Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The Croods

Get out your saber-toothed mice and flying bird-turtles, we're reviewing The Croods!

The Croods are a prehistoric family, led by their father and leader, Grug(Nicholas Cage), who keeps them safe in their cave.  Eep(Emma Stone) hates living in the cave, and when the cave is destroyed, the Crood family must follow a newcomer, Guy(Ryan Reynolds), to get to the mountain and escape the continental shift!

Friday, March 22, 2013

Double quickie: Rainfall and The Killer Inside Me

There's really not enough here to review each on their own, so I'm going to do a double quick review of Rain Fall and The Killer Inside Me!


Rain Fall
More like Rain FAIL. (I'm so sorry) The CIA is after a Hitman, John Rain(Rain Fall GET IT?!), who's after a minister that has a memory stick that he's about to give to the free media. Full disclosure, I picked this up mostly because it had Gary Oldman in it. And to my pleasure, he's back to his outlandish ranting Oldman like he was in Leon The Professional or The Fifth Element.  But that's about the only good thing in this limp spy thriller. The movie can't decide if it's an espionage thriller, a badass action movie, or a love story, and it fails to do any one well. Most of the movie is spent trying to find a memory stick, but little reason is given as to why, and even when it is, there's little reason to care. In fact there's little reason to care about anything that happens in this movie. There's intrigue and action, but it's just so boring. Looooong and boring.

It's interesting that it's half in japanese and half in english, and there's some nice shots here and there, and some characters show some promise, but there's no payout to this long slog of a movie. It's confusing and boring and at the end, there's an infuriating copout. SPOILERS if you really care to watch, but there's a love plot between Rain and the girl he's protecting, and in the end he does a double fake-out before finally walking away. "Oh he's coming back! Oh no he's gone. Oh he did come back! Oh he disappeared?  Oh no he's still there! Oh and now he's walking away." This takes about five minutes, while the girl just stands there, doing nothing. It is insulting and dumb after wading through so much crap waiting for any kind of payoff. It is really not worth it. $$ just for Gary Oldman who I hope got paid well.  Also, no mercy for including the last scene of the movie in their trailer!

The Killer Inside Me
This is a weird movie. Casey Affleck plays a small town deputy Sheriff, Lou, that slowly turns into a psychotic killer. It's a bit of Southern Noir, so I hope you like southern drawls. It is incredibly brutal and violent, to the point where I find it hard to recommend to anyone but those in love with the most brutal of violence. And it's not even brutal in the vein of fake blood and over-the-top gore of say a Tarantino film or gonzo horror movie, it's just straight up disturbing harsh violence, especially against women. If you can't stand rape or violence against women, I would recommend staying far far away.  If you like that sort of thing, well, it's disturbing and it at least has an explosive ending.  It also includes Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson who should be commended for their roles of getting the crap beat out of them. Also Simon Baker plays the one not-dumb person, so there's that.

The most interesting thing is whether or not Lou'll get away with it, and how he will. You're always wondering if this is the detail that'll trip him up, if this is where he'll say it's taken too far, and just how farther down the hole he's willing to go(and who he's willing to take with him) just to get away clean. And in that, it's a fairly good noir. And Casey Affleck does an outstanding job playing a psychopath. It's hard to follow as there's no extraneous exposition  most times Lou will just do something and you're not quite sure of his plan.  The movie also holds a modicum of style. It takes place in the 1950's, and everything is glistening from the classic cars, to the clothing, to the colorful opening credits. Man do I really love the opening. And it has a stellar soundtrack.  It's hard to watch, and it's not really fun, but you do constantly wonder how this'll all end, and really start to wonder where this good guy went bad, or if he was even a good guy to begin with. $$$. I can't really recommend it because of so much brutal, bloody, disturbing violence, and it's not THAT great a noir, but it is at least half-way interesting if you can power through it.

Oof. More like a double-downer, amirite?

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Oz the Great and Powerful

Get out your illusions, we're reviewing Oz the great and powerful!
The Wicked Witch is still hot. Anyone else turned on by that green skin?
Oscar Diggs(James Franco) is a small-time magician with dreams of making it big. When a tornado whisks him away to a mystical land of strange creatures, he finds himself thrust into a conflict between the good people of Oz and the Wicked Witch. In order to become king of Oz, he must help Theodora(Mila Kunis) and Evenora(Rachel Weisz) kill this evil witch.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Superman and Batman: Apocalypse

Get out your capes and boomtubes, we're reviewing Superman/Batman: Apocalypse!
The real poster and title for this movie. Alternative movie idea: Pimp Darkseid.
When A strange meteor falls to Earth, Superman and Batman are surprised to find a kryptonian inside, Superman's niece in fact, Kara-El. But they're not the only ones who discover her, Darkseid also wants her for his army of Furies!  Who will get to control her?

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Robot Combat League

Get out your giant metal gloves, we're reviewing Robot Combat League!

Robot Combat League is a new reality competition show on SyFy that pits teams of two(a jockey and a tech) against each other, each manning a giant robot in a real robot boxing match!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

10 reasons why you should start follow The Following

There have been a handful of episodes of The Following already, so instead of doing a full review, I'm going to give you ten very good reasons why you should catch up and start following The Following!
Kevin Bacon plays a pretty good Kevin Bacon.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Guest Review: Dark Skies

Get out your alien body snatchers, we're reviewing Dark Skies!
The intended focus here? The alien stalking her. All I focused on? Her mole.
And it's another special guest review from Noelle Loughran! Because I did not care to see Dark Skies. Sounds like I was right to avoid it! Spoilers ahead.