Review: ‘Sausage Party’

SausageParty_Poster“Sausage Party” is the story of how a fella named Frank goes on a journey of discovery, as he always “knew” one truth about The Great Beyond but then suddenly was presented with evidence that showed him something else, something that propelled him to figure out what really awaits everyone in the next world, and he becomes determined to take this new information and let everyone else know about it so they can all be in on the grand ultimate truth together.

You see, when things start out, Frank (Seth Rogen) and Brenda (Kristen Wiig) are just a couple of lovebirds waiting for the correct, predetermined time for them to be able to consummate their love, and they are surrounded by like-minded folks all wanting the same thing. And near them are other groups, with differences throughout but still all united under one common theme – awaiting The Great Beyond. In The Great Beyond they know they only have good things waiting for them, and these good things change depending on what each group wants, but it all boils down to “good times for all.” Everyone is so excited for the grandness of The Great Beyond that they are desperate to get their soon, hoping every morning that would be the day they are chosen to move on.Continue Reading …

Review: ’50/50′

50-50-posterOn the list of phrases you are not likely to hear on an average Friday or Saturday night, “Let’s go see that cancer comedy” has to be pretty close to the top. That is hard sell for many people, considering how serious cancer is and how nearly everyone has been affected one way or another by cancer. It’s not a topic that people want to ruminate on for a couple hours of entertainment. Why would anyone even want to see such a film?

Well maybe because it’s actually very well done and strikes an interesting balance between R-rated comedy and sincere drama, sometimes switching between the two very quickly and with surprising ease. This is “50/50,” the cancer comedy you never knew you wanted, but it is here and it is very good.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is 27 years old, works in radio, has his own place, works out regularly, and avoids driving because it is the fifth likeliest way to die. He’s a very nice guy and even puts up with the shenanigans of his hot but strangely distant girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), the douchiness of his otherwise best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen), and the smothering of his overbearing but well-meaning mother (Anjelica Huston). So when he finds out that he has a rare spinal cancer, he’s definitely thrown for a loop. He’s a young, healthy guy with no vices, why would he ever expect to get cancer? But alas, that’s how it happens sometimes, and it happens to him, and he has to deal with it.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Bad Teacher’

bad_teacherThere are two types of crude humor usually employed in R-rated comedies these days. There’s the disgusting gross out humor, you know, the poopy-related stuff usually found in your typical Farrelly brothers film or any number of urine or toilet based Austin Powers gags. And then there’s the more sex-based crude humor, which involves jokes about oral sex and saying “tits” a lot, and the latter is where “Bad Teacher” traffics. What happens when you take a person pretty much unqualified to teach and put them in a room full of kids? Well, hilarity, for the most part.

In “Bad Teacher” we have Cameron Diaz going back to her comedy roots (lest we forget her star making roles in “The Mask” and “There’s Something About Mary“) and playing Elizabeth Halsey, a gold digger who took a teaching job only so she could skate by and focus on planning her wedding with her well off fiancé instead. But when the wedding falls through, she finds herself stuck in the school, struggling to get by and on the search for another wealthy guy to “take care of her.”Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Ghostbusters’

Ghostbusters_MoviePoster“Ghostbusters” is the story of a trio of scientists with expertise in the paranormal and how they opened a company in New York City in order to investigate a series of ghost sightings and supernatural activities. As they develop their tech and grow closer as a group, they find themselves at odds with the city and federal government who want them to stay out of public view and not cause a panic, which becomes difficult for this new team as they find themselves facing bigger and bigger threats, until finally it all comes to a head when they have to engage in a very public battle against a gigantic, building-sized foe determined to destroy the city and everyone in it.

Yup, that’s the plot for both the original 1984 movie and this new “Ghostbusters.” The details, however, all the little things that connect these big plot points are all very different. These are different characters with their own sets of problems, and the way these ghosts are summoned and the nature of these ghosts and what they do is all very different, and even the bickering between the city officials and the team takes on a different tenor, as this NYC mayor and his employees are much more media savvy. It is completely the same but also totally different and in a good way, making for an experience that is alternately classic and surprising. That doesn’t mean this movie couldn’t have been better, but it also works on its own terms in a pretty endearing way.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The BFG’

The BFG movie poster“The BFG” is an adaptation of a 1982 Roald Dahl book of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, and the last time these two made a movie together was back in 1982 with “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” so the pedigree of this particular movie is most certainly of a high quality, and as such some bigger expectations are involved because how can they not be? This story of a 10-year old orphan girl and her new friend, a 24-foot giant who collects dreams at the top of a mountain and blows them into children’s bedrooms at night, is very imaginative and goes to some surprising places if you are not familiar with the story going into it, and there was definitely potential there for a new children’s classic.

But “The BFG” does not live up to those kind of ridiculous expectations. While not an “insta-classic,” which is an admittedly absurd thing to expect ahead of time no matter the people involved, it is a perfectly fine film, overall very nice and bittersweet. There is also some darkness and danger, a staple of those great 1980’s Amblin movies we all know and love, but the prevailing feeling for the movie as a whole definitely leans towards saccharine, as both the tone of the movie and the story seem designed to elicit awe and delight, two things that Mr. Spielberg loves to represent on film.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Swiss Army Man’

SwissArmyMan_MoviePosterIn “Swiss Army Man,” a young man, stranded on a deserted island, finds possible salvation in the form of a corpse, washed up on the shore in front of him, a lifeless body which may be imbued with specific abilities that seem hard to believe and yet can enable this young man to find a way to survive.

The absurdity of this movie is made apparent within the opening minutes, but so is the ambitious and particular vision on display, coupled with just the right amount of odd beauty, all coming together to make one of those movies – either you are along for the ride or you are not. And people who choose this ride may find themselves oddly affected by this strangely touching story of a lonely man and his multi-purpose dead body.

Hank (Paul Dano) drags around the corpse (Daniel Radcliffe), somehow finding out his name is Manny, and together they get off that deserted island and make their way through the woods, trying to find civilization before Hank dies. Along the way, Hank starts talking to Manny, and at some point Manny starts talking back to him.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Central Intelligence’

CentralIntelligence_MoviePoster“Central Intelligence” is an action comedy that gets by on the great chemistry between leading actors and hopefully new comedy duo Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. The movie itself is kind of rote, as most of the action is very generic and not presented particularly well, and the plot used to justify this comedy team up seems very much like an afterthought, as there is a bunch of nonsense about “satellite codes” and some not-so-secret secret auction and some shadowy figure called “the Black Badger” that everyone chases and it really it just feels exactly like the kind of generic spy plot used in these type of action comedies (see: “Spy” and “The Brothers Grimsby” and so on). So as the story has nothing to offer and the action is mostly “meh,” then what does “Central Intelligence” have to offer?

Well first and foremost, Dwayne Johnson is definitely working his ass off in this movie as Bob Stone, a possibly disgraced CIA Agent (super agent really) who is insanely competent in terms of being a spy and is painfully socially stunted thanks to a childhood that consisted mostly of being bullied and an adulthood that consisted mostly of lifting weights and learning how to kill people for the government. When he meets up with the only person in high school who was ever nice to him, his wide eyed enthusiasm and overly sincere accolades are both funny and a little off putting because it is obvious this guy has a screw or two loose, apparently jarred loose by a traumatic childhood that he has never gotten over. This coupled with his abilities as a spy make him a very unpredictable person, and hence, an interesting and fun character to follow. He has real emotional hang ups to get over, all the while trying to do this silly thing with the satellite codes and whatever other hooey they made up to get this plot in motion.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Finding Dory’

FindingDory_PosterAfter an initial viewing, it doesn’t appear that there is anything “wrong” with the newest movie from Pixar and Disney, “Finding Dory,” the sequel to the smash hit “Finding Nemo” that no one was really asking for, and yet here it is, and you know what? It is pretty damn good, which of course we should be expecting from these fine artists, who have now spent decades crafting finely made and expertly tuned feature length movies, many of which seemed ridiculous at the outset, only to end up being deeply moving and effective pieces of art. If this were coming from another studio, it would feel like a cash grab, but since this is from Pixar, it is more of a chance to revisit some beloved characters and introduce new ones and tell a solid story with some familiar pieces and some new pieces.

There are a couple of similarities between “Finding Dory” and its predecessor. In the first movie, Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), the blue tang fish with short term memory loss, helps the clown fish Marlon (Albert Brooks) find his missing son Nemo. This time around, Marlon and Nemo agree to help Dory find her parents, whom she got separated from at a young age and naturally forget them over time. But she remembers them suddenly and wants to go find them, and it is important to note that this movie isn’t called “Finding Dory’s Parents” because really the story is all about Dory finding out who she is and really gaining a sense of self worth as she uncovers her past, and they manage to get quite an emotional journey out of this set up.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows’

TMNTOutOfTheShadows_poster“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” is here to proclaim very loudly and garishly that the insane phenomenon that started out life as a satirical comic series for teens and adults and has become a decades long franchise of multiple television shows, feature length movies and action figures is still here and intends to stick around for another few decades. And considering that the folks who watched the original animated TV show in the late 1980’s now have young kids of their own which they are bringing to this movie, it is conceivable that these mutated turtle teenage brothers proficient in ninjitsu will be around as long as there is money to be made in kids’ entertainment.

And surely this stuff has to be entertaining enough for the kids, and rest assured that most people who make movies and television shows for children has little respect for them and their still evolving tastes (and to be fair, children do indeed have terrible cultural taste), so they let the dumb jokes fly and stuff as much loud action and antics into a movie with a barely there plot and there is your recipe for a blockbuster aimed to 10 year olds.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Lobster’

TheLobster_Poster“The Lobster” is a dark satire and a bleak romantic comedy, a movie designed to both make you laugh at the absurdities of life and also bemoan the depths of despair possible within basic human existence. Alternating between funny and sad in such a way that the two become nearly indistinguishable, this is an interesting and unique movie that will delight some and repel others, depending on whether or not you are on board with what this movie has to say.

In the world of “The Lobster,” marriage is compulsory and single people are given 45 days to find their soulmate or else they get turned into the animal of their choice and let loose in the wild. We start the movie with David (Colin Farrell), freshly single when his wife leaves him for someone else, and he is immediately sent to The Hotel, where the single folk start their Find Your Soulmate challenge. At this Hotel he meets other single people, and the first half of the movie is about them all adjusting to the weird rules of The Hotel and trying to match up with some of the other unfortunate loners checked in with them. There is also a band of loners who escaped The Hotel and live in the woods, militantly preparing for something kind of vague, and David gets wrapped up with them as well.Continue Reading …