Movie Catching Up, Part Three

And now to begin the home stretch of my movie catching up!

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Star Trek Beyond is the latest installment of the recent reboot. The Enterprise is heading for a starbase to restock supplies; meanwhile, Captain Kirk is having doubts as to whether he wants to continue on the ship's five-year mission. The ship is dispatched to respond to a rescue signal when it is ambushed by a villain named Krall. Despite some decent action sequences it seems like a flimsy plot. I've read a couple comments that compare it to a TV series episode. I don't think I would go that far but it seems like a standard plot for Star Trek.

Probably the most notable thing about it isn't part of the plot but the revelation that Sulu has a husband and family. It's a nod to the openly gay George Takei, the original Sulu, but he was not pleased, because he wanted a new gay character, not changing the orientation of one of the established ones. My grade: C.

War Dogs is based on a true story  (with embellishments, I'm sure), David (Miles Teller) is laboring away in 2005 as a massage therapist as well as a failed venture to sell high-quality bedsheets to nursing homes. At a funeral he reconnects with a high school friend, Efraim (Jonah Hill), who offers David a job at his new venture, buying arms and reselling them to the US Government during the Iraq War. David's learns his girlfriend is pregnant. The couple are both anti-war but David takes the job anyway. lying to her about his "business trips" (soon the guys are in the Middle East running guns to fill their orders) and his sudden income increase.

Both leads are appealing, though Hill often finishes a sentence with a laugh that's painful to hear. The "lying to girlfriend" angle is stale and the plot seems too far-fetched for a "true " story. My grade: C-plus.

And then there's Sausage Party, an animated movie for adults (very deserving of the R rating) which actually has an interesting premise. Inside a supermarket, all the products for sale worship people as their gods. They believe when they're "chosen" (i.e. purchased) they go to the "great beyond." Some items, though, are nonbelievers, non-perishables who claim to have returned from the great beyond and seen the horrible truth.

A sausage named Frank (Seth Rogen) and his girlfriend Brenda, a hot dog bun (Kristen Wiig) are happy to be chosen despite being warned by a nonbeliever. A mishap causes their packages to be left behind, unfortunately. Frank decides to journey to the liquor aisle because a bottle of liquor named Firewater is said to be an expert about the reality of the great beyond.

Oh, did I mention that Firewater is a Native American?

And here's the problem. Whatever statements the filmmakers (cowritten and coproduced by Rogen) are making -- about religion and beliefs and how they can divide us -- are completely overwhelmed by the "humor." Stereotypical humor (see: Firewater; a lesbian taco, and bickering bagel and lavash). Scatological humor. Sexual humor (ha ha, look at the giant orgy! Look at the douche, name of Douche, unload his product into the...I've said enough.) I think I actually laughed out loud twice, and that doesn't cut the mustard. My grade: D-minus.

That's all the movies I've seen in the theater. But I'm not done. I recently watched some movies On Demand and I've decided to write about those as well. Stay tuned!

Quick Review: This Is The End

And now back to our regularly scheduled movie review programming. (I hope.) I expected a lot from the trailer for This Is The End and, unlike a lot of movies recently, this one mostly lived up to my expectations. A comedy in which the Apocalypse takes place is one thing. When it focuses on how this event affects Hollywood celebrities, that's another story. And when those celebrities -- James Franco, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel and Danny McBride are the stars, with many other cameos, from Rihanna to Michael Cera to Channing Tatum -- are playing exaggerated versions of themselves, it goes to the next level. Lots of raunch, but also lots of laughs and some meta commentary about the celebs themselves, their importance (or lack thereof), how they're perceived by the public and media, etc., and a little stab at religious beliefs (after all, the Apocalypse is happening). Had me laughing almost from the start to the finish. My grade: A-minus.

Quick Reviews: Miserable(s) Hobbit Guilt

Another wrapup of three movies I've recently seen. (The title format for these movie posts might become a regular thing.) Also, these and a few others will go into the 2012 summary based on their release date, not when I actually get to see them, although in these three cases I actually did see them in 2012. Warning: you might find my opinion of one of these to be controversial.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was just too long, drawn out, at times incredibly boring. The only reason to expand this story into a trilogy like its "Lord of the Rings" predecessor is money. Don't let anyone tell you differently. However, I thought it looked wonderful. I watched the 48-frames-per-second version (twice the standard rate), which caused a lot of consternation when some early footage was released, and despite the fact that I also had to endure 3D, I found it to be extremely crisp visually. My grade: C-plus.

Not filmed in 3D or 48 frames per second, The Guilt Trip will cause no consternation or controversy whatsoever. As a mother-and-son duo making a cross-country trip we're given a phoning-it-in Barbra Streisand and a neutered-for-PG13 Seth Rogen. There are a few mild laughs but there's nothing new or innovative about this at all. It's basically harmless. My grade: C.

Let be me honest: I walked out of Les Miserables early. I saw over an hour, but that was enough. I am not against musicals, even musicals with virtually no spoken dialogue whatsoever. I like musicals. But this one just sounded like everyone sang the same loooooooooooooong song. Even as one scene bleeds into another, even as the film jumps years ahead to continue the story, the songs were virtually indistinguishable. (Compare it to "Evita," which also has very little speaking and also has a couple of time jumps, but at least there's variety and clarity.) The only things that snapped me out of my stupor: Anne Hathaway's passion in singing "I Dreamed A Dream" and woefully-miscast Russell Crowe's painful vocals on whatever song or songs he sang. As it went on, and as more characters were introduced, I became increasingly disinterested. This was an absolute mess in every way (except the aforementioned Hathaway bit). Finally, I could take no more. And I even I managed to sit through all of "Rock of Ages." Still, I'm giving it a better grade than "Rock of Ages" just because of "I Dreamed A Dream." So, it's got that going for it, which is nice. My grade: D-minus.

Quick Review: 50/50

I'm not sure if it had something to do with "Green Hornet" or not, but I'm starting to tire of Seth Rogen's act. I suppose his character in "50/50" was supposed to act the way he did. After all, he was in a sense playing himself. "50/50" was written by Will Reiser, Rogen's friend, and is loosely based (so much so that their names are changed in the film) on Reiser's being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and how Rogen helped get him through chemo, and then surgery. The movie explains why Seth...I mean, Kyle, reacted the way he did to Will's...I mean, Adam's situation. Adam is played by the always adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and whether Adam's dealing with his medical situation or the responses of his friend, his mother (Anjelica Huston), his needy girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), or his fresh-out-of-college psychologist (Anna Kendrick), Gordon-Levitt never fails to connect. I'd have rated this higher but, you know, I'm just getting a little tired of Seth Rogen. Sorry. My grade: B.

Quick Review: Paul

Another example of a movie that started out slowly and then grew on me as it went on is "Paul." It starts out with Graeme and Clive (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who've done this before in "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz") coming from Britain to the US to attend the San Diego Comic-Con, and then take a road trip in a rented RV to sites of famous alien encounters such as Area 51. On the trip they have a run in with a couple of homophobic rednecks -- the running joke is that everyone thinks they're a couple -- at a diner (Jane Lynch makes a great waitress),  and then witness a car crash where they meet Paul, a real live alien...well, animated, with Seth Rogen's voice. Paul is escaping from the government agency that's been keeping him around since 1947, when his ship crashed on Earth, and needs help getting to the rendezvous point where he's to be picked up by a rescue ship. At a trailer park they meet Ruth (Kristen Wiig) who runs the place along with her father. They're devout Christians to the point where they don't believe in evolution -- or aliens. This is a problem when Ruth sees Paul, and Graeme and Clive end up taking Ruth along for the ride lest she alert the authorities. The beginning, with all the comic-book stuff and the rednecks, was too obvious and cliched, and the running gag about Graeme and Clive being a couple irritated me. But it's well-acted, and as the movie got into the chase aspect (Jason Bateman, as the lead agent trying to track down Paul, and Sigourney Weaver, as his superior, are excellent), and as Ruth, now questioning everything she believed since she now knows aliens are real, starts to let loose, the humor begins to shine. Lots of nods to sci-fi of all kinds, especially Steven Spielberg (who has a cameo). My grade: B.

Quick Review: The Green Hornet

I mentioned somewhere (maybe on Twitter) that I was confused by the promotional campaign for "The Green Hornet." The theatrical trailer had some comedic elements but concentrated more on the main story: ne'er-do-well playboy Britt Reid (Seth Rogen), affected by the death of his newspaper-publisher father, takes up the mantle of the Green Hornet to fight crime in Los Angeles. The TV commercials in the days immediately before the film's release, however, made it seem like more of a comedy or a spoof than the typical superhero movie. I suppose, in retrospect, the presence of Rogen (and the fact that he co-wrote the screenplay) should have tipped me off from the start. He's never been so annoying, and the entire thing is basically Britt Reid being a boorish, incompetent jackass from start to finish. Even at the end, when a hero in movies is typically at his or her best, he's pretty much completely lost without his sidekick Kato, his father's mechanic who's also got mad martial arts skills. Even Kato's not immune to buffonery at times, though, especially when the two clash over Lenore (Cameron Diaz), hired by Britt Reid as an assistant at the paper. Kato is played by Jay Chou, a Taiwanese singer/actor making his Hollywood debut, and it's clear he's still learning to speak English. It does not go well, and almost comes off as a little racist. The best part of the movie was a cameo at the very beginning by James Franco. When the best part of the movie ends in the first five minutes... My grade: D.

My Week In Comics: Free Comic Book Day!

You can't go wrong with something that's free, right? Well, sometimes you get what you pay for. So it was with Free Comic Book Day. Each year on the first Saturday in May, comic book stores give away free books, especially provided by the publishers. The FCBD website lists 23 different free comics that were being given out this year.

This is the first time I actually went to a store on the day itself. I wasn't sure I would make it, but there was one book I really needed to get and I didn't want to risk waiting and hoping the supply wouldn't run out. Fortunately, softball practice ended early enough that I could make it to the store and get home in time for the last two periods of the Flyers playoff game. The store had a three-book limit on the freebies, but I ended up buying one of the non-free books anyway.

War of the Supermen 0: You can probably guess that this was the one I absolutely had to have. It's just a prologue to the main event, which will be occurring over the next 4 weeks (chronicling a war that lasts 100 minutes -- 25 minutes per issue), so not much actually happens. There are two stories here. First, Superman confronts General Zod, who's just declared war on Earth. Then, there's a short summary of what got us to this point, via a story being written by Lois Lane, who gets a surprise visitor on a dark and stormy night in the conveniently empty Daily Planet offices.

Bongo Comics Free-For-All 2010: Probably the best bargain of my three freebies, from the publisher of Simpsons Comics (and related titles) and Futurama Comics, although nothing Futurama is in this free book. There are four stories of various length, including a superhero mashup called "The League of Extraordinary Barts" starring Bartman, Stretch Dude and the Cupcake Kid. (And, by the way, I still don't understand why Bongo Comics doesn't have a website.)

Green Hornet 1 FCBD Edition: A publisher called Dynamite Entertainment provides the first few pages from 5 different stories starring the Green Hornet and Kato, set at various times (from the inside cover: "from the Golden Age to the present day to the near future") with some, umm, alterations -- apparently, in one story, written by Kevin Smith, Kato is now a woman. I have no intentions of buying any of these books, though. The few pages of each story failed to pique my interest. Of course, this also serves as hype for the upcoming Green Hornet movie starring Seth Rogen, which is unrelated to Kevin Smith in any way -- he had a story for a movie but the project fell apart and he's now adapting that story for his comic book.

As I mentioned, I did buy one book (which came out a few weeks ago) because I felt a bit weird about picking up nothing but freebies, and because anyone buying a copy of The Flash 1 -- the new ongoing series starring the Barry Allen Flash brought back to life in "Final Crisis" and kept alive through "Blackest Night" and now into the "Brightest Day" -- got a free Flash Ring. The story was rather interesting, but I don't know that I'll keep buying. I really have to watch my spending, and besides, they're not going to give out rings with it every month.

Quick Review: Funny People

This movie needs some lithium, stat. "Funny People," the latest from Judd Apatow, swings back and forth from a depressing story about a standup comic/movie star who learns he has a serious blood disease that will likely take his life within a year, to the more typical Apatow raunchfest with guys behaving badly, lots of sex jokes, etc. Adam Sandler plays the star; on the surface his life seems great, but he isn't close to his family and has no real friends. He hires a struggling comic (Seth Rogen, who lost some weight -- specifically for the movie, as the weight loss is referenced, or just because?) as a combination personal assistant/joke writer/opening act. The funny parts are fine, it's well-acted and there are some amusing cameo appearances, but the switches in tone are jarring, and it runs a little too long. My grade: C-plus.