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 ... Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher is not a Best Picture nominee, but it is a best actor, best supporting actor, and a best director nominee, so I figured I should give it a watch.  Plus, I was intrigued.  The real life story is super interesting, I love wrestling as you folks reading may well know, but I also loved amateur wrestling.  I was in my high school wrestling team for ... a few months?  I only quit because the coach at the time told me I had to pick, wrestling, or all the other extracurriculars I was doing.  So I picked choir, theatre, academic bowl, and everything else.  Anyway, let's talk about the movie.

I don't think it's very good.  It is really slowly paced, the plot is kind of obtuse, and while all the acting and music and shots are good, some great in fact, the wrong stuff is being talked about.  Let's talk about the plot.  It is the story of the Schultz brothers and their dealings with John E. du Pont.  There is a lot of information in the real world about it, but this is a fictionalized, condensed version of the whole encounter.  I normally do not care for spoilers, but I can say that the movie deals with ... uh ... ok, so I can't say that.

That's one of the biggest problems with the movie.  I did not think it did a good job of actually telling the story.  We see some bits and pieces of things that happen, but none of what it means is conveyed in film.  I suppose the film is kind of about ownership and being a prisoner and maybe some homosexual stuff and a little bit of betrayal, but not really, and ... ugh.  The film has a good atmosphere that lasts way too long and ends up being a burden instead of a bonus.  The film is so thick and so long and so "audience, figure this out all on your own" that it just becomes this big goopy thick mess of ... nothing.  Oh, better metaphor, it is like oatmeal.  Really thick, pasty oatmeal like my wife likes to eat it.  There are bits of wonderful fruit in there, like the actors, or small scenes that are really emotional, but you have to eat heaping spoonfuls of grey, lifeless, flavorless gunk to get to those good tasting bits, which only make up probably a tenth of the film, if not less.

The Academy's reaction to stupid oatmeal movie.

Let's talk about the acting.  Steve Carrel does ... ok.  Mark Ruffalo does ... Ruffalo-y.  And Channing Tatum knocks the ball out of the park.  So of course, he is the only that isn't nominated, which is a huge disservice to him.  He has so many scenes he does so well in.  And the others ... they just don't.

This movie feels like it was a script written to be about DuPont.  Then the real Mark Schultz got involved, as a producer and as a consultant, so some extra focus got put on the Mark Schultz character Channing Tatum played.  Then they found they had a GREAT actor doing an INCREDIBLE job, so they edited more of him into the film.  And they were right, the Schultz stuff was the great stuff in the movie.  But the original script was about du Pont, so the film and the director forced it to stay on that path, even though that is a disservice to the fantastic acting of Channing Tatum.

Channing, if you for some reason are reading this, I think you were robbed.  You did awesome.  And you are becoming a favorite actor of mine.  Keep making movies, even crappy ones, and keep working as hard as you seem to be.  I'll keep buying tickets.

All of that said, this movie is still above average.  It has a bunch of great components, it just focuses on the wrong bits and is a terrible slog to get through.  It is on the low end of a B, but it is still a B.

Grade: B

IHAO on ... Horrible Bosses 2

I did not see Horrible Bosses.  I didn't see it for a very simple reason: I don't like Charlie Day, Jason Sudekis, or really Jason Bateman.  If I don't like the three leading men in a comedy, yeah, pretty sure I don't want to see it.  And it isn't really their fault.  They are pretty decent actors.  It is just they almost always play the EXACT SAME CHARACTERS.  Jason Sudekis is smiling doofy idiot sex guy.  Charlie is manic high-pitched tweaked out idiot.  Jason Bateman is stuck up egotist know-it-all guy.  Why do I want to watch that over and over again?  Well, I was taken to the movies by a friend anyway, and he bought my ticket, so I watched it, knowing nothing of the first film.  Nothing, I couldn't tell you an ounce of plot.

Before I get into this movie, first I wanna talk about the trailers.  I haven't done a Trailer Trash in a long while, mostly because my tablet got broken and then replaced and the app I was using doesn't work as well on the new one.  Is that a thing you guys would like to see back?  Lemme know in the comments.  Anyway, I hadn't seen a lot of the trailers in front of this film, and it looks like we are in for a lot of stupid comedies coming up in the next few months.  I am not a stupid comedies kind of guy, not really.  Sometimes I can get behind one, and sometimes the craft of the comedy is perfect, but in the end, I always prefer cool characters doing cool things, and comedies tend to focus on garbage characters doing asinine things.  So be looking forward to those reviews coming this first few months of the year 2015.

This is what my theater going experience is probably going to be like until April.  Help me.

Ok, so Horrible Bosses 2 ... was way more enjoyable than I expected.  In fact, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, the third act in particular.  The movie opened with a bunch of Austin Powers style jokes and the kind of dialogue you expect from Always Sunny meets SNL meets Arrested Development, which irritated me to no end.  The ... I guess they were too big to be "cameos" but man they sure felt like cameos for Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, and Jamie Foxx, whatever, their parts were ... meh.  The actual plot tried to fit the idea of this whole "bosses" thing too many times in five minutes, as if being self-employed is some huge deal.  But once we actually met Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine, and the plot actually started going with the kidnapping and stuff, the movies started to get me involved instead of just rolling my eyes and sighing at the stupid sex jokes and gross out humor.

Then Act 3 happened.  And man, did it impress me.  One of my favorite movies of the past few years was Tower Heist.  It had heart, it was really funny, it was pulse-pounding, and it was a good heist film!  That's what this movie turned into, for the most part.  There was a small worthless section with Jennifer Aniston I could have done without, but yeah, it was pretty fantastic.  It played out in a really cool way that I know I have seen before, but not done this well or like this.  Sean Anders, who I had completely written off as a terrible director actually did some really great work!  I am still legitimately impressed with how well the last third of the movie went.

I wish I could say the rest of the movie was worth watching for me.  But I bet you if you like a harmless adult comedy, and like the comedians here, and don't care about stupid plot and characters, that this movie will not only be a comedy you'll really enjoy, but it may also actually impress you.

Grade: B ... ALMOST +

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 ... 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 ... Rosewater

Some real terrible stuff happens in the world.  Some really awful stuff happens in the world.  And some really bad stuff happens in the world.  Rosewater is the story of something bad that happened in the world, in a script adapted from a man's accounts of what happened, written by a man who feels responsible.  Jon Stewart, of Daily Show and Big Daddy fame, wrote and directed this film.  I don't mean to put words in his mouth, but from all accounts I've read, he is very passionate about this, and feels probably at least some to blame for the real world bad thing that happened.

The story is that of a real British-Irani journalist who, because of a joke correspondence he did with the Daily Show, got thrown in jail for treason and espionage for close to 120 days.  This is a real story, though dramatized.  Gael Garcia Bernal plays our lead, and he does a goodjob.  He is the best part of this movie.  He, and the little bits, little flashes of interesting things that Jon Stewart does in the director's chair.

That is ultimately the problems with the film, it only really excels in tiny flashes.  It is mostly a good film, with very few problems, though there are some like a little sound mixing problems and a few distracting visuals.  But it doesn't quite excel in anyway beyond those brief flashes.  It is a good film, I'll go so far as to say a pretty good one, but I found myself getting bored a little every now and again, and the film becomes a little repetitive throughout Act 2 and 3.  That was purposeful, but it was also ... amateurish.  There are better ways to show the isolation and desperation in the language of film: wider camera angles, smaller spaces, smarter editing so that the hallucinations actually feel like they are not there instead of just being there in certain shots.

Ultimately, as bad as this is, part of the point of the film and the real world circumstance is that worse stuff happens.  And while the film does a great job of letting us know stuff like this happens, it is also small potatoes compared to other things going on, and again, that is part of the film.  It makes the film feel small and not quite necessary because the stakes are just not that high.  Our protagonist is constantly told that he really isn't being tortured that badly, and we watch that be the case.  I'm not saying what he went through isn't bad.  The film just needed to make its stakes higher for us, the audience.  Which it couldn't, because its hands were tied by a new director and a story that is about how everything our lead went through isn't all that bad comparitively.

The movie is a good one.  And there is some symbolism used very early that is beautiful.  But Stewart is a new director who isn't quite ready for "greatness."  He is perfectly fine.  And the film is perfectly fine, and it strives for great.  Doesn't make it there, but it does a good job.

Grade: B

IHAO on ... Nightcrawler

Some movies are great films because of the firm hand directing them.  Many Fincher films are like that, like Gone Girl.  Some films are strong because of their ensemble's chemistry with each other, like Our Idiot Brother.  Some films are excellent because they have a tight script, or their sound is spectacular.  But some films are great films based solely on the single lead actor's performance.  Nightcrawler is one of those movies.

I do not like Jake Gyllenhaal.  He is not an actor I have come to like, and in fact, I have in the past said that he makes a bad leading man that brings down films he is the leading man of.  And Gyllenhaal knocks this movie right out of the park with his spectacular performance.  Nightcrawler is a character study about an odd thief who finds a new line of work in "night crawling" or following the police scanner for violent and terrible crimes, filming it, and selling it to networks for their morning news.  And that is what this movie is, watching Lou Bloom, Gyllenhaal's character, and slowly picking apart and learning what kind of man he is.

As an actor, I love a character study.  And as a film guy, I love a character study.  The Hurt Locker I've said many times before is one of my favorite films because it is an intense character study of what makes the lead man, Jeremy Renner's character, do what he does.  Pain & Gain is another film I love with some intense ensemble character acting.  Birdman has some incredible acting in it, Oscar award nominee deserving acting.  And Nightcrawler is ... almost as good as those films.  It isn't Gyllenhaal's fault, let me be clear.

Explain yourself then, me!  To them, because I already know.  Because I add the gifs after I finish the review.  So yeah, me, tell 'em!

Film is a collaborative effort.  I mentioned and linked to Gone Girl above, and that film I gave a B+ to because even though the directing is phenomenal, the script and dialogue left some to be desired.  Nightcrawler has an incredible leading performance that has drastically turned me around on my thoughts of Jake Gyllenhaal ... but the direction by first-time director, multi-time writer Dan Gilroy made some odd choices that took me out of the film.  A lot of heavy-handed imagery, some odd choices for how to portray tension in a scene with obnoxious close-ups, and some fatty bits of other characters and scenes that really needed to be as slickly edited as the rest of the film all left me a little colder to the overall product.  All understandable for a first time director, but nonetheless a little on the nose.

This is a good movie.  A very good one.  And it tries to be great.  Gilroy writes a fantastic script.  And Gyllenhaal was more than excellent.  Small acting choices, or the disturbing lack of expression or wit makes Lou Bloom a fascinating character that will keep me coming back to the film over and over.  But every time I come back, I will once again see a heavy-handed montage of satellites and wires to show news being broadcast, or the final shot's slow obnoxious zoom, or myriad other things that all make this film a little harder to stay invested with.  This is the perfect example of a "B" film under my grading system.  It is a great movie, with some large flaws that keep it from reaching what it really could have been.

Grade: B++

EDIT: I made a huge mistake in my original posting of this review, attributing the film to Michael Mann.  I do not know why or how I confused Michael Mann into the mix of this film, as he is nowhere near this movie.  The closest he was ... was in the trailer for Blackhat that was before this movie.  Somehow I mashed them together.  So I need to say now that knowing that this is a first time directing part for Dan Gilroy, who wrote the wonderful Real Steel and the AMAZING The Fall, I really have come to like this movie a lot more.  It is still a B for me on the pure objective side of things, but I love Gilroy, and as weird as it sounds, to hear this is his first gig as a director makes me like the movie even more than I already did.

My apologies to anyone I steered wrong earlier, but there we go, caught it and fixed it.

IHAO on ... Big Hero 6

This may just be the hardest review I've ever had to write.  Why?  Because my subjective opinion makes me really really look down on this perfectly fine and fun kids action movie.  Let me make that perfectly clear, because you will see me using more words talking about how much I don't like it: I like this movie, and it is a very fun and good kids movie.  It is not a great movie.  But it is a good movie for kids.

Why am I having such a hard time with this?  Because I love Big Hero 6, the comic book.  And as an adaptation, this movie is utter trash.  The only thing that even remotely resembles the comic book is the characters names and Go Go Tomago.  That's it.  The setup, the setting, the backgrounds of the characters, the characters powers, the character's costumes, the themes, the bad guys, the style of superhero story.  Every single other thing is so utterly different that there is no point in this even being an adaptation.  Any of those things I listed are fine to change in an adaptation - in fact, they should be changed.  Some.  Not completely.  Not to be 100% unrecognizable to the people who you are trying to draw in off the recognition of the name, because that name doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things unless you know the source material, which doesn't factor into the movie at all!!  In fact, if it wasn't called Big Hero 6, if it had different character names, and if Go Go's powers were replaced with some other powers, this movie I would have liked more.

I'm going to explain myself better, jeez.  I told you this one was hard to write!

Ok, the good things: it is beautiful.  This film has some location shots that I cannot fathom were not real locations, they are so beautifully put together.  The camerawork and direction of this film is fantastic.  The acting is ... well, it isn't great, but the more I think about it, the more some characters really stood out: Scott Adsit's Baymax easily, but also Daniel Henney as Tadashi.  Maya Rudolph and T.J. Miller were a little distractingly ad lib sounding, and Genesis Rodriguez and Damon Wayans Jr. were both a little distracting in general, overall the voice cast did a good job.  And to be fair, I am being really nitpicky.

The real problem, for me as a film critic and not just a lover of the source material (as bastardized as this movie is from it), is the script.  Beyond the adaptation, which I could talk about for another couple thousands words I'm sure, this script is very very strangely written.  It is not a team movie like you would think a movie that is titled after the name of the team in the movie should be.  No, it is about Hiro, a genius teenage robotics whiz-kid, and his relationship with his brother, Tadashi, and his brother's robot, Baymax.  That is what the movie is about.  All the other characters probably have ... a fourth the screentime that these three do.  The dialogue is hackneyed, the callbacks are plentiful and lame, and the story is very small feeling, which is unfortunate.  There area total of 6 people who worked on the script, not to mention the original character creators from the comics.  That is a lot of voices to have to juggle in one script, and doesn't even begin to mention all the producers' voices and the directors'.  The product of all these voices is a very marketable, very cliche, very ... watchable film.  The story twists aren't twisty at all, the characters are two-dimensional at best, the pacing is very very segmented, there is even a tie-in Fall Out Boy-sung montage section, the emotional beats are humdrum ...

But then I look back at my wife, who sat next to me at the movies.  And for her, these characters were all real, and enjoyable.  The story, while cliche and been-there-done-that-nothing-new-or-even-different territory, still hit home, and the emotions she felt for these characters, especially Baymax, were very genuine.

Like I said, this isn't a bad movie.  Nowhere near one.  It is a good movie.  It is a good movie, not a great one, that just happens to fail in ways that irk me much MUCH stronger than most viewers, I bet.  This is a film I will own, because I know my kids will enjoy it.  And I will sit down with them, and watch it.  This isn't Guardians of the Galaxy, which was a great superhero team movie that was able to balance humor, action, emotion, character, and be smart and clever in its writing, but it is a good place to start.  This is a hard one to grade.  But I feel good, because I have at least presented an honest critique, and my honest opinion.  And that's what you come here for, at least, every Monday through Friday at 10 AM.  I think.  Ok, now I'm the bad writer.  Let's ... just ... end this ... now.

See ya Monday.

Bye.

Grade: B+-