A little about myself first. I'm currently a 30 year old man working for the state of Iowa. I'm from up and down the east coast mainly Newport News, Virginia and pretty much all of New London County in Connecticut. I moved here to Iowa 8 years ago to help out my sister and ended up getting stuck after she left by meeting my wife who I don't think has left the Midwest since her childhood. I currently running a board game club in my town of Ames, Ia (yes board game clubs ARE a thing) and I also co-host a podcast about board games called The Good, The Board and The Ugly.
I've always been a fan of going to the movies since I was a kid and my grandmother would take me to the theater a lot when we visited, especially during the time of all the big disaster movies, i.e Armageddon, Deep Impact, Volcano, etc...She loved those movies. It wasn't until I moved back to Newport News when i was 21 and met my best friend Paul (whose movie review blog you can see here at http://paul-workman.blogspot.com/) that I truly got into film. This guy was NUTS about movies. He actually convinced me to try to sit and watch the entire AFI's Top 100 movies of the last 100 years. Unfortunately I didn't finish but I did give it the old college try.
Because he was also the manager of the movie theater at the time we met we also went and saw alot of movies at the theater. We saw EVERYTHING, nothing was a no go. We went and saw Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants together, and were the only ones in the theater. Two dudes, sitting in the back of the theater watching a female empowering film and spending the whole time referencing Paul Newman in The Hudsucker Proxy.
"PANTS"
Since then I've been going to the movies watching the summer tent poles, the movies where money was almost literally thrown at the people making them to show us the flashiest things they could think of, or the late year Oscar bids. The ones where money wasn't truly made but art usually was.
So with that little intro into my makings I officially begin this review blog with the following
Entourage:
Starring: Adrien Grenier, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara and Jeremy Piven
Directed: Doug Ellin
Written: Doug Ellin
I was kind of a fan of the HBO show this movie was about. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't terrible. I will say this though, look at the picture i provided. Notice something about it? Five guys chillin', hangin' out, being bros. Notice anything thing else in the picture? You REALLY gotta squint but if you look in the background there are three ladies there. Bet you barely even noticed them. That's pretty much this whole movie. I honestly felt like this movie needed a parenthetical title
Entourage (Pretty Much the Reason for the Bechdel Test)
Throughout the entirety of the show you could maybe come up with justifying call three people strong female characters, but during this movie even those three ladies where given the most minute roles and few lines. So with that it goes without saying that if you have any feminist views, even slightly, this may not be the movie for you. I have quite a few strong feminist friends, and honestly I almost didn't write this review for the reason of pissing them off by letting them know that I saw it.
Political views aside, this movie was not good. It was ok. If you liked the show you'll enjoy the movie. It had quite a few laughs, A LOT of T&A if that's what you're looking for, and I did feel like it tried at points to really make you feel like the characters learned something throughout their "travels" but ultimately, no.
There were plenty of cameos throughout the movie, not unexpected because the show pretty much could have been called HBO's Cameos the Show, none were as impressive as Haley Joel Osment. Now he didn't play himself, so not technically a cameo, or actually by definition not one at all, BUT. The whole movie is honestly so centered on it's 5 main characters everybody else is almost just background so I say if your name is big enough and you were in this movie, it was a cameo. Osment impressed me. I know he's been going for this whole Canadian with the hipster beard thing lately so that we don't see what I know you all are thinking,
What a punum
but I truly feel he's grown as an actor, NOT MUCH mind you, but compared to most of the cast in this movie he pretty much shines.
The writing in the movie was pretty much terrible. You begin the movie with everything that made the finale so nice flushed down the toilet as if it didn't happen. Not to give any spoilers but if you never watched the last episode you could honestly jump right to the movie and plot wise there would be zero changes. After that the movie just becomes an hour and a half long episode of the show.
So pretty much if you liked the show, watch it. It does have some good wrapping up of story lines and pretty much a fairly sweet ending. But definitely don't go in thinking you're going to get anything other than what HBO provided for you on the TV.
Grade: C-
Pitch Perfect 2:
Starring: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld and Brittany Snow
Directed: Elizabeth Banks
Written: Kay Cannon, Mickey Rapkin
So after watching Entourage I felt I needed some "Girl Power". Something to wipe all the "bro" off of me. So I went and saw Pitcher Perfect 2. I honestly feel I should have gone home and watched Spice World instead.
I was so disappointed in this movie. I really liked the first one, not because it was a good movie but because it was fun. This movie was not fun. This movie honestly felt like another one of those straight to dvd American Pie movies.
American Pie 8: Acca-camp
Now the movie wasn't a complete and total disaster, there were a few saving graces but unfortunately every one of those was balanced out by something that made the movie worse or just reminded me of an exact scene from the first. For example, I pretty much auto-upped the grade of this movie when I saw Reggie Watts. I know, not exactly an unbiased review but you know what, that guy is a freakin' genius. Sadly, I saw Adam Devine again, this did not amuse me. I'm not a fan, he just tries to be a 20 something Jack Black and when Jack Black did it when he was 20 something it didn't work out to well for him so why would you want to emulate that?
Then there's Keegan-Michael Key, I enjoyed his performance in this movie. I thought the character was funny without being a complete clown, which this movie does to ALL the comic characters, but then a new Bella was introduced Chrissie Fits character: Flo. I honestly felt Elizabeth Banks just got finished watching That 70s Show on Netflix and felt she needed Fes in her movie so she put in Flo. Pretty much she was another Lilly character, just hispanic and audible.
I could pretty much spend a whole day going on and on about what was good and what counteracted the good, but pretty much what i'm leading to is that in the end when all the good was balanced out, there was plenty more bad left over.
And if I have to hear or see one more A Capella pun, i'm gonna throw something.
ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!
Grade: D+
Spy:
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne
Directed: Paul Feig
Written: Paul Feig
MAN DOES PAUL FEIG LOVE MELISSA MCCARTHY! Seriously, it's like the guy's favorite show is Mike and Molly and at every casting session since Bridesmaids he's been "MELISSA, LET'S GET HER" . Now I say this mainly because I'm not a fan of hers. I was in Bridesmaids, but then I saw Identity Theif, then I saw The Heat, then I saw Tammy, and the main problem I had with those movies was her, and it wasn't because it was Melissa McCarthy, it was because Melissa McCarthy couldn't play anyone else but Melissa McCarthy. There was no change from one "character" to the next. She played the same person in all of those movies. I notice this alot in today's hollywood, where we have our Michael Cera's and our Vince Vaughns where they don't even act, they just play themselves and wrtiters write to that. It's lazy and it's annoying. I used to say the same thing about Jonah Hill but then all of a sudden he learned how to act and play different characters so he got a pass, and an oscar nom.
With that said, I loved this movie. SUPRISE!!!! Now first of, Melissa McCarthy I felt still played Melissa McCarthy. But honestly, it worked in this movie. There was enough going around to give her a pass. That and there was something different about her, she was playing herself but with chops, and I like chops.
mmmmmmmm bbq chops
The rest of the cast was amazing as well, I especially to give credit to Miranda Hart, the feisty british best friend. She had I felt some of the best character progression in the quirkiest way. I like her, Also the cameo with her and 50 cent (piece) was freaking hilarious.
This movie had me laughing throughout almost the whole thing, and it even had a small little nod to Ames, IA which kind made everyone in the theater giggle a little bit. I highly recommend this one to everyone, especially those who've written Ms. McCarthy off like myself. After seeing this I'm gonna give Ghostbusters a chance.
Grade: B+
