FLIX!
Uptight over-achieving FBI special agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) has to leave the New York office and go to Boston. She needs to catch a drug lord, and her next promotion depends on it. She is very by-the-book and is not liked by any of her co-workers. While in Boston she encounters foul-mouthed Boston Police Detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) and they could not be more incompatible. But through a weird turn of events, they end up having to work on the case together. And therein lies the fun.
But even before that team-up, this movie is fun. Sandra Bullock in the scenes before she leaves for Boston are fun. Melissa McCarthy is a scream the entire time she is on the screen.
Shannon Mullins is not liked by anyone, anymore than Sarah Ashburn is. Detective Mullins is hated by her own family for having arresting her own brother Jason (Michael Rappaport) who has recently gotten out of prison.
I won't go on and on about the storyline, because honestly, it's pretty standard stuff. Not to say it isn't funny. Because it is. This movie is a laugh riot from beginning to end. Melissa McCarthy is wonderful, but so is Sandra Bullock. The scene in a barroom when Detective Mullins is leading the way is terrific. The stuff they do with scotch tape is hysterical. The way they dance with old guys....it's just funny stuff.
And to add icing to the cake there is a small but great cast around these two. Besides the aforementioned Michael Rappaport, there is Tom Wilson (Biff in Back to the Future) as Mullins' Capt. Woods, Michael McDonald (MAD TV) as bad-guy Julian, Marlon Wayans as FBI Agent Levy, Demian Bichir (of Weeds fame) as FBI boss Hale, and Jane Curtin (Saturday Night Live) as Mrs. Mullins.
This movie did everything I want a movie to do. It entertained me for an hour and a half and justified what we paid for Pop, Popcorn, and the wife's must-have Cotton Candy. Many times it was like watching a Don Rickles performance. You want to see it again to catch the stuff you were laughing through the first time. Plus it is a buddy picture that features women in an even-handed way. Through all the zaniness we still care about them and understand that though they are both loners, they are both people that deserve respect, love, and happiness.
This was a fun movie and easy to write about. I loved it.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Man of Steel
FLIX!
To tell you how pathetic this whole experience was, I am not even sure of the correct title of this film. Is it Superman - Man of Steel, or simply Man of Steel? It matters not, but it would be nice to know for sure.
This is Superman folks. Since the Batman series has started over and been very successful in three recent films, and Spiderman has even already been re-done in The Amazing Spiderman, logically it is time to renew the Superman franchise.
The project was handed to Zack Snyder. Zack is not know for making films that don't have a dark edge (Watchmen, 300). The thing is, Superman has always been more of an "into the light" character. But with things being the way they are in Hollywood, they feel a need to toughen up even the likes of Superman.
The movie tells the story of Superman in what begins in a very conventional way, giving us the history of what was happening on Kryton, a planet that was self-destructing - how Jor-El (Russell Crowe) got his newborn son into a rocket and sent him off just before the planet exploded. Then, however, we then get the background of what happened after in a series of flashbacks, that were frankly, like the rest of this movie, just brief filler in between huge overly produced action sequences. This was totally disrespectful to the Superman story.
Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman is about the only redeeming thing about this exploitative blow-stuff-up-and-they-will-come piece of Krytonite. Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Lawrence Fishburn, and Russell Crowe are all used here for name recognition reasons only. And possibly also because Snyder wanted to be able to drop names at parties - "well, you know when I worked with Russell Crowe...". The aforementioned actors played bit parts that anyone could have done and in fact might have been great launching pads for up-and-comers.
The story line becomes a bit convoluted, mostly because there isn't much of one. Let me be honest. The people who wrote and directed this are a couple of pimply-faced 20-somethings that spent their formative years playing video games, and it shows. Any dialogue or furthering a story-line were merely brief snippets between over-the-top action sequences that dragged on and frankly became boring. One on-and-on predictable fight scene after another became tedious, and I wanted to yell at the screen, "Alright already!"
Amy Adams as Lois Lane? I haven't seen casting this bad since John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Hey since you were casting big shots all over the place, why not make Mary Louise Parker Lois Lane? Oh wait. That might have added plausibility to this piece of crap.
Avoid this mess, unless you're a X-box junkie. This is a flimsy telling of an otherwise solid story. This is roughly a 2 hour music video without the music. It is dark, and they want it that way. They have made the Superman costume in a more porous "tougher looking" material. The chest emblem is now leather or something and much too high on the chest. This is more awkward attempts of as I've said, attempts to toughen up Superman.
I knew I'd made a serious mistake entering this theater when I kept thinking, "and we could have seen 'The Interns'." But look, it doesn't matter what I say, or how you spend your money, since this piece of crap has already done over 117 million in business. They have already announced Part II and have given the helm once again to Zack Snyder. Hey Zack, take David Goyer with you and get a library card and actually read a book. Find out what a story is all about. You might actually like it.
But I'll bet the next one doesn't do the business this one did. This one was built on hope, and we were let seriously down.
To tell you how pathetic this whole experience was, I am not even sure of the correct title of this film. Is it Superman - Man of Steel, or simply Man of Steel? It matters not, but it would be nice to know for sure.
This is Superman folks. Since the Batman series has started over and been very successful in three recent films, and Spiderman has even already been re-done in The Amazing Spiderman, logically it is time to renew the Superman franchise.
The project was handed to Zack Snyder. Zack is not know for making films that don't have a dark edge (Watchmen, 300). The thing is, Superman has always been more of an "into the light" character. But with things being the way they are in Hollywood, they feel a need to toughen up even the likes of Superman.
The movie tells the story of Superman in what begins in a very conventional way, giving us the history of what was happening on Kryton, a planet that was self-destructing - how Jor-El (Russell Crowe) got his newborn son into a rocket and sent him off just before the planet exploded. Then, however, we then get the background of what happened after in a series of flashbacks, that were frankly, like the rest of this movie, just brief filler in between huge overly produced action sequences. This was totally disrespectful to the Superman story.
Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman is about the only redeeming thing about this exploitative blow-stuff-up-and-they-will-come piece of Krytonite. Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Lawrence Fishburn, and Russell Crowe are all used here for name recognition reasons only. And possibly also because Snyder wanted to be able to drop names at parties - "well, you know when I worked with Russell Crowe...". The aforementioned actors played bit parts that anyone could have done and in fact might have been great launching pads for up-and-comers.
The story line becomes a bit convoluted, mostly because there isn't much of one. Let me be honest. The people who wrote and directed this are a couple of pimply-faced 20-somethings that spent their formative years playing video games, and it shows. Any dialogue or furthering a story-line were merely brief snippets between over-the-top action sequences that dragged on and frankly became boring. One on-and-on predictable fight scene after another became tedious, and I wanted to yell at the screen, "Alright already!"
Amy Adams as Lois Lane? I haven't seen casting this bad since John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Hey since you were casting big shots all over the place, why not make Mary Louise Parker Lois Lane? Oh wait. That might have added plausibility to this piece of crap.
Avoid this mess, unless you're a X-box junkie. This is a flimsy telling of an otherwise solid story. This is roughly a 2 hour music video without the music. It is dark, and they want it that way. They have made the Superman costume in a more porous "tougher looking" material. The chest emblem is now leather or something and much too high on the chest. This is more awkward attempts of as I've said, attempts to toughen up Superman.
I knew I'd made a serious mistake entering this theater when I kept thinking, "and we could have seen 'The Interns'." But look, it doesn't matter what I say, or how you spend your money, since this piece of crap has already done over 117 million in business. They have already announced Part II and have given the helm once again to Zack Snyder. Hey Zack, take David Goyer with you and get a library card and actually read a book. Find out what a story is all about. You might actually like it.
But I'll bet the next one doesn't do the business this one did. This one was built on hope, and we were let seriously down.
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