The Way Way Back

Been a while.  Anyways,

I heard The Way Way Back being billed as a comedy, and given that last Steve Carell comedy I wasn't sure about it.  Then I heard it was written and directed by Jim Rash (the dean on Community) and figured what the hell, it's gotta have more merit than RED 2.

After seeing it, I'm not sure "comedy" was the intended genre.  Sure, there's some fun moments, but they only happen when Sam Rockwell is on screen.

You'll remember him as this guy from Iron Man 2

The Way Way Back is much more of a drama, and a pretty depressing one.  It follows an awkward 14 year old boy being dragged to a beach house for the summer by his mother and her prick of a boyfriend.  He hates his life and it appears everyone around doesn't care for him either.  He's taken under the wing of a childish and charismatic water park manager who helps him open up and blah blah etc.  Long story short, it's a movie about how children don't realize that, though they lack a certain amount of freedom, they have no major responsibilities, and how adults drown themselves in so many responsibilities that they've lost the freedom they earned.

So, yeah.. Hilarious.

Sorry kid

I know it sounds like I'm talking down on this movie, but that's not the case!  As a drama, it's great.  The characters are where this movie shines.  You can feel a backstory from every character the moment they're introduced, and in most cases you find out what really made them the way they are.  Everyone has a history and the acting shows it.  Sam Rockwell's character does his own thing and hates rules, maybe there's a reason for that?  Maybe you'll find out?

It's probably because he's Sam Rockwell and can do this.

The main character, Duncan, played by Liam James, is an incredibly awkward and quiet kid.  There's a lot going on in his mind, but he can never find a way to share it.  He rarely speaks, and when he does the words come out wrong or rambling. He has trouble telling when other people are serious or joking.  Conversations are difficult to keep up, small talk is completely foreign, and... wait a minute, is that the same haircut I had at 14?

This may be a bit too relatable...

You get to see him grow and change as he's dragged out of his comfort zone and become a real person instead of a fly on the wall.  It's a great character and a fantastic telling of this kind of story.  Don't expect to walk away feeling all that happy, but it's a good look into the lives of these interesting characters.

Olympus has Fallen

At least it's not G.I. Joe.

Olympus has Fallen is a pure action movie with little in the way of plot.  It's about the white house getting overrun by enemy forces, who are able to occupy it and take the president hostage.  Gerard Butler pretends to be an American patriot and former secret service agent, who is totally not stifling a Scottish accent, and is our country's only hope of stopping the threat and saving the president.

You'd think there'd be a small army of people around the white house who could stop something like this happening, and there is.  Unfortunately a few dozen guys dressed as tourists are able to create what becomes an obscene body count in this film.  There was no way to count how many people are killed on screen, but it has to be in the hundreds.

Worst Harlem Shake ever.

It's hard to find anything remarkable about this movie.  The plot is absurdly implausible, and only serves as a vehicle for all the violence to take place.  Nothing stands out other than the body count and action, which are at least done well enough to make the movie exciting.  It'll get your heart going and you might silently cheer to yourself when Butler gets his small victories, so you could still say it's entertaining.

Can't say I really recommend this film, but it is a passable way to spend some time, and it was decent enough to not make me hate myself while filling the gap before the summer movie season starts.

"You are now reading this in my voice. Titty sprinkles."

Oblivion

This is a difficult movie to write about without just saying you should go see it for yourself.  I try to stay spoiler free here, and this movie takes so many turns that it's hard to describe it without ruining something.

Let's give it a shot anyways.

Oblivion is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth (sort of).  About 60 years before the the story begins, aliens showed up out of no where and destroyed the moon, and with it much of the Earth was ravaged by natural disasters.  Then the invasion began (maybe).  The humans won the war (or did they?) and now Tom Cruise and his companion are cleaning up and gathering the last of the supplies humanity will need as they move to Titan (or will they?).

You see, there are a lot of questions brought up in the backstory, and it's not helpful that Cruise and his wife's memory had to be wiped before they began their mission on earth 5 years prior (or was it something else? GAH!).  The film does a good job of filling you in on key details at a snails pace, always leaving you guessing and trying to figure it out.  Uncovering the mystery is a big part of the enjoyment you get from this movie, so I'll stop talking about the plot now and let you do it yourself.

Is that the dick from Game of Thrones?  Watch and see.

Visually this movie is amazing.  Every sequence out in the open desolate world looks truly gritty and abandoned, with hints of the civilization that used to be there.  What I loved most was the clean futuristic environments like you see in their little outpost home and [spoiler removed].  They're heavily influenced by my favorite movie, Wall-E, and in turn another certain sci-fi space odyssey...

To say this movie makes nods to 2001 is like saying Pamela Anderson is a little chesty.

Overall I enjoyed this movie quite a bit.  It was a big budget sci-fi epic that delivered with a deep twisting story.  Whether you like Tom Cruise or not as a person should have nothing to do with it, he's still a solid actor who holds this movie up.

You also get to look at her a lot, so that's nice.

G.I. Joe Retaliation

Sometimes I hate this project.

G.I. Joe Retaliation is about the terrorist leader Cobra Commander escaping the prison he was apparently sentenced to in the first movie (I never saw, nor will I see it), because, you know, the biggest terrorist mastermind the world has ever known with capabilities to destroy a large metropolis would be allowed to live.  The President has been replaced by someone who's good with makeup and orders the Joes be taken out.  I liked this part because Channing Tatum gets offed early on in the film and I didn't have to watch him for the rest of it.  He was supposed to be the leader of the Joes, but every time he had to make a decision he just looked at the Rock anyway.  The remaining handful of Joes are now enemies of the state and yet still have to save the world.

Basically the plot is: Bang bang bang, stop talking, bang bang.

Rock angry!

That said, the action isn't good.  There's nothing more impressive than you've seen in other films, and often the camera angles break so many rules you have no idea what's going on anyway.

There is not a single line of dialog or thought that's even remotely original.  You can tell what every character is going to say just by thinking of the most cliche line possible.  It seems like the entire film was written by a 10 year old.  The most hilarious part was when they tried to hint at a romantic subplot, which lasts for one scene and nothing happens because girls have cooties.

Eww gross!

Here's where I spoil the ending:  The Joes save the day, Cobra Commander gets away so they can make a sequel, and everyone is happy because they've already forgotten about the dozens of Joes that were murdered.  Oh, and the 8.1 million people in the city of London, they're dead too.

It's not America so it's okay.

I cannot express just how much I hate this film.  The plot and dialog are a mess of cliches, technology is treated like wizardry, and there's not a single character to care about.  The evil plan the Cobras have revolves around disarming the worlds nuclear weapons, which doesn't seem that bad.  Hell, they killed Channing Tatum first thing in the movie, I was already rooting for them.  Even Bruce Willis doubling the amount of baldness couldn't make this movie good.

Rock sad...

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Here's a short review for you.  No.  Just no.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a movie about entertainers.  Let's review; It's a form of entertainment about entertainers.  Somehow, being entertained is the only thing you won't experience while watching this pile of crap.  You may, however, feel nauseous, bored, angry, annoyed, and slightly aroused.

 Literally the only reason to even consider watching this movie.

The plot:  A magician and his partner do the same act for decades and don't understand when they get fired.  Jim Carrey's character gains popularity by doing Chris Angel style stunts that leave him wounded.  A rivalry forms.  At this point I seriously started to think about my taxes and I'm pretty sure there was nothing left of note anyways.

Even though this film has comedians Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, you won't laugh once.  You won't even crack a smile, a grin, a smirk.  For 2 hours if a doctor looked at your face he would pronounce you dead.  Unfortunately you wouldn't be, you'd still be watching this.

The best part of this movie for me was the excuse to google pictures of Olivia Wilde.

Most Anticipated Movies of 2013

Here's a rundown of my most anticipated movies of 2013!  Let me know what you think of the list and what movies you're most excited about!

The Great Gatsby

Number 1 on my list is The Great Gatsby.  The book by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a genius work related more to painting or poetry than a novel.  In the trailers I haven't seen a single location or event that didn't look exactly as I had pictured while reading the book.

There are a couple issues that might come up.  First of all, the novel is fantastic because of the artful way Fitzgerald crafted the english language into a beautiful prose.  The written word isn't available on the silver screen though, and plot wise Gatsby doesn't have a whole lot going on.  It'll be interesting to see how it plays out and I'm sure the reviews will end up mixed.
Second issue I have is with the cast, particularly DiCaprio.  This might anger the internet, but I'm not a fan of his, at all.  Everyone wonders why he's never gotten an Oscar but to me it's obvious, he hasn't had a single performance worthy of one.  He's just not that good.  Maguire is an odd choice for Nick Carraway, but I'm hopeful the two will still make it a great movie.

The Great Gatsby comes out May 10th.

Ender's Game

Another film based on a novel, but come on, we all loved Ender's Game.  There's still no official trailer or any notable information on it, but we're all counting on it to be great.  I, for one, will be happy to finally see what the zero G war game is supposed to look like (I could never quite picture it).

Ender's Game comes out November 1st.

Iron Man 3

I'm not the super sophisticated movie aficionado all the time.  The Iron Man films, along with The Avengers, are just plain awesome.  The third appears to be taking a new direction from the previous ones.  It's a bit darker, but not trying to be emo and edgy like other sequels tend to do.  It still retains that classic Tony Stark feel, just with bigger odds and more to lose.  A great recipe.

Iron man 3 comes out May 3rd.

Animated Film Extravaganza

As you know, I'm an animator, and I'm excited for practically every animated feature coming out this year, so why not knock them out all at once.

Monsters University

 It's Pixar.  It's Monsters University.  Need I say more?  It comes out June 21st.

Despicable Me 2

I was only okay with the first installment.  The minions that everyone else loved seemed like a marketing cop-out to me, designed to be adorable and that's it.  The second film appears to have more going for it and has left me excited.  It comes out July 3rd.

Turbo

DreamWorks second major animated feature this year, first being The Croods.  The story of a snail who wants to race like Nascar.  Just the dynamic I usually push for in my own writing, but a bit more ridiculous.  It looks good though.  Turbo comes out July 17th.

Epic

Please ignore the dumb title.  Epic is the next film from Blue Sky and it looks great.  A story about a young girl looking for adventure who gets shrunk down and experiences a world in the forest that seems like a dream.  There's also more snails.  What is it with snails this year? Epic Comes out May 24th.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

I didn't want to like the first Cloudy, but it was written so hilariously and timed so well that it made me love it.  The second installment looks just as good, if not better.  It comes out September 27th.

Moving on...

Pacific Rim

Hell yes.  Giant robots fighting giant monsters.  What more do I have to say?  Guillermo Del Toro? Does that convince you?  It should.  This film looks like a mix of Evangelion, Gundam, Godzilla, and some wet dreams I had when I was 11.  It also has the voice of GLaDOS, I don't really know why.

Pacific Rim comes out July 12th.

The Bling Ring

What?  Does this seem weird?  Why would I be excited for a movie about a bunch of rich, preppy girls partying, stealing, and dealing with girl stuff?

No reason...

The Croods

So, if you haven't heard, I myself am an animator.  I love animation, I do animation, and I'm striving to one day work on films like this.  I'm warning you because this review might get a little technical, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

DreamWorks comes out with a pleasant surprise for the first major animated feature of the year!  (we're just going to ignore Escape from Planet Earth, everyone else did)

Nothing to see here...

I was very skeptical going into The Croods, largely due to the terrible MovieTickets ad that has played before every single film I've seen this year.  The other reason was the awful design for the title characters.

You ugly! And soulless!

Even so, I still trusted DreamWorks to deliver, and they did.  The story starts out rough and slowly becomes more meaningful, with incredibly warm moments towards the end (that cursed eye sweat again).  

The story is about a family of cavemen who live in fear of the world, and then the world starts crashing down around them.  They live on the supercontinent Pangea which is beginning to separate.  That kind of continental shift is very gradual, you know, like nearly a whole week...  Geological inaccuracies aside, it sets the stage for some stunning effects and forces the characters to move forward and leave their old ways behind.

The animation quality was surprisingly excellent, but made sense after I saw that legendary animator James Baxter served as the Head of Character Animation.  Each Crood is imbued with certain animal behaviors in their movements and everything flows wonderfully.  There are some moments when it felt like the animation got a little out of control, almost mo-cap like, and that drew me out a bit, but no one else should notice.

On the topic of animation I have to mention the camera work.  The start of the movie was a very, very rough ride.  The camera wouldn't stay still long enough to get an idea of where you were, and with no establishing shots it was hard to see the relation of each character and the environment.  The handheld feel was pushed beyond extreme, and just when I wanted to grab the camera and chain it down there's a sequence where it literally moves well over 200mph.  I didn't see much of that because my face was buried in my palms.  It does calm down later though, so don't worry.

While the characters were ugly I really have to commend the creature design.  All the animals were amazing to look at and incredibly creative.  I won't talk about them, I'll just show you pictures.

So fluffy!

Part cat, part owl!

Horrifying bird things!

...This!

The environments matched the creativity of the creatures and made for a huge world with vastly different ecosystems to explore.  All in all, a very pretty film to look at.

So it's got a great story, it's very pretty (minus the cast, but you'll get over that), and the animation is top quality.  Even from a critical animator jerk I'd definitely recommend this film to anyone, no matter your age.  Go see it, have fun.

The movie is worth it for this image alone.

Oz the Great and Powerful

The much anticipated Wizard of Oz prequel came out a couple weeks ago and I was very excited to see it.  Mostly because it was filmed right here in lovely Pontiac, Michigan.

Michiganders have a strange definition of "lovely."

I should start by saying that before I saw this I heard some poor reviews of the visuals, I'm guessing by people who saw it in 2D.  I saw it in 3D and the effects looked fantastic.  Green screens were comped out well and everything fit rather seamlessly with the bright, colorful style.

The acting is a bit silly and extravagant.  Imagine if Neil Patrick Harris was allowed to break the fourth wall, but had to be less awesome (nothing against James Franco, NPH is just too awesome).  Mila Kunis and her ass do a great job early in the film, but later on she gets dramatic as well.  Zach Braff, shockingly, plays an adorable character you can't help but love.  Basically Zach Braff plays Zach Braff. Again.

And you know what?  We're all okay with that.

In a nutshell, I loved this film.  The story is well done, if a little predictable.  There's some great characters I didn't expect, like the China Girl, who end up adding a lot to the story.  Meeting each witch and seeing the twists and turns each one causes was fun, and the visuals of their powers were great.  Oz himself was kind of a weak character, but that's the point.  He's a fraud and you have to ride along to see if he'll live up to his reputation.

Did I mention Mila Kunis' ass? In 3D?

The Fault in Our Stars

First book review!  Promised I'd do these as well as movies, so here's my review of John Green's book, The Fault in Our Stars!

TFiOS is a YA novel about kids falling in love and trying to deal with life.  They also have cancer, so there's that.  The story follows narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16 year old with Thyroid cancer that has metastasized to her lungs forcing her to be connected to an oxygen tank at all times.  Her chances of living much longer are incredibly narrow, and she had already avoided one very close brush with death years before, so that's something you're going to cry about.  She meets a guy named Augustus Waters in a cancer support group, and after some fumbles they form a deep connection.  Gus lost his leg to Osteosarcoma, but his cancer appears to be in remission.

I don't want to spoil any more of the story, I'll just say you're going to cry a lot.  I am an emotionless shell of a human and still felt some weird eye sweat forming every couple pages.

Particularly heart wrenching moments always seem to happen when the parents are involved.  I'm not a parent (though I do have a wonderful little niece), so I can't even imagine what parents go through in those situations.  The book isn't all sad the whole time, there's plenty of smart humor from intelligent characters and feel good moments.

"So Brian," you say.  "You are both a male and in your 20's, why are you reading this book?"  Well I'll tell you.  The author is John Green, one half of the Vlog Brothers channel on Youtube.  He also founded the free educational youtube channel Crash Course where he teaches history, literature, and more.  Pretty awesome. This may also be the first story that I'll end up reviewing twice, as just recently it was announced that TFiOS was picked up to be made into a movie, and just the other day they announced Shailene Woodley was cast as the lead.  And to add to all that cool news, just last night John Green was on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

The Fault in Our Stars is a fantastic book by a great author and just plain great guy which will make you sad and happy and all other sorts of emotions.  I greatly enjoyed the ride.

John Dies at the End

I've been waiting impatiently for over a year to see this movie. It finally came to Michigan during a limited showing last week and I was there for it's first screening!  If you're not familiar, which I assume may be the case, John Dies at the End was originally a book by Cracked.com writer David Wong.  Sort of.  You see, David Wong is a pseudonym the writer uses, and David Wong happens to be the protagonist of this story.  Confused?  Don't worry about it.

David and his buddy John come into contact with an otherworldly (literally) drug-like substance they call Soy Sauce.  The sauce makes them perceive things humans are not supposed to know about, things crossing over from other dimensions, things that wreak havoc, things that are horribly disgusting, things that often look like dongs.  The duo have to save the world from something the world doesn't even know is happening, and the only people who become aware usually go nuts and die.

JDatE is a great mixture of comedy and story, as you might expect from a Cracked writer.  It had a bit of a low budget and is reminiscent of old B horror movies, but it's got a great updated feel.  Instead of using CG for everything like other movies do nowadays, this movie uses a lot of props and puppets, which is awesome and should happen in all horror.

Meat monster here was great.

The main characters are played by some new faces, and did a remarkable job.  I wasn't sure about Chase Williamson's portrayal of Dave at first, but then I remember something important about Dave's character: In the book it is made very clear that if there is literally anything else in the world that Dave could be doing besides what he has to with John, he will.  If he could he would tour with Justin Bieber in London rather than save the world.  He doesn't give a damn, and Williamson pulls that off pretty well.  John on the other hand, thinks all of the craziness surrounding them kicks ass, and he wants to be on the front line with a dumb one-liner that somehow relates to balls (a lot of both the book and movie revolves around dick jokes).  The actor, who I will refer to as Eyebrows, does an excellent job of being part frat guy, part crazy badass.

Seriously.  His face is like 40% eyebrows.

The movie may not be perfect, nor for everyone, but I thought it was hilarious and a great throwback to better days of horror.  It was missing some fantastic scenes from the book, but I guess a Vegas theater full of people being massacred by giant spider meat monsters would have been pretty pricey to shoot.  The movie will be coming out on DVD soon, and there's still one more week of screenings I believe, so if you think you'd like it, I'd recommend taking a look.

I like you, Bark Lee, buy you're no Molly.

Jack the Giant Slayer

This week I saw the "new" film Jack the Giant Slayer.  I say "new" because it was supposed to come out last year, but its release now makes for a great few weeks for actor Nicholas Hoult.  Hoult plays the title character, Jack, and if you remember, he was also the star zombie in Warm Bodies.  Even after these two great movies I can't say I'm a big fan of his, but he did get some nice roles.

Jack the Giant Slayer is a retelling of the classic Jack and the Beanstalk story, except instead of one giant in the clouds there's an army of them.  These giants have had a taste for human blood for a long time, but until now have had no way of getting down to eat them.  Jack must climb the beanstalk to save a princess with the help of Stanley Tucci, who really overplays the villain character, and the fabulously haired knight Obi Wan Kenobi.

Seriously. They spend 90% of this movie soaking wet, and his hair looks like this just minutes later.

Can't talk about Jack without mentioning the amazing visual effects and character work.  They constructed a whole world in the sky for the giants, their homes and halls grimy and worn just like the giants themselves look.  Each giant has its own unique look and personality, and several of the main giants are even developed and animated so well that you can feel their dimensionality without the need for dialog.  You can feel a subtle rivalry between the leader of the giants, Fallon, and his right hand man Fumm, though it's hardly spoken (Fee, Fye, Foe, and Fumm are some of the main giants. DO YOU GET IT?).  The actors and Giants work together in the same shots remarkably well.  You never feel like an actor is looking into empty space when they're trying to look a CG giant in the eye, and the compositing is nearly perfect.  The only gripe I had about the visuals was how high the specularity was on the giants skin, but that's technical stuff I geek out on because it's my thing leave me alone.

In the end, the story was good with great moments of escalation and respite, heightened by an orchestral track you would expect in a fantasy epic.  The acting is a little in-your-face and at times feels like it was meant for children's amusement (especially when Tucci was involved), but it worked with the over-the-top setting.  The visuals and animation were fantastic.  All in all, a very enjoyable movie.

If you needed any more convincing, it also has Warwick Davis.