I really really enjoyed this film.  I want to watch it at least one more time in an attempt to spot little things in Act 1, now that I know where Act 2 and 3 go.  And I bet you it'll still be a little distracting, and still incredibly engaging.  I would definitely suggest people see the movie.

Grade: A+  ... no, it needs to be a B+ ... oh gosh, this one's hard.  The negatives are just a little too distracting for me, so I'm going with the B+, but that is NOT an easy call to make.

IHAO on ... Saw II

Saw may have been created by James Wan and Leigh Whannell, but the man who really made Saw what it is is director Darren Lynn Bousman.  He created a visual style that would be repeated in the rest of the Saw films.  Leigh Whannell (I spelled it wrong last review, I apologize) helped do rewrites for a script Bousman had already written, trying to make it more Saw-like.  And it ... almost works.

So what's the plot here?  Well, we are a good amount of time after the events of the first film, and following another cop, played by Donnie Walberg.  He finds himself confronting Jigsaw, who has setup a much larger trap than we saw before: eight people locked into a boarded up and steel gated house, with poison running through the air vents, having to do traps to survive.  One of the eight people is Walberg's son.  And that's our dual storytelling: the house, which is a series of games, and the test, which is Walberg confronting Jigsaw, face to face.

The film is incredibly well made from a technical standpoint.  All those little quibbles I had last time about the make-up, lighting, pacing, direction of actors, all of that is perfectly handled here by Bousman.  Bousman is a very detail and visually oriented director, and he fills his movies with small clues and hints of the future, foreshadowing a lot of things and really making the film a delight to watch and rewatch as you pick up more and more details.  Tobin Bell, the actor who plays Jigsaw, also gets to do some nice acting in this film, more than he did last time when he was barely in it.  Walberg is also no slough, really working hard with some great moments.

I just know there's a but coming ... 

But there is a problem with the script.  With so many characters, a lot was cut or trimmed, making all the characters in the house ... meaningless, basically, besides just a small handful.  They didn't have much to do but whine and yell at each other, they didn't get to even speak much because all they did was listen to tapes and participate in the "games."  The Walberg/Bell scenes had some nice moments but they too felt a little off.  You can really tell that this was a non-Saw script changed to be a Saw sequel.

All that said, this is an enjoyable film.  It has some flaws, just like the last one, but Bousman does such a good job pacing the film and moving it forward that it really helps make the film more likable.  Some of the characters are fantastic, in a silly two-dimensional kind of way.  And the gore, much like the last one, is still relatively minor.  I mean, yeah, there's some gorier stuff and you see more blood, but none of it is in your face, or gross, or just there for gore's sake.  It is tasteful, and a very minor aspect of the film.

So far, this one is my favorite.  But man, if only I could get the great writing of the first film and the superior direction of this one, and then cram them together.  Hmm ... (this is obviously a leading statement, as the next film in fact does that exact thing ... but is it any good? ... or at least as good as I was hoping? ... Hmmm ... (Yup, another leading question.  This time, you have to wait for the answer.  That review is next week!))

Grade: B+