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!

IHAO on ... TMNT - READER REQUEST

Requested by Lenton Lees

I haven't done a request in awhile.  Probably because of being busy and dealing with all sorts of other real world things, it is much easier to review things I have already put on tap to review or just rely on my slowly dwindling bank of reviews.  I plan to make it up to you all very soon.  But that's neither here nor there.  Let's talk about a CGI action movie sequel to a live action kung fu kids franchise, made 14 years after the last film in the franchise.

TMNT is a direct sequel to the 90s live action franchise.  The 90s film franchise, by the way, is so incredibly varied on skill and how good each film is.  Eesh.  That's neither here nor there, though, as we are talking about the fourth film in the storyline.  Yes, the fourth film, despite being 14 years removed, having a plot that is incredibly different, and taking a small leap forward in the timeline, and being a different film medium as animated instead of live action, is indeed a sequel.  Do you need to have seen the other four to know that?  Nope, in fact most people didn't know it while watching.  Many probably didn't after watching.

Ok, so plot.  Enormous war in the past, time travel, immortality, monsters, all of that is around.  But the real story is about brotherhood.  The turtles, after the events of the third movie, have all gone their own ways, doing their own thing: Leo has left the country to meditate and become a better leader, Donny is focusing on his technology and more interestingly a career, Mikey is trying to find something to do, and Raph is going out solo, refusing to take a back seat.  Much as the first film is mostly about Raph, the second mostly about Donny, and the third mostly about Mikey, this fourth film really emphasizes on Leo and what it means to be the "leader" and how that is different from being a "brother."  Leo tends to be good at leadership, but bad at remembering to be a brother.

That's kind of deep, kids movie.  I wish you had focused on it more, but still, nice for doing it at least some.

The pacing is fun, the animation is really good looking (for the non-humans), and the entire film is enjoyable.  Since time is limited in film, we do have some gaffs in storytelling that lead to skipping things that would have been more interesting to watch and watching things I wish we had just skipped, as well as focusing a little too much on Raph than the other turtles.  It isn't a perfect film, but hey, the other three aren't either.  I think it fits in perfectly fine with the others in its franchise, and in fact makes a pretty fun closer.  Not great, but definitely underrated.

Grade: B

IHAO on ... Last Action Hero - READER REQUEST

Requested by Eric Morris

Last Action Hero is the story of a young kid growing up in the bad parts of New York City, who gets his hands on a magical movie ticket on the night he gets to see his favorite movie series' newest film, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.  And that isn't a joke, it is actually starring him.  The magic ticket then sucks the kid into the movie world, where his knowledge helps him help his movie hero.  Then the bag guy gets the ticket and goes to the real world, where the bad guys actually can sometimes win.  They go back to the real world, stop the bad guy anyway, and then get everyone back to where they need to be (except for Death from The Seventh Seal, played by Ian McKellan, who just gets to wander the real world now).

Oh, and it has the creative force of the guy that directed Die Hard and Predator, and the writer of most of the Marvel movies including the X-Men ones and the Avengers, as well as Shane Black, the Lethal Weapon guy.  Oh, and I hate this movie.  This movie has so many problems.  Let me talk about the good.  The action is sometimes fun, most of the time ridiculous and over the top, and it is mostly shot well.  Also, Schwarzenegger as Jack Slater is very fun, and oozing with charisma, as are the unique villains.  And there we go, I said everything good about this movie.

Characters float in and out, the focus of the film doesn't stay consistent, and even worse, it doesn't actually know what it is trying to be.  The premise is the kid is sucked into the movie he is watching.  But what actually happens is he is sucked into Action-movie-land ... except that immediately just becomes "we are all cartoons, nothing makes sense, and it is all silly and ridiculous" land.  And in the real world, all the stupid action cliches happen!  They try to make it sound like they don't happen, but they still do.  Like, the bad guy gets electrocuted, even though he's wearing rubber soled boots AND rubber gloves.  Slater rips car doors off their hinges and punches through car windows without a scratch.  THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN IN THE REAL WORLD!

But the real world was more ridiculous and unbelievable even before that.  The kid's favorite movie theatre is a 4 story tall theatre that has an ornate and ENORMOUS viewing theater, but it is also almost completely derelict and has spray paint everywhere.  Cartoonishly having 5 locks on the doors, and when the kid doesn't lock the door immediately after his mother leaves him for work, he is mugged by a guy breaking in.  THIS IS NOT THE REAL WORLD!

Also, the kid.  The kid is atrocious.  One of the worst kid actors I've seen.  He doesn't get his emotions up above a constant level of snide wonder the whole movie.  He is supposed to be our viewpoint, our way into the story, the reason we are watching, but he is utterly terrible and irritating.

Honestly, I wish I could rate this movie lower.  But it's overall sins are boredom and being dumb.  Really dumb.  Like, makes me angry dumb, because there are great ideas here!  Really great ideas here!  And they are all wasted.  Every single good idea thrown down the toilet and ruined.  Maybe what I'm saying isn't good enough though.  Maybe the ideas presented are what you like.  Well here, lemme help you.

 - If you want to watch an action movie where a kid getting sucked into his favorite form of entertainment, watch Forbidden Kingdom
 - If you want to watch a cop film about dealing with ridiculous reality bending paradigm shifts, watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit
 - If you want to watch a satire on action films, watch Hot Fuzz
 - If you want to watch Arnold be an interesting action character dealing with reality, watch Total Recall

There is not a single redeeming quality of this movie except that is just isn't bad enough to be terrible.  It reminds me of Young Adult.  It is a completely average example of its genre that had all the markings to think it was a way more clever version instead.  And I never want to see it again.

Grade: C---

Tonight I am going to see Hercules, starring the Rock.  Stay tuned for a big review of it for tomorrow.  If IHActionO week has taught me anything, it is that action movies can vary in huge ways between skill and enjoyment.  I even have a whole nother film that came in the mail for the week, but I'll just share it another day.  It is glorious!  And terrible!  Just like I like it.  See you after Hercules!  I'm real excited!

We are just over two weeks away from my amazing second rendition of Ask Me Anything!  Thank you everyone who has given me questions so far, but I absolutely NEED and MUST HAVE more!  So help me out, leave some questions in my ask box on Tumblr or in the comments here or on facebook or to my email or something.  Any question at all.  Everything and anything you want to ask will be answered, and the vast majority will be honest, and all will be entertaining.  Let's get this thing going, we only got half a month to do this thing!  WOOOOO!

IHAO on EVERYTHING, TOO on August 1st

IHAO on ... The Lookout - READER REQUEST

Requested by Jason Schmidt

So I'm a big ole idiot!  I've been sitting on this movie for a very long time.  I ordered it when it was requested of me, and even watched through the first act of it the day it came to my little townhouse right at 7:47 pm with the UPS guy.  It was the third part of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt triumvirate, with (500) Days of Summer and 50/50.  It didn't have a 5 in its title, so I was really hoping it was going to be better than those other films, both in quality and in my sheer enjoyment.  So yeah, I got through the first act, and then guests came over, so I paused it.  And I put it on hold.

Now, probably at least two months later, I finally get around to it because writing about Psych is making my eyes glaze over.  So I'm sitting here at 2am, finally getting around to doing something I should have down months ago, and I pop the Lookout into my blu-ray player.  The machine remembered exactly where I was and I was completely lost.  So let's start it back over from the beginning.  Or, as the movie suggests, I could just start at the end.

This movie is super good.  Super duper good.  The acting from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jeff Daniels in particularly make this film worth watching a hundred times over.  JGL finally has a character with some real meat on its bones, and he did phenomenally.  The music is haunting and beautiful.  The blu-ray menu is currently on and has been for probably 30 minutes as I write this review and re-draft it a few times.  

I was enthralled with the way the film watched him and how he lived.  He suffered from a major accident, and throughout the film deals with his head trauma.  The movie does not hold hands, and does a million little things perfectly.  The way he has to deal with things, the way his mind is healing, his relationship with his family and co-workers, how they are subtly discriminatory of him because of his handicap, yet then he proves that it is justified.  The hurt in JGL's eyes is real.  Act 1 and Act 3 of this movie is absolutely flawless.

Also there is a bank heist in the middle.

This is where the movie isn't very strong, its Act 2.  Its build up is slow, and even worse, boring.  The actors that play the thieves and the like, they are all not really up to snuff with the caliber of acting everyone else is bringing to this flick.  Our charismatic antagonist just isn't that charismatic.  Our love interest isn't that interesting.  Our bad ass second in command bad guy just isn't that bad ass.  I was watching a film I was really really loving, and then it gets bogged down adding an element I know it felt it needed, but all the build up for it is just so ... *yawn*.

Now, when Act 3 kicks around, and we get into the real crime aspects of the film, we are back in 5th gear.  Enjoyable, emotional, and really engaging.  But I had already lost a lot of interest and was staring at my tablet playing Disco Zoo, finding hats on my hippos and sending Wooly Mammoths to outerspace.  But Act 3 got me back in.

I really want to applaud the director/writer for his choices in a lot of this movie.  We do not have our hands held throughout the first and third acts.  We as the audience learn things through visual storytelling and sideways observation.  It is truly wonderful and engaging storytelling.  Act 2 we have characters just straight up say what they are thinking and asking each other for exposition for the most part, though within even that bad act of the film we have some great storytelling like in the first and third act.  

I really hate to do this, but this film is another B grade film for JGL.  Not for any wrong doing on his part, but for a very slow 30 or 40 minutes within the middle of this 99 minute movie.  But, do not fret, because JGL deserves a flippin' award for how well he does here.  Jeff Daniels does too.  We get so so much great stuff in most of the movie that it makes up for it.  And I do like this one, too!  It isn't trying to be quirky or betraying its best parts to focus on the uninteresting stuff.  I just wish I could have seen the movie about this character and his life without the feeling or necessity that the filmmaker had to also making it a crime film.  If THIS was what 50/50 was treated as, it would have been amazing.

I do suggest this though.  And I will continue my hunt to find a great JGL film.  Even his own film I gave a B.  But soon I'll find you, mystery A-grade JGL film.  I'll find you!!

This was the best whale-related gif I could find.  So ... yeah ... 

Grade: B+

We are a mere two weeks away from my amazing second rendition of Ask Me Anything!  Thank you everyone who has given me questions so far, but I absolutely NEED and MUST HAVE more!  So help me out, leave some questions in my ask box on Tumblr or in the comments here or on facebook or to my email or something.  Any question at all.  Everything and anything you want to ask will be answered, and the vast majority will be honest, and all will be entertaining.  Let's get this thing going, we only got half a month to do this thing!  WOOOOO!

IHAO on EVERYTHING, TOO on August 1st

Independence Day special!!! IHAO on ... White House Down - READER REQUEST -

Happy day of celebrating being from a country that is pretty ok in some areas and pretty not ok in others and overall is perfectly fine and mostly just as good as a bunch of other countries but for different reasons!!!  What?  Oh, you want me to be more 'MERICA about this?  Eh, I dunno.  I'm going to need some help.

Nope this isn't going to work, I don't even like 30 Rock.  Plus, it is the exact opposite of how I feel about ... everything, really.  Thinking is what makes use great, and unique.  Having opinions, at least well informed or believed ones, that is what makes entertainment and art so great.  Also, I'm getting super preachy.  Let's keep looking for MERICA gifs.

Hmmm ... bad editing and film quality, holding big guns and shooting them, wearing an eagle helmet, wearing glasses, a whole bunch of stars and stripes ... this is close.  It tries too hard though.  I just don't get the weepy happies about MERICA I need.

Ok, that is an appropriate gif for exactly what I said.  But I feel like I could get something a lot more MERICAN than this, something that hits home for me a lot more ...

Hulk Hogan playing a guitar solo on a Star-Spangled electric guitar with an American flag background.  Yeah, this is what I'm looking for!  I'm starting to feel it!  I can feel it!  Now, I can be done with this entirely arbitrary extra and superfluous foolin' around.  I have a reader request to do!  And it is obvious and appropriate for this day!

Requested by Melanie Jessel

White House Down, an action movie that Cracked claimed was the perfect Die Hard sequel instead of the Die Hard sequel we got in 2013.  That is a great video I linked to, by the way.  It is made by the Roland Emmerich, who made Independence Day, Stargate ... 2012, Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla with Broderick, 10,000 BC, Anonymous ... ok, so the record hasn't been very good for a long time.  And ... the reviews aren't good either.  But ...

But I thought it was great.  Really great.  Super great even.  It is very much a Die Hard send-up that is surprisingly powerful and totally overshadowed by its now-joke of a director and the fact it came out at the same time as another film of the same style.  But damn it, it was great!  And lemme tell you why.

1) Channing Tatum is wonderful as a leading hero.  I never thought he could be, but he was humorous, believable, and excellent at action.

2) Jamie Foxx is fantastic as not-quite-Obama, playing a great president/sidekick with a lot of pathos and a reason to love him beyond just his status.

3) The plot is nicely convoluted, but figure-out-able, making it a thrilling ride from beginning to end.

4) Every other character is interesting, nuanced, and believable.  

5) The action is awesome, and the scope is pretty mindblowing.  

This film really is Die Hard meets Independence Day.  I loved it.  My wife loved it.  My roommate loved it, and he is not an action-movie-big-blockbuster type.  And yet, Roeper called it the worst film of 2013.  The worst film of last year.  Think about that.  Last year, Movie 43, The Last Exorcism Part II, Scary Movie 5, World War Z, the Lone Ranger, and A Good Day to Die Hard all came out!  And A Good Day to Die Hard is atrocious.  Absolutely atrocious.

If you get the ability, I highly suggest you find a way to watch White House Down this Independence Day.  I really cannot fathom anyone thinking this movie was anywhere near the worst film of last year, or even a bad film.  I personally found it immaculate, from pacing to cinematography to acting to scripting to the soundtrack.  The only piece of negative anything to say is that the necessary CGI to film helicopters flying around the White House, or the White House at all, sometimes looks fake.  Sometimes.  And it is never enough to take me out of the film.  

Grade: A++

Happy July the 4th.  I will see you all Monday!

IHAO on ... Adventures in Babysitting - READER REQUEST

This has been one of the hardest reviews I've had to write since I started doing this blog daily.  It has been absolute murder for me to put my thoughts down into words that can be read and make sense, as well as be both objective and share my real opinions on this movie as well.  The difficulty in how I try to review is to give you a good analytical sense of these films, as well as just sharing the necessary information if you want to see it, and also making it very clear how I personally feel about the thing.  But ... goodness.  Look, here's my second attempt to start writing about this movie:

"This movie should be called Adventures in Increasingly Improbable Coincidences.  Wow."

And that's it.  It's a pretty funny opener, and accurate, but I had no words after that.  I wanted to cop out, and just give a grade.  But I do not do that for my daily reviews.  Sure, in an AMA I don't mind.  Or for a film I've already seen quite often and just want to put it up on facebook, why not.  But for these, the whole article is important to me.  And I had nothing else.  I wrote that on Tuesday this week.  I watched the film Monday.  And in my second attempt, I could only get that far.  My first attempt was longer but ... well, look.

"I may have talked about this before, but let me talk about why torture comedies are my least favorite form of comedy.  The conceit of the torture comedy is that those little terrible things that happen in your life that suck, like a flat tire, or running into your boyfriend cheating on you, or losing a ring, or being stuck with people you don't like that torment you ... see, the idea is that you are seeing likable characters getting hurt.  Physically or emotionally or mentally or some combination or all of it."

That isn't even a complete, finished thought.  You know why?  Because I cannot quantify the point I was trying to make, at least not easily, in that that set up sucks really bad.  Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  Uncle Buck.  These are torture comedies where likable people are hurt for no reason.  They suck.  There's also the opposite side, where the characters are just jerks the whole time, and aren't likable in the slightest: Funny Farm; Trading Places; Saving Silverman.  All of those movies suck.  Torture comedies I think that work: The Vacation series (for the most part); Just Friends.  They have likable characters ... but flawed ones.  You both enjoy seeing Chevy Chase get hurt, and you also empathize with him when it isn't his fault.  It gets the perfect mix.

This movie falls in the suck category.  But it isn't very fair, because I really like Elizabeth Shue in Adventures in Babysitting.  She is indeed a likable character that I don't want to see get hurt, and she is believable, and--

See, just now, I took a fifteen minute break because I go so tired of thinking about this movie.  Writing about this film is a chore of Leonard Part 6 levels.  Before we jump too much farther, Leonard Part 6 is an infinitely worse film.  It fails in every regard.  And there is some good stuff to Adventures in Babysitting.  Like I said, Elizabeth Shue is great.  And the opening, with her lip syncing and dancing ... I fell in love.  How could you not?  She was great.  Also, little Thor loving kid is ... memorable.

Ok, so everyone that isn't Elizabeth Shue can very easily be put into one-dimensional categories.  There's the "awkard, lovestruck kid," the "precocious little girl" though she does have a love of Thor for complete plot convenience later on, the "horny kid," the "flustered nerdy best friend," not to mention all the homeless people who are thieves and crazy, the gangsters who are ... well, gangsters.  Even the doctor is standard jokey-one-dimensional Indian doctor.  There are only two really interesting, fully fleshed characters, one being Elizabeth Shue, and the other being a car thief who takes them to the chop shop in their Increasingly Unlikely Series of Events While Babysitting.  I for the LONGEST time throughout the runtime thought he was going to be an undercover cop, or perhaps the love interest ... but nah, he's just a character that for some reason that is beyond me got to have a bunch of facets and dimensions to his character.

I just realized that it sounds like I am complaining about that ... and I kind of am!  You create a second character that is likable, interesting, with motives of his own, a sense of loyalty and kindness, but is still a car thief who is stuck working with the mob.  And he's relegated to just ... lackey with a few lines.  Almost just a glorified cameo.  Let me know more about him.  Tell me his story.  What a crazy day it is for him, to be stealing a car when 3 kids and a teenager get in and you have to take them to safety from a guy shooting a rifle.  And then they steal your boss's boss's Playboy that he wrote all his damning evidence in.  Oh yeah, I should mention, Elizabeth Shue looks like the centerfold for this issue of Playboy.  It is a running "gag" in that it comes up a lot and is supposed to be funny?  It is just another coincidence in the long train of coincidences.

The comedy in this movie ... not comedy.  It isn't funny.  There aren't jokes and punchlines or set ups or anything.  Just ... things happening.  And they are odd.  And their oddness is what makes them funny.  Oh, the mechanic that got mentioned earlier looks like Vincent D'onofrio playing a mechanic who I guess could look like Thor so that the little girl can think he's the real Thor even though she is in no way young enough for that to make any sense that she believes it.

Thor.  Thor, ladies and gentlemen.

Or hey, a homeless woman took flustered nerdy best friend's glasses, so now she can't see.  And oh no, she picked up a rat because she thought it looked like a cat, that's so hilarious.  I am a man with terrible eye sight.  I recently had to get new glasses, and even at the thinnest they could possibly make them, they are still just about a centimeter thick, maybe thicker.  So let me assure you, that even if her eye sight is as bad as mine, THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN.  There is more than one sense, movie.  Rats don't smell, sound, or feel like cats.  And I would be willing to wager they don't taste like cats, but I've never eaten a rat.

This movie ... I don't like it.  In fact, I hate it.  I would not tell anyone to watch this movie, ever.  I'm pretty sure that there is a lot of nostalgia built up into it, and perhaps for some this kind of trainwreck of a plot and haphazard attempt at "comedy" works.  But for me, there is only one redeemable thing about the movie beyond Elizabeth Shue.  And that is that I never ever have to see it again.

Grade: D--- (it is shot competently enough that I am hard-pressed to give it an F ... but I stared at this grade for a very long time arguing about it.)

IHAO on ... The Secret Life of Bees - READER REQUEST

Requested by Julia Powell

What is the secret life of bees?  That is what the film's title suggests we will learn.  And if that is the case, then I suppose the secret life of bees is to create a cult in the 1950s that worships a magical black Virgin Mary idol that has haunting red light and causes white women to pass out when they touch it.  Yes, that happens.

Bah, fine Supernatural, continue to ruin my fun, like all of Season 9 has.  Zing!

Ok, sure, that is writing it in a way that is counter to what the film really wants to be about.  And what the film really wants to be about is ... pretty decent.  It is a look at southern life for a white girl (Dakota Fanning) who has a lot of issues because she murdered her mother when she was 4, after her mother ran out on her and her father, and then her father became absolutely abusive.  Well, it isn't REALLY about that.  That's our protagonist/audience proxy's story.  The REAL story that this is about is the civil rights movement, how blacks are treated, and what really happens when a white devil girl magically goes to the same place her mother went to by sure luck when her mother was young, and now she gets to meet the ageless cult leading Queen Latifah and her months-of-year-named cult members ...

I'm being really harsh on this movie.  And that's because it is really EASY to make fun of.  It isn't really a bad movie at all.  It has some pretty good acting, and some memorable characters.  You can tell that Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, and Jennifer Hudson all thought they were going to be in for Oscar nods for actress, and Paul Bettany as easily the best written and most complicated character in the abusive father.  But then you have the clunky script that strips all the stakes away once our character reach magical Black Madonna Bee Farm.  Oh, and there's a whole subplot about a black boy that Dakota Fanning likes who is kidnapped and beaten, but is found with a little bit of light makeup on him a little later.  But his kidnapping ... no, actually, lying about it by omission to the incredibly sensitive and probably autistic sister sends the sister to kill herself so she can go to heaven ... except the Christianity that everyone believes in the film is Catholic, so May is in hell for suicide ...

The movie is jumbled, is what I'm saying.  It does not have a strong hand on the tiller, i.e., the director isn't very good.  And a quick look on imdb shows that the director, Gina Prince-Bythewood also wrote the script, which does not surprise.  The movie comes across like she knew a lot about civil rights era South Carolina, saw Forest Gump, and wanted to make a movie vaguely similar to it.  If you had a hard time guessing, she has only written one other film before, Love & Basketball.  And a few shorts and episodes here and there, plus a single film coming out this year or next apparently, called Blackbird.  And of course, she directs everything she writes.

The sets are overall mediocre to bad.  The writing is servicable, no worse no better.  But the acting is really superb, again, especially Paul Bettany.  Dakota Fanning's character isn't given much to do, so her trademark little kid charm and snark is replaced with empty faced staring, which is really unfortunate.  But our other female leads all really believed in this film, you can tell, and they acted their hearts out.  I don't enjoy this movie without making fun of it.  And it isn't really very good.  But I enjoyed watching it this time.  We had a drinking game where we drank the worst zero calorie dr. pepper knock off every time someone said "bees" or a word with "bee" in it.  And we riffed over the whole thing.  And I wouldn't take that experience away ever.

Grade: C (technically, C- if I have to watch it straight, and C+ if I get to riff on it the whole time)

IHAO on ... The Wrestler - Reader Request

As we continue down the Road to Wrestlemania, I want to talk about a Wrestlemania match that could have been, and a movie that was, and how great that movie is.  The year was 2008, and Chris Jericho and Mickey Rourke were going to have a match because of this movie.  Rourke ended up having to pull out ... so Jericho beat the crap out of three legitimate legends in one night instead.  Rourke gets the final laugh by knocking Jericho on his ass, though.  All of this, over multiple shows and months, was to build up this ... Oscar-nominated excellent film.

This is a character piece about a fictional wrestler, a man who is some kind of amalgamation of Jake the Snake, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Bret Hart, and a lot of other wrestlers who had a hayday where they were BIG ... but time has caught up with them.  This amalgam is Randy "the Ram" Robinson, a man who sold out Madison Square Garden, who was a legitimate legend, star of video games and has his own collections on VHS and action figures.  And a wrestler who is self-destructing.

This film succeeds in every way.  Every character is pitch perfect.  Every line is so believable and real.  Every shot is amazingly well thought out.  We spend the majority of the film as a ghost, just behind and over the Ram's shoulder.  We watch these last few months, as he wrestles, buys drugs, tries to fix a relationship, tries to start a new one, as he tries to get a new job, and as he makes his big rematch return.  I ... I really don't want to say any more about the film, really.  You need to see it!

No reason for the gif.  I just really really like this movie.  :)

This film is emotional, crazy emotional.  It is just a wonderful wonderful film.  Every time I watch it, I love it more.  And it is the perfect crossover between just silly wrestling reviews, anger-making editorials, and silly wrestling tie-in films.  The Wrestler was only Oscar-nominated for acting by Rourke and Tomei, both deserving mind you.  But they didn't win.  And Rourke SHOULD have.  He was just absolutely pitch perfect.  Darren Aronofsky continues to be the best un-rewarded director in film currently.  Watch this movie.  It is just absolutely great.

Grade: A++

IHAO on ... Prince Avalanche - READER REQUEST

Requested by Jason Schmidt

Prince Avalanche.  The title to a film that doesn't really have anything to do with anything that title could even begin to suggest.  Another indy drama.  Another film that is not generally my cup of tea.  I love reader requests!  I really do!  This is the kind of thing that I enjoy having to slog through, because I legitimately like finding more films and seeing what I like or hate.  And this ... I mostly like.

Prince Avalanche tells the story of a blue collar fella, Paul Rudd, and his girlfriend's brother, Emile Hirsch, who are working on cleaning and repainting the roads after a huge fire in 1987.  The two have a relationship that grows as we watch the course of these 8 days or so, and they get to know each other, go through difficult things, and all that.  The film is beautiful shot, and uses its landscape to help really push the overarching theme: things growing from the ashes.  Not just plants and animals and life continuing, but also society, family, and personal growth through difficulty.

This is a film that touches on a lot of topics, like solitude v. lonliness, pregnancy, loss, break-ups, cheating, anger, friendship, it touches on a lot of those ... just briefly.  It does a lot of things a very small amount.  It is very theatrical like that.  In fact, other than the very nice landscape cinematography, I wish this was a play.  It would be a much stronger presentation if it was.  There is nothing about this film that actually truly succeeds with it being a film.  We have two guys talking ... that's it.  We watch these characters grow and lie and come clean and be friends and get in fights and learn who each other are, with only two other characters that show up.  One of them is absolutely crazy and is the worst thing about the movie.  The other is pretty sweet and poignant, until she gets rolled up into the crazy terrible character.

I hate to say that the film doesn't need to exist.  I just wish it existed as a stage show.  It would be so much stronger, it would have so much more resonance that way.  Rudd and Hirsch both do very well, and help elevate a very basic script and very basic characters to something much more interesting.  But in the end, while I basically liked it, all I can do is ponder on its purpose, and wish a better medium for this style of storytelling was used.

No joke here.  Just a Paul Rudd gif for Paul Rudd's sake.

I can't really suggest it, as it is a mostly boring sit with occasional good acting beats thrown in.  But if you love Rudd or Hirsch, or are just really into this style of film, there are way worse out there, and I can suggest this one to you.

Grade: B

IHAO on ... Brazil (Dreams Trilogy) - READER REQUEST

Request from Joel Gould

Brazil is a sci-fi-kinda thriller-kinda art-film-kinda comedy-kinda Terry Gilliam flick. It is part of the Dreams Trilogy, which features Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (both of which will be getting a review in the coming days).  The Dreams trilogy is an unofficial-official trilogy about the dreams of a man through the different points of his life: childhood (Time Bandits), midlife working adult (Brazil), and retired elderly gent looking backwards (Munchausen).  Doing a little bit of “presearch,” I wanted to check out the feelings of the general public as well as the critical public on Brazil.  Rotten Tomatoes has it at 98% certified fresh and an average rating of 8.7 and only a single negative review.  Metacritic an 88 metascore, including in that 8 perfect scores from the critics and no negatives at all.  Flickchart, my personal favorite of these kinds of sites, has Brazil globally ranked as number 214 of all films ever, with 201 people putting it as their number one film.

I found all of those number interesting.  Because I thought Brazil was utter garbage.

Brazil is a film set in a future-past where heating ducts are incredibly prominent because reasons.  Where posh women wear shoes on their heads because reasons.  Where Information Extraction experts where baby-doll masks because reasons.  Where … I can’t even keep this joke up.  I hated this movie.  I found it to be incredibly dull except for the final climax, which was perfectly fine I suppose even if it was all a dream and didn’t matter.  Spoilers, by the way.

Oops, too late.  Shucks. *sarcasm*

In the film, a paperwork mishap sends a middle management information keyboard-pounder who dreams of freedom, flying, and love, and who is so good at his job everyone wants to give him a promotion and he doesn’t want it, sends him on a “journey” to save the life of the woman from his dreams before she is redacted and killed because reasons.  The movie takes what could have been a pretty interesting setting and fails in every way to make it work in my opinion:

-          The setting is either claustrophobic (which could have been thematic, and forgivable) or stupid-big, alternating for no reason.  In a bureaucratic run world, I’m pretty sure those stupid-big buildings and spaces would not be left to be there. 

-          The actors are ALL subpar, which is terrible considering that the bit-parts and cameos feature actors like Robert DeNiro and Bob Hoskins.  Why cast great actors in small pointless roles and keep the flustered or barely acting ones in the leads?  And I don't actually think the blame is all on the actors, as Jonathan Pryce is actually a perfectly fine actor.  But as a leading man, the audience's eyes into this film world, he just become a flustered sweaty series of double-takes.

-          Over the course of four scenes as our hero tries to explain to his dream-love girl that she is in danger for her life, instead of saying that in any way, shape or form, he just continues to ask “do you trust me?” and tells her that he loves her.  You could explain that they are coming to kill her because of a clerical error that started this whole thing at ANY point.  But nope, if he did, the movie would be over because they would just leave.  Nope gotta have her fall in love with this creeper stalker because reasons, and then the two of them have sex in his mother's bed as she wears his mother's clothing and wigs.  That is not a joke, that is what happens.

-          In the opening of the film, it seems like there was a theme going on of blue-collar heroes, workers who swooped in to do their jobs and left before the red tape could get in the way, but that falls to the wayside real quickly after that.  Even worse, there are EVIL blue-collar workers who work for the bureaucracy and are jerks because reasons.  No, no, no, I know the reason!  It is so they can  be blown up in a terrible poop joke as comeuppance!

-     I could find absolutely ZERO reason for this movie to be called Brazil within the movie itself.  It isn't set there, no one references it in dialogue or in background setting posters (which by the way are actually interesting, but we only see probably three of them, so they don't really matter or amount to anything).  The song plays once in a car.  Is it for the song?  Well, that's what Gilliam says in the book about the film.  So good.  I guess.  

And hundreds of other little stupid bits that I just do not have the time or space to write about.  I do want to say something good about the film, though.  The first few dream sequences where our protagonist is flying in his Icarius suit (don't worry, the film in no way make reference to the Icarius inspiration, why would it?) and the clouds and all that ... those work.  They look a bit cheap and fakey, but they work enough.  And again, the dream stuff in the climax of the film works.  But that is nowhere near enough to make me recommend this film.

This movie is almost 100% style over substance.  No, I take it back, because there is substance there, it is just rehashed over-used plot garbage thrown in a blender with a bunch of nonsensical character motivations and random happenstance to keep the movie moving forward as inorganically as possible.  I do understand how this movie can top so many lists.  It is unique.  It is fascinating.  It is also utter utter garbage in every metric I could ever conceive to rate a film.  How ANY critic can give this film a perfect score is beyond me, let alone 8 perfect scores.

Grade: F-

IHAO on ... 13 - READER REQUEST

Request from Daniel Lees

13 is an Englishized version of a French film directed by the guy who made the original French film, and updating it slightly, such as adding more background information on some of the characters.  That’s kind of neat.  It is another film - in the trend I am finding myself reviewing – with a protagonist who is a relatively bad actor, this time played Sam Riley, who I referred while I was watching it as LeBerto DiPattrio. 

The basic premise is a down on their luck family needing money, and our protagonist finding a way into a gambling ring based around a basically Russian roulette tournament.  And from there, it is just a high-stakes tension film.

It is hard to talk about this movie because I cannot properly convey how well they were able to mount the tension.  I love intense films, especially ones with strong character stories going along through them.  The Hurt Locker did it brilliantly (and I still believe Jeremy Renner deserved the Best Actor Oscar that year instead of the ridiculous role Jeff Bridges played in Crazy Heart, blech).  The Mist never let up with its mood and tension.  Those are films I love.  And 13 just is not quite good enough.

It does a lot of things right, and really brings up the tension.  The music is fantastic, and the foley guy worked crazy hard on little things that most audience members would never notice that really enhanced the viewing.  But the storytelling is fractured to see all the other people in the tournament, except you only meet the plot important ones.  It also starts with the climax then backtracks to how we get there, which is a writing tactic I find appallingly stupid and lazy.  I’m looking at you Supernatural.

You still love me, right?

The ending itself is not the end of the tournament, but a long denoument, which is well done and keeps the tension up as we feel for our protagonist, and while the element of fiction at the end left me satisfied as a conclusion, I can see it turning off a lot of people.

In the end, 13 is a good movie that wants to be great, and I admire it, but just do not believe it is actually there.  It is lacking in very minor things across the board that all just don’t quite add up to an A-film for me.  I would suggest it to anyone interested, though, as it is a good sit.

Grade: B

IHAO on ... Flypaper - READER REQUEST

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of something a little different for me on I Have an Opinion.  Since getting to jump into Netflix, and watching so many things, I’ve been able to find movies I normally couldn’t find.  Either because of limited release, obscurity, or foreign-ness, I’m able to get a whole lot more media to devour.  And I love to devour media.  So it was brought up to me to do some sort of Reader Request bank, to allow all of you the opportunity to send me requests to review.  I have two different ideas on how to accomplish this, but for now let me talk about READER REQUESTS.

All you gotta do is send me an ask, email, or some other message to get a request, and I will do my best to do as many of them as I can, every Friday.  I like the limitation.  Instead of only picking things I’m interested in, or things suggested to me by Netflix, I can actual see what people want to hear my opinion on.  And I always have an opinion.

All that lead up gets me to the first request I ever received, even before I restarted this blog in earnest:

Request from Earlnimbud

Heist is a film genre I wish there was more of.  I love heist films.  They are action packed, fun, many times hilarious, and always filled with interesting twists and turns.  Flypaper does all of that perfectly, as well as adding a lot of great character beats and intrigue.

The premise is that a man goes to a bank, and suddenly two bank robberies happen simultaneously.  And he is trapped inside for 10 hours with the others there.  Without his medication.  Oh yes, I forgot to mention that, he has OCD.  Patrick Dempsey plays a Sherlock-ian, Mentalist, Monk styled character we’ve grown accustomed to with television procedurals.  But don’t let that turn you away, he actually does a wonderful job in this performance.  And he isn’t the only one.  Every actor (that has a real role, which I’ll get to in a second) does just amazingly.  I could list all their names, but really, just check out the IMDB.  It is a great list of stars who just all do a great job.

The music is exactly as expected from a heist film.  But this is more than that.  This is a film written by the guys who wrote the Hangover (while not my cup of tea, filled with interesting scenarios and characters, that I cannot argue) and directed by the man who directed the Lion King.  So we are taking what could be a simple fun fluff action film and given a whole thrill ride with great direction and solid characters that go beyond being two-dimensional.  It is a small-ish ensemble film, and everyone is pitch perfect, except for one poor woman whose only job it was was to be a sexy Swedish woman, and that is a huge unfortunate loss, though I hope there are deleted scenes that fill out her character.

Sad when this cartoon character has more personality that your character does.  

Also, why aren't you reading Scandinavia and the World?  Do that.  Grade: A

I really do recommend this film.  And as the first honorary request, I thank my readers for suggesting it.  Suggest away, and I will get to as many as I can.

Grade: A+