Tag Archives: Sucks ass

These movies are to be avoided at all costs. The only good thing about them is probably our review.

Jenny’s Wedding

This movie is awful in its way, trite and plodding. It’s a piece of antiquity, not in any charming retro way, but in a flat-out has no reason being in 2016 kind of way.

Jenny (Katharine Heigl) has been hiding a secret from her family, and it’s kind of a biggie. She’s gay. They might stop setting up with guys if only she’d tell them, but while they’re gently prodding her to settle down, she’s surreptitiously planning a wedding with her “roommate” Kitty (Alexis Bledel).

And it turns out she was right to keep this part of herself hidden because when the truth does come out, it doesn’t go well. I’ve never been so disappointed in Tom Wilkinson in my life. That’s not as out of the blue as it sounds – he plays her dad in the movie. And upon reflection, I have indeed been more disappointed in him. Remember that train wreck Unfinished Business? That was a pretty dark period in our relationship.

Anyhow, back to the movie, which is already 20 years out of date before you even drive it off the Netflix lot. But the embarrassing truth is that this movie still made me cry. Twice. Because even though we should have moved on from this story by now, the reality is that not everyone is as cool with these kinds of revelations as they should be. It’s 2016 people: get with the program!

And there’s never an excuse for such a reductionist, trite piece of work. The lesson in tolerance is a little tone deaf. The script sounds like it came from a faded pamphlet shoved through the mail slot by one of their conservative church friends. It’s gross. It’s a washed out version of a movie that came and went at the turn of the century. This one is entirely missable.

Everybody Wants Some !!

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I was totally fucking bored by this movie. Nothing happened. To call it meandering is to try to put a positive spin on something that was downright pointless. I didn’t crack a smile once, and my only reaction to the film was to cringe at the various combinations of knee socks and wispy mustaches.

Maybe I was just watching this with my vagina, ie: Richard Linklater has made yet another testament to boyhood, with only gross caricatures of women adorning the periphery of his movie. No, not women. The boys aren’t chasing women. They’re chasing pussy. The woman is incidental to the hole she can provide for a moment’s worth of pleasure. Is this something to glorify? Be nostalgic about?

And I’m not just offended on behalf of women. I’m offended on behalf of men, the many men in my life who are not gross or one-dimensional. Who manage to like sex AND treat women with respect. Who think beyond the tips of their penises. They deserve better than this.

And mostly I’m offended on behalf of my $12 and 2 hours. Those I will never get back. I thanks-but-no-thx-300x192 could have spent those on a dime bag and a make-out sesh in the backseat of my car to a rockin 80s soundtrack and had a much better time.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

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Bigger, Fatter, Greeker: 14 years after the original burst onto the scene, taking Hollywood by surprise and launching Nia Vardalos into instant stardom, comes its unnecessary sequel.

Oh sure all the endearing characters are back from the first – and their sugar-coated stereotypes too. Opa!

Watching this movie is a lot like visiting your family: yes they’re a little racist, and lot invasive of your personal business, but they’re familiar, and mostly harmless. They mean well.

Nia Vardalos, writer and star of both movies, pulls from her old bag of tricks and has literally nothing fresh to offer. Characters Toula and Ian (token white guy – John Corbett) have a daughter now who’s all grown up and wearing makeup. She’s threatening to go to NYU, and an empty nest does not look good on Greeks. What to do? Well, neglect your marriage, for one. But insert yourself into everyone else’s. Add 2 cups chopped spinach and about 8 sheets of phyllo dough and you’ve got yourself a recipe for spanakopita if nothing else.

This movie has a very slim demographic: die-hard fans of the first film (such as Nia’s mother, perhaps?) and ladies optioning their senior’s discount at the box office. I had the pleasure of catching a matinee of this movie among some very gray heads, and they laughed at some very strange moments that I failed identify as jokes. But yes, this movie is the kind of safe, benign, watered down humour that relies heavily on cliché: exactly the kind of thing your grandmother will enjoy.

Prescription Thugs

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The War on Drugs has been waged against illegal drugs, but what about the millions of Americans taking prescription drugs illegally? Big pharma are our imagesKF77RCK1 new drug dealers, and doctors the pushers. Pharmaceutical companies are more profitable than any other kind. They make HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars, people get hooked, people die, and nobody ever goes to prison for it.

While Nancy Reagan preached about drug abuse, her husband was lifting bans on advertisement and loosening drug regulations. Commercials convince us to need drugs. Ask your doctor, they say, if this drug is right for you. They list a litany of vague symptoms so that you’ll identify with at least one. But how many pills do we really need? Science has proven that most cholesterol drugs are bullshit, and having too little cholesterol is quite dangerous, but those drugs are top-sellers. Even better: the second-highest grossing drug is Viagra, which treats the impotence cause by the cholesterol drugs. Doctors are in the “business” of selling drugs, and the people who come to see them are customers, not patients.

The topic here has got a lot at stake, so it’s frustrating when filmmaker Chris Bell treats it so superficially. It’s not a very good documentary, even before the “conflict of interest” is revealed.

Prescription drugs are overused, there’s no doubt about that. Prescription Thugs claims that every 19 minutes in America, someone dies of a prescribed drug overdose. Has a crime been committed? What’s going on here? There are a lot of questions to be asked and I only wish it was someone other than Chris Bell doing the asking.

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Heath Ledger, a fabulously talented actor, died unexpectedly in January 2008 of accidental drug overdose\intoxication. Pharmaceuticals: oxycodone, maxresdefault hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine. Pain relief, cough suppressant, anti-anxiety, sedative. His doctors were questioned but not charged. Mary Kate Olsen was found to be “not a viable target” in an investigation. We don’t know how he got the drugs, only that he took them, in excess, and he died too soon, leaving behind a very young daughter who will never know her father.

The Bronze

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In 2004, Hope Ann Greggory (Melissa Rauch) made her small Ohio town proud by bringing home the coveted Olympic Bronze Medal in women’s gymnastics. With her career cut short by a minor injury, Hope has been costing on that accomplishment ever since.

Rauch, who co-wrote this script with her husband, is best known for a show that I don’t watch. She insists though that Hope is a huge departure from her Big Bang Theory character and I’m willing to take her word for it. Unless CBS is willing to let her masturbate to footage of her glory days or say things like “absence makes the dick grow harder”, Chuck Lorre fans may be in for a side of the third most famous female BBT actress that they made not be ready for.

Hope is an obnoxious mess. Living with, mooching off of, and verbally abusing her sweet mailman dad (very well-played by Gary Cole), she makes a living off of stealing cash from his route. She also has a habit of going on a spoiled brat tirade of obscenities every time she hears something she doesn’t like, giving the sentenced-to-network-television actress a chance to do her best Melissa McCarthy (but somehow sounding a lot like Reese Witherspoon in Election).

Hope gets a second chance at life when her former coach dies and, for implausibly selfish reasons, she decides to take over coaching a promising sixteen year-old (Haley Lu Richardson) with dreams of Olympic gold. Richardson plays Maggie as naïve, hard-working, and loveable and Hope comes very close to ruining her. When Maggie beings to make the mistake of believing her own hype, The Bronze judges her way too harshly for the same attitude that it is so ready to forgive the 30 year-old Hope for.

The supporting cast of characters that Hope treats like shit- her dad, her pupil, and her sweet love interest (Tom Middleditch)- are all easy to like and make the film itself much more enjoyable to watch. The real problem is Rauch. As much fun as it must have been for her to unleash her inner Apatow, she’s more annoying than charmingly outspoken and her eventual redemption is too little-too late. And the ending, without giving too much away, is unforgiveable.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant

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About a year ago, Wandering Through the Shelves had us binge-watching Movies Based on Young Adult Novels. The first two films in the Divergent series were neither the best or the worst things I watched that week. They’re not great- even “good” would be a stretch- but I was won over by the decency and unlikely strength of Tris (Shailene Woodley). I also couldn’t have done without the effortless charisma of Miles Teller as Peter, who brings much-needed personality to a series that takes itself way too seriously whenever he’s not on screen.

In the first two films in the series, the citizens (prisoners?) of Chicago have been assigned factions based on their defining trait (athletic, honest, kind, smart, and selfless). I’ve always found this basic premise to be a little lazy and a pretty adolescent view of the world but, hey, it’s young adult fiction. Besides, it’s what makes Divergent Divergent. To do away with these factions would be like the Twilight series continuing without any vampires or werewolves of the Fifty Shades series going straight edge. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what this series does.

Allegiant picks up where Insurgent left off, immediately after the fall of the faction system. Without it, not only does Chicago lose control over its population but the story loses its focus and coherence. Fearing that Evelyn, (Naomi Watts) is becoming as oppressive a leader as Kate Winslet’s character had been, five young adults venture over the walls. What follows is sillier than the other two films combined, exposition-heavy, and impossible to follow. Tris, the heroic non-conformist of the story, somehow starts towing the party line. Woodley does her best to keep her interest but it’s tough not to be frustrated with her when everyone onscreen and in the audience thinks it’s obvious that she’s being played. Even Miles Teller’s shtick is getting old. Pick a side, buddy!

The Divergent series isn’t really made for adults and for all I know may please its target audience. Because most 16 year-olds wouldn’t be interested in our site and most of our readers wouldn’t be interested in this series, you might wonder why I’d even bother reviewing it. To that, I can only say “Jeff Daniels”. Daniels, joining Winslet, Watts, Octavia Spencer, and Ray Stevenson, becomes the latest good actor over 40 to have his talents wasted by this trite material. How so many good actors got involved in this series, I have no idea. But judging by their performances, I can tell it’s not because they wanted to be there. By the third film, their talents are no longer just wasted. They’re giving bad performances.

What’s happening in Hollywood that the likes of Naomi Watts and Jeff Daniels need a job this badly? Or that any filmmaker could become so distracted by their pretty but mostly boring young stars that they would forget to give Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer even a single key scene?

This is why I care enough about this series to write about it.

10 Cloverfield Lane

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I have been trying to make sense of 10 Cloverfield Lane for months, from the moment I saw the title of this movie at the end of its trailer. And after seeing the movie I’m still searching for answers. 2834c660-9db5-0133-6e17-0efce411145f

Hinting at a connection between this movie and Cloverfield was probably not the best idea that J.J. Abrams has had. Cloverfield massively disappointed me. It seemed like a great concept, putting the camera in the middle of monster-created chaos, but Cloverfield ended up being your typical found footage crapfest from start to finish. So to suggest this is a sequel or prequel or some other form of spinoff was a weird choice, especially because the trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane contained no hint of a connection between it and Cloverfield other than the similar name (and thankfully also contained NO FOUND FOOTAGE).

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

The common name is not a coincidence but it was a terrible idea. It ruined what might otherwise have been a nice twist two-thirds of the way through 10 Cloverfield Lane. To paraphrase Shakespeare, this same movie by a different name would have been just as mediocre, but at least the title wouldn’t have tipped off the audience that there was more outside the bunker to be afraid of than a lady with a melted face.

So if you’re making this movie, why tip your hand in the title? Does the Cloverfield brand really have that much value? Am I the only one who disliked that movie? I mean, I totally hated The Visit and others apparently thought it was good. So I’m open to the possibility that a similar thing happened with Cloverfield, but I would be surprised. Tell me whether or not you’re with me in the comments but know that I’m judging you based on your response.

[END SPOILERS]

It felt good to get that out of my system and now I think I can focus on 10 Cloverfield Lane as its own movie. In two words: don’t bother. The group of 13 year old girls sitting behind us couldn’t take it seriously and neither could I. There are way too many disparate elements at work and as a result the movie is disjointed from beginning to end. There’s nothing remotely redeeming or original here.

If end-of-the-world movies were drinks, 10 Cloverfield Lane would be a glass of three random types of bar-rail liquor, served to guests without a taste test. So it’s only fitting that 10 Cloverfield Lane gets a score of three bottles of cheap scotch out of ten.

London Has Fallen

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Unfortunately, a lot has changed in 3 years.

2013’s Olympus Has Fallen opens with a friendly boxing match followed by a tragic car accident that explains why Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) and President Asher (Aaron Eckhart) aren’t boxing buddies anymore. It’s neither the most interesting or most original opening but at least we know what we’re in for. Olympus Has Fallen was harmless and predictable fun,just not especially interesting or original.

Three years later, London Has Fallen opens with a montage of news footage covering recent terrorist attacks, making it clear that the Olympus sequel takes place in a more dangerous world. Where the first thing we hear about every seemingly random shooting is whether it’s being investigated as “an act of terrorism”. Now that Islamophobia has such an influential and dangerous spokesman as Donald Trump, some have even questioned whether we really need a movie like London Has Fallen right now.

I could have overlooked London Has Fallen’s social and political irresponsibility if the film itself had been more gripping. Well, yes and no. Banning telling a terrorist to go back to “Fucheadistan or wherever the hell you come from” might have been taking it a little far. Same for Morgan Freeman (who should really retire) and his final speech which shamelessly defended America’s foreign policy. Other than that, London’s worst offence is not being any good.

As in Olympus, Banning doesn’t have any great kills or great stunts. And even if he did, director Babak Najafi doesn’t understand the genre enough to showcase them properly if he did. Way too many fights and chases are obstructed by sloppy editing.

And way too many questions are left unanswered. How did terrorists manage to attack “the most protected event in the world”? Why does Banning leave POTUS alone so often when he knows the bad guys are after him? WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Would the streets of London really be that bare, even after such a devastating attack? And, most importantly, how does Gerard Butler still get work?

Zoolander 2

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Zoolander 2 is really, really, ridiculously dull. There was so little going on all I could really do was wonder why this movie got made and why so many recognizable faces pop up. The only answer I came up with was that no one involved had anything better to do. Well, I had better things to do – I could have been watching Deadpool!

There really isn’t a good reason to watch Zoolander 2. The “good” moments are rehashes of the original, and the rest seems like stuff they cut from the original (and rightly so). We get it, the fashion industry is vapid and empty, but you can’t satirize it with a movie that’s even more vapid and empty, because then the joke is on the movie. And the joke is definitely on the movie here. Even Justin Bieber should have known better than to be involved with this mess.

I honestly can’t think of one moment in the movie that I liked, and this is coming from a guy who laughed from start to finish during both Daddy’s Home and Dirty Grandpa. The original Zoolander was another movie that consistently made me laugh, but the sequel comes up woefully short. It’s old and tired, and made me feel the same way. Zoolander 2 gets a score of two glasses of prune juice out of ten.

Melodrama… in 3D!: Part 2

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Before Christmas, I questioned Gaspar Noe’s choice to film Love in 3D. While the gimmick of real sex in 3D managed to satisfy my moribid curiousity in a couple of scenes, the feeling that we could reach out and touch them couldn’t change the fact that the characters didn’t act or talk like real people. Love was a dull, lifeless, depressing, and badly translated drama. But it had lots of sex.

Director Wim Wenders (whom I tend to like), also hit the 2015 festival circuit with an inexplicably 3D drama. Like Love, Every Thing Will Be Fine is dull, lifeless, depressing, and badly translated but doesn’t even have the decency to throw a little 3D ejaculate our way. What we DO get- and any Canadians out there might enjoy this- is Rachel McAdams doing a Quebec French accent. Despite the film being set in Montreal, why she would go out of her way to play Quebecoise, I have no idea. There are, after all, lots of English people living in the Canadian city. (I used to be one of them). Whatever her reasons, I’m willing to bet that the Screen Actors Guild did not see this movie or they would have never made the already questionable decision to nominate her for Best Supporting Actress in Spotlight.
Struggling writer Tomas’ (James Franco) relationship with Sara (McAdams) is already not going so great even before his life is changed forever by accidentally running over and killing a small boy with his car. The boy’s mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) immediately makes it clear to Tomas that she doesn’t blame him but forgiving himself isn’t so easy for Tomas, even after he begins to profit from becoming a much more inspired and successful writer after the trauma.

My favourite Wim Wenders films (Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas) are understated and haunting but Every Thing Will Be Fine slows the pace down to a whole new level. Unsure of exactly, what the director’s looking for, Franco plays it safe by avoiding emoting at all costs. Probably aiming for restraint and subtlety (two qualities I admire most in an actor), he succeeds only at being wooden. He’s not burdened with an ill-advised accent but his performance is almost as embarrassing as McAdams’.

Gainsbourg and real-life Montrealer Marie-Josee Croze (The Barbarian Invasions, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) don’t come out looking so bad but even they don’t have anything interesting to do. Wenders seems especially committed to losing our interest by constantly disrupting the narrative to jump ahead a year or two, or sometimes even more, whenever there’s even the smallest risk that someone in the theater may find themselves caring even a tiny bit. And the dialogue from Norwegian screenwriter Bjorn Olaf Johanessen feels badly translated into English and is already being compared to Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.

I was not able to catch a screening of Every Thing Will Be Fine in 3D so I have no idea exactly what Wenders was going for by shooting in 3D. I do know that I’ve seen 3D summer blockbusters that had more heart than Wenders’ painfully dull drama.