Time to clean out my notes in my phone. I have broken down four movies. Two of which you may have seen or intend to and the other two the answer is probably no, but if I spoiled Deuce Bigalow 2 would you really be mad at me or would you thank me for saving you from the worst movie of all time?

Monsters U

I actually just watched this last night. I had high expectations given how good the first one was. This certainly wasn’t as good as Monsters Inc. but that’s tough to follow up. There were a few things I really enjoyed and a few things that really bothered me.

This movie was about Mike Wazowski and the crew growing into great scarers. Mike reminded me of Tom Brady while Sully reminded me of a young Lebron. Being that Mike wasn’t a top talent but he had the drive to make it in this business while Sully never had to study or do anything other than just showing up and letting his raw talent do the dirty work. They start off as rivals before being forced to team up in a new fraternity to win the “Scare Games”.

Pixar always does a great job making you really hate the bad guys. This flick had me really rooting against the other teams. It was like rooting for your team during a deep run in March Madness.

They also do a great job creating jokes out of nowhere. This one they had several but two that stood out where a random cut to a snail that was running late for his first class and another was an impromptu dance off with a kid and Sully.

Pixar also typically does a great job with the little details. But it seems to be a growing trend that they don’t pay attention to the little details in their sequels as much as they do in their new films. For instance there is a scene where Mike and Sully are trying to catch a pig and Mike ends up riding on top of the pig. After being thrown off of the pig Mike grabs a football and throws a 40 yard tight spiral into a trash barrel knocking it over right in the path of the pig collecting him in the barrel. If Mike has the ability to throw a perfect 40 yard pass then why doesn’t he have the arm strength to just tip the pig over while he is riding on his back? I know I’m nitpicking a kids movie but I expect excellence with every Pixar film. It’s probably not fair but they brought it on themselves by making so many great movies.

Overall you have a fun movie that is worth watching, just don’t expect to be blown away like the first one. In fact, being a TV on while I go to sleep guy I will typically just hit play again and let it play through, when I watch a movie late at night. Instead this movie just made me want to cleanse my palate with the first film, so I went and found my copy of it on DVD and let that play through instead.  

7/10

Mud

This one I really enjoyed. Matthew McConaughey leads a surprisingly great cast that also includes Reese Witherspoon and a ton of people whose names you might not recognize but whose faces you certainly would. This flick takes place in a river community down south, where two kids go explore an island and a boat that was stuck in a tree from a hurricane. That’s where they find McConaughey’s character “Mud” living. He is trying to avoid the cops after killing someone that treated his girl, Reese, poorly. The kids really fall for him and his story and begin helping him out.

There were just two things that pissed me off in this movie. First, you have two young kids asking a guy living on an island a ton of questions. Yet they never ask him where he got enough cigarettes to be able to chain smoke them nonstop. That would have been my first question. The other thing that really pissed me off is that this is one of those movies, whose song that plays as the credits roll, does not match the ending of the movie. They made such a nice ending that gets you feeling a bit emotional like you do after seeing any great movie, and then as soon as the credits start rolling they blast an upbeat beach boys song that takes you right out of it. It’s like when the hypnotist finally snaps his fingers and you snap back out of his control (if hypnotism wasn’t almost complete bullshit).

Other than those two small things, I really enjoyed this film. At the risk of sounding like my father, it was nice to see kids without iPads entertain themselves.

9/10

Apollo 18  

I watched this flick as well as the next right around Halloween, just to get my annual fix of crappy horror movies. I knew what I was getting into, obviously I didn’t think I was about to watch a film. I expected to see some awful things. Like how it was shot with crappy looking 70’s lenses. I’m sure it sounded like a good idea when the room filled with idiots were planning this movie out, but it’s really headache inducing, especially early one when you are still getting used to it.

The bigger question for that room of idiots is how can you try and make your movie, that takes place on the moon, look like a found footage movie only it appears that there is extra gravity on the moon. It’s like everyone involved with the movie had no idea that the moon has less gravity than Earth. There wasn’t even an attempt to talk about it or even one small jump to demonstrate the fact that they were on the moon. It was the exact opposite. Every time an astronaut moved on the surface of the moon they shuffled their feet like they were in a dark room and had just shattered a glass on the floor.

It was really bad but it was kind of fun. I just hope everyone involved with the movie would have their movie making license stripped.

4/10

Paranormal Activity 4

If you thought aliens on the moon was as bad as things were going to get, you were wrong. This takes the cake as the worst movie in this column by a landslide. There were so many moments in this movie where you ask yourself, what the hell is going on? For instance, the main chick is 15 years old and her 15 year old boyfriend has access to her parents house somehow. Then you start hearing loud noises in the house that gets a “Hello?” reaction. If you are alone in your house heard loud noises that sounded like someone might be doing some construction down the hall would your initial reaction be a passive “Hello?” No of course not, you’d be grabbing the fucking shotgun out of your closet.

If you were 15 years old and had video footage of tricycles peddling themselves and chandeliers swinging violently before one crashes down nearly killing you, would you show your parents the video? What about after you found out that a recurring symbol in the videos, carried a rich history of human sacrifice? Yah, no I probably wouldn’t either.

The thing that pissed me off maybe the most, is like my complaint in Mud, where the kids don’t ask about his apparently endless supply of butts. Paranormal Activity 4 takes place over a span of about two weeks and there is not a single scene with someone laughing and talking shit to the ghosts. I know I would have done it 379 times over the course of two weeks of being tormented by a ghost.

The last note I had written down for this movie basically sums it all up… “Army of demons to end?... LOL” This is really really bad, but given the selection of new horror movies, it is sort of watchable and it’s on Netflix Instant and Amazon Prime, you know if you are drunk and/or stoned and looking to kill 90 minutes.

2/10

mlz

Saturday, November 9, 2013