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Movie Reviews

Earth Girls are Easy (1988) Review

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What can I say about this movie except that if you haven’t seen it, you definitely should. It isn’t the gripping story arch, in depth character development, nor its attention to detail world building that makes this a great movie. This movie has very little, if any, of these elements. Instead, it is the explosion of 80’s nostalgic madness that you have the pleasure to experience. And this movie is 80’as fuck! From the music to the set and costume design, you will get your nostalgia fix.

Aliens on a search for women find themselves at Earth’s doorstep. Specifically, in the pool of the main character Valerie Gale. Valerie has had her world turned upside down after discovering that her fiancé, the man who she was to marry in two weeks, is a cheater. Distraught and alone, she throws herself a pity party when the aliens come and interrupt it. Quickly realizing they are aliens’ shenanigans happen until they can communicate with Valerie that they are friendly. A quick changing montage musical number later and boom they are transformed into human men. The idea that these furry creatures can be turned into good looking men with the help of pounds of make-up is comical and is akin to the tone of the movie, but I digress. Now, the newly human aliens must wait for the pool to be drained so that they can leave earth and continue their search. In the meantime, they get to experience Californian culture as tourists. And this of course is the cause of a lot of shenanigans.

Sure, it is a bit slap sticky, and the bits drag on longer than they should in some points, but the ride is well worth the trouble. If it isn’t enough to ogle at a shirtless young Jeff Goldblum, you will get a lot of silly musical numbers as well as a reminder of aspects form the 80’s you probably haven’t thought about since the 90’s. The music in this movie is pretty great and echo the film’s lack of seriousness. Everything is bouncy, upbeat and erratic as if the film itself is fueled by the same mountains of cocaine that were used to write and direct it. And all of this madness and chaos just works!

Be forewarned however, this movie might be offensive for modern audience. I can see where it can be problematic and sexist, but this isn’t a movie that should be taken seriously. And it shouldn’t. This spastic journey into Southern California culture through the lens of aliens is just something fun you put on when you don’t want to follow a complicated plot or travel through back to the wackiest parts of the 90’s.

I definitely recommend this movie not for its groundbreaking impact it has on cinema, it has non, but for the fun ride you will get to experience. It is incredibly cheesy and over the top though, so if that isn’t your scene, then this isn’t the movie for you. In conclusion, Valley girls are easy.

Movie Reviews

1BR Review

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It is another creepy cult movie. A decently done yet still generic film that you shouldn’t spend too much time looking for.

The film starts off with Sarah trying to create a new start in LA. Unfortunately, this new start is brought to her by the creepy cult that owns the 1-bedroom apartment that is about to be the cause of the drama in this movie. Let me say that this movie does a poor job at creating the suspense needed to set the tone that it wishes to achieve. Most plot points are loudly telegraphed through random long shots. When she spends her first night in the complex, the camera pans away from Sara and stops on the units blinking fire alarm. This is obviously a hidden camera set up to watch her and it will most definitely come up later. I do not have a problem with symbolism, but it is ridiculous how much symbolism this film will try to throw at the audience. It is as if the director doesn’t have faith that the audience can come to their own conclusions so the film will constantly hand hold, taking away any creepy tone it was asking for.

Movies of a similar genre are successful because of the suspicion. Take the original Stepford Wives film, although flawed, it presents the audience with this suburban utopia, but it also gives the audience bits and pieces of flaws in society that suggest something nefarious is afoot. You have the women malfunctioning, you have strong independent women suddenly becoming subservient, and you along with the character feel that there is something wrong with the town. In 1BR, you never really get that feeling because you know from the start what is wrong so there is no point in watching the rest.

This movie is incredibly generic. It doesn’t take long for the tenants to take Sarah to try to reprogram her to see the truth. A truth written by some dead guy about the importance of community. It is through these generic tenants that the cult is created and then you just watch her do a whole lot of nothing. The torture is simple and as hard as it tries to emulate other movies that do it, they do it very poorly. Brain washing consists of her stating in an uncomfortable position for hours only being fed once a day with a nasty looking milkshake. The film suggests that hours of standing in this isolated room in the apartment that she rented, hunger, and finally the nails that go through her hands (possibly Christ-like) are enough to brain washing her into joining this society.

The brainwashing obviously doesn’t work and at this point you are halfway through the movie with little hope of it getting better. It zooms past all the tropes presented in far better movies in order to stay within the genre, for example the idea that man is corrupt and selfish and through this new cult, all of man’s problems will be solved. They also do a whole scene where they kill their oldest member because she is no longer of use. Even the big escape and the twist are anti-climactic. There isn’t really any saving grace to this film. I wouldn’t waste my time watching this movie unless it was free. Even then, there are far better movies in this genre you could be watching. This was a pretty meh attempt at brining the genre to an urban setting.

 

Movie Reviews

Stuber (2019) Review

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It’s another buddy cop movie, and not a very good one at that. Even worse, it’s an update to the movie Taxi. Same general idea but surprisingly not as good. If you can get this one for free, go for it. It isn’t a terrible sit, but I wouldn’t pay for this movie because It’s not really worth it. It is incredibly generic save for the forced politically correct jokes that it will interrupt the flow of the movie with. There are scenes where they will play these jokes as an odd nod to millennials and it does not work. Is this a new trend? I saw a lot of this in the newest Men in Black movie and it was honestly distracting. I do not have an issue with these types of jokes mind you, but I do have an issue with how they are delivered in these movies. Often times it will be in the middle of a random scene where the politically correct token character will stop the scene in order to correct something insensitive that was said. Once in a while, sure this might be a funny jest and get a decent chuckle but when it happens every time it loses it’s effectiveness. And in this movie, it becomes a little preachy. I don’t want to be preached at when I am watching a comedy.

Kamail Nanjiani is a token in this movie. His role could have been casted by anyone with a similar build. He is wasted in this film. The acting is not terrible, and you will get some chuckles out of it, but you will not remember watching this movie. The movie does very little to stand out, save for constantly mentioning uber. Batista plays a big dude and they will take every opportunity they get to point that out. Nanjiani is a skinny loser and they will take every opportunity to make sure you know that he is. Like every other movie, they will not get along but because of their journey together they will ultimately forge a lasting meaningful friendship. That is to say, they will become friends because the script says they should.

There isn’t anything deeper to this film and I know that I shouldn’t have gone into this film expecting such but I at least expected some kind of story. Instead what you get is just these caricatures being moved from joke to joke as they are forced to grow closer to one another as is tradition with this genre of film. All this is loosely inter-weaved into some drug case that I honestly forgot was a thing until the very end. The driving force behind this whole adventure merely comes forth in small segments in between all the jokes about uber and bickering between the lead. In the end, several plot points are breezed by and some of them are forgotten if not hastily tied together because they have to remind you what UBER is again.

All in all let’s call this film what it really is, a giant commercial for UBER. The films will stop multiple times to explain different aspects of the app on both the rider and driver side. Take these out and the PC jokes and the movie sadly becomes hollow because there is nothing more to this movie. Who wants to pay money to watch an UBER ride? All in all it is not the hardest sit, there are worse out there, but don’t pay money for this. This is a movie you throw in the background while you do chores or Netflix and chill if that is still a thing.

Movie Reviews

Huslers (2019) Review

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I didn’t expect much from this movie going into it, and I was not wrong. I will say it now, skip this movie because there is nothing that saves it, not even the fan service.

My biggest problem with this film is the narration. I hate narration in any form because of how lazy it is. Narration, in my opinion, is an easy cop out to sound deep. It is a device used by filmmakers when they do not have faith in their audience to come up with their own conclusions. Therefore, narration is used as a way to railroad the audience into having a certain opinion of the film. In this movie’s case, it was to hammer in some form of sympathy for the strippers. The narration itself is boring, it lacks any emotion and it feels as if Constance Wu is reading outload. Why should I care if the person telling the story doesn’t. Wu is also an unreliable narrator. What she says, how she says it, and the actual events suggest that her story isn’t the whole story. You will be stuck listening to a story that doesn’t matter.

There isn’t enough story in this plot to flesh out a full movie. As a result, this movie has a lot of unnecessary padding. These include pointless cameos, comic relief characters serving their purpose, there is even a scene where they open Christmas presents. They try incredibly hard to make you empathize with the strippers, but it is hard to do when they are screwing over innocent people. Take out these scenes, and you have a far shorter yet equally uninteresting movie.

There is too much to say about this terrible movie. Do not watch this as there is no saving grace. Even the fan service that this movie provides, and it provides a small amount, doesn’t save this movie. It’s a movie with a bunch of poorly acted scenes stringed together with terrible narration. Spend your time elsewhere. If you are thinking about watching it for the fan service, don’t bother, just watch the scenes on youtube.

Movie Reviews

Lucy (2014) Review

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If you are looking for an action movie to scratch your need for suspense and thrills, go elsewhere because you won’t get any from this movie. Nothing happens in this movie.

This movie’s biggest weakness is that the main character is too powerful. The movie is about Lucy unlocking the next level of evolution but in the first 10 mins of the movie she is already overpowered. The issue with having such a powerful character is that it removes any danger her actions might bring. The fights are boring because Lucy can end the fights instantly. It doesn’t help that Scarlet Johansson is a robot in this movie. While this may fit with the narrative of the film, it isn’t interesting to watch. Lucy realizes that the reason that humanity is unable to evolve is because they are too hung up on aspects of life that aren’t important. This would be the aspects of humanity that give people personality. This apathetic performance makes the movie even harder to watch because there is no danger and there is no emotion. The performance isn’t bad, it was just a weird choice for this already boring movie.

This movie takes a cool concept and isn’t able to deliver on it. This story works in Futurama because you have a lot more context and you get to experience the growth and change of Bender as he comes to similar realizations. This movie, there is no growth or even character establishment because it drops off all of these points and expects you to fill in the blanks. There is no character growth because you do not know anything about the character except for snippets of forcefully placed exposition that suggest that Lucy isn’t the most put together person in this universe. You also get very little context of who the bad guys are or the magic that is bringing on the transformation. The most jarring problem is the fact that whoever is responsible for this movie keeps trying to validate this movie through disproven science. They make it a huge plot point that man only uses 15% of their brain and lucy is unlocking the rest of it with the help of magic. The problem with this is that the story isn’t very sound. There are a lot of holes in this plot and that will become obvious because this movie is boring.

This film also includes random clips of nature. Partly to pad a movie they couldn’t make any longer, and partly to make it seem deep. The problem again is that it highlights the weakness of this movie. The main weakness is that there isn’t enough story for this to be a full movie. Another weakness, it isn’t that deep. The movie isn’t the worst thing you’ll ever see, but it isn’t anything impressive. It is clearly an overzealous project that doesn’t deliver what it promises.

I would skip this movie because it doesn’t really count as a movie. This story has been done a lot better in futurama, go watch that instead.

Movie Reviews

John Wick 3: Now with 200% More Dog

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If you haven’t seen any of the John Wick movies, why are you reading this? Start watching them now. This series doesn’t fail to entertain and will have you on the edge of your seat as you watch John Wick wreck mayhem across New York. Although the series doesn’t necessarily get better with each instalment, it doesn’t get worse like Taken. This movie starts off fun and will stay fun.

What I particularly like about the series is how each film builds off the other. Each film starts off with John Wick dealing with the consequences brought on by his actions in the previous movie. And this movie does have consequences. John Wick isn’t the typical inhuman badass that is ever present in movies of the same genre. John Wick progressively gets tired. You get to see him get hurt and react accordingly. He will limp and the action will slow down showing his mortality. I particularly like this aspect because it is something different. It was nice to see action scenes that weren’t cut to shit to give the illusion of fighting.

Although this film gets a bit repetitive at times, it is worth the watch. The beautifully choreographed fight scenes make up for the lack of story. Don’t get me wrong, this film has more story than other’s in the genre but the story isn’t terribly complex. Someone shoots his dog and he goes on a full rampage. The way it this was executed however is something you need to experience for yourself. And if at this point you haven’t seen the previous instalments; you don’t really need to see them to enjoy the third movie. I didn’t remember the events of the other movies when I watched it and felt like it does a good job catching you up. Although it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to binge all three in one of the most bad ass sitting you will experience.

And of course the best part, this movie comes with way more dog. I can say, you are not ready for the amount and quality of dog you will get from this movie. That alone should be reason for you to strop reading this and watch what is easily one of the best action flicks I’ve seen this year. Forget your superhero bullshit, forget your repetitive money making action trash and go see this.

In closing, love yourself and watch this!

Movie Reviews

How to be a Latin Lover (2017)

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Let me just start by saying that this movie was not what I expected. I’ll admit, I went into this thinking it was another generic romantic comedy that I was being forced to sit through. Although not transcending by any means, this film did a great job keeping my attention. That alone should mean a lot as I do not have the best attention span. And yet I found my self watching every bit of this.

The film follows an incredibly unlikable character Maximo who spends the whole movie trying to find a sugar mama so he doesn’t have to work anymore. Maximo is an asshole, but Eugenio Derbez truly makes him a likeable one. Maximo lives a life of luxury where people constantly wait on him. This means that he will act in the selfish way that we would expect a character of this to act. Although you never truly root for Maximo in his endeavors, Derbez makes him bearable. His and Salma hyaks performance alone is reason enough to watch this movie. The on screen chemistry between Salma Hyack and Derebez. The time the spend on screen together is almost enough to see it just for the banter. And the way they incorporate being bilingual is so natural and made this movie truly a unique experience. Being bilingual myself, I was happy to see people who not only looked like me but also talked like me. It was a nice change from the movies I usually sit through and that’s a good thing

As a tip, don’t go into this film expecting something deep because it is comedy. The story is pretty flat, but it is unique enough that it will keep you entertained. If you want a date night movie, look no further. Even if you are bored at home, this is a great watch. It has a certain charm that you should experience.

Movie Reviews

Hellboy (2019) Review

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              I am not too familiar with the source material for this film unfortunately, so my review will focus on the movie and its story and not the comic book it is based on.

              This film was an interesting ride. It didn’t do anything extraordinarily bad, but it did little to make the film remarkable. The film is a super hero movie and thus it will follow a lot of the already established tropes. It also follows a familiar story that you have seen so many times so the fact that it doesn’t add anything to make this story feel fresh and new is a bit disappointing. Hellboy will constantly recite cheesy one liners, and most don’t really land. You will have a lot of scenes that try desperately to establish Hell Boy as a bad ass but it becomes a bit distracting. How many times can we watch a hero pretend like he doesn’t care only to find out that he does at the end? I take it not much longer and this movie will probably one that will become obscure over time because it’s the same story.

              What hurts this film is the CGI. This story might have been better if it were animated. The cgi in this film isn’t the best and the fights look ugly on the big screen. There were multiple times where I didn’t know what I was looking at because of how cartoonishly bad action scenes would play out. This comes as a huge disappointment because there are a lot of cool designs of demons and monsters that would have looked a lot better if it were all animated. If you want to watch this for the action, wait till you can watch it on a smaller screen, it might look better.

              Another issue with this movie is the acting. Maybe it is the scripts fault, but it seems like most people sleep walk through this film. Some of the acting is out right wooden and it kills a scene because if the actors don’t care, I don’t either. You can tell that this was another paycheck for most of the people here. If you are looking for a good story, go elsewhere because this one will feel generic. I honestly don’t know how this film got a theatric review when it feels like a Netflix original. It is a shame because I have seen how cool of a story can be, and I wanted to like this movie so bad but it just doesn’t do the series justice.

              I say skip this one. Don’t pay theather price because it isn’t worth it. Wait for it to come on Netflix but even then it would be for background noise as you will probably lose interest in the story. It’s not terrible, but it’s not good. 

Movie Reviews

Little (2019) Review

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              Where can I start off with this movie, if you can even call it that. Little is one of those comedies that you just have to sit through. This movie will name drop better movies of its genre, making you regret not being home watching those instead. If you’ve seen the movie “Big”, you’ve seen the better version of this movie. Hell, if you have seen the trailers for this, you’ve seen the better version of this movie as it does not add any new jokes. You aren’t missing much.

              First of all, this movie is incredibly shameless about its product placement. You can’t miss it because every scene stops in order to plug in its product placement. Lyft should seriously have a bigger acting credit than Regina Hall as it has more screen time than she does. It is a shame that movies, at least the shameless popular ones, seem to be giant advertisements and are losing their ability to tell a story effectively. I understand that a movie like this probably wouldn’t get enough funding with out such shameless product placement, but when it is this bad, just don’t make the movie.

              The jokes don’t always land, and yes you will have to sit there through entire scenes that are not funny because they had to pad out the run time somehow. And the few moments that do make you laugh are not enough to merit a viewing at the theater. How this movie got a theatric release astounds me. This should have been a Netflix original.

              Don’t waste your time or money and skip this movie. This isn’t even a fun bad movie to make fun of. It is just a bad long commercial with few barely funny jokes sprinkled throughout. Just watch the trailers or watch big as it will be a better sit. If you are curious and want to watch this movie, wait till you can stream it. Cheers.

Movie Reviews

Next Gen (2018) Review

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Next Gen is a poor man’s Big Hero 6, and given the choice, you should probably go watch that instead. This more poorly written knock off is a Netflix original that you probably won’t miss if you don’t watch it. This movie attempts to be an edgier version of Big Hero 6 through its plot, design and music, it fails to entertain. It doesn’t push the envelope hard enough and has more holes in its plot to make it work. Granted I might not be the target audience, but you can still make a movie geared for kids that is still entertaining to other groups.

This is a movie about a trouble teen, Mai, who lives in a world where robots are a part of everyday life. The problem is that she hates robots. The movie suggest that her dislike of robots is due to her distant mother’s obsession with robots. The movie will suggest a lot to give the illusion of plot and character development. As these movies go, she is also troubled by a past you get in small bits of dialogue and flash backs. Because her father left at a young age for whatever reason, she is now unable to trust anyone and therefore forces herself to be alone. Her sad past is what makes her destined to be this movie’s hero. And as this movie’s hero, nothing bad will happen to her.

This is one of those movies where things happen because shitty writing. That is to say that they will make shit up to write themselves out of all the plot holes and it isn’t subtle. For example, her encounter with the robot of the movie, Project 77, as so credulous. She is able to sneak past all of these security robots which makes me believe that robots in this universe are useless if they can’t stop a single little girl from sneaking into a secret lab. Even more troubling is the lack of consequences in the movie. Just reaching Project 77 she causes enough property damage where she should have at least been fined, but of course nothing ever comes of it. Maybe they forgave her because they knew she was destined to save the world.

Then you get the weirdest abusive relationship in cartoon history. Project 77 imprints on Mai and the rest of the movie is Project 77 trying to break through Mai’s hardened character. The issue is that Mai only keeps him around to hurt the ones who hurt her. This is one of those movies where the character has to have the saddest life so everything is wrong with her. Now project 77’s quirk is that he only has a limited amount of memory and he must erase certain memories to keep making new ones. And you never really care because Mai isn’t a nice person. You can argue that her past, the one that was poorly written for her, made her act this way, but I didn’t feel bad for her. I didn’t want to follow her around. She was extremely generic, as characters of this genre often are, and the relationship between Mai and 77 wasn’t captivating like that of the Iron Giant or Big Hero 6.

The other big issue with this movie is the plot. The villain of the movie is ridiculous. His plan to take over the world is to mass produce these robots that he gives to everyone. He plants bombs in these and his plan is to activate them to blow up and destroy humanity. The problem is that these explosions do so little damage that by the end of it you wonder if it was even necessary for Mai and 77 to get involved. Like I have mentioned before, this movie has no consequences and therefore, you will never really care for this movie.

This movie is bland. Netflix seems to be pumping out movies for the sake of pumping them out. These knock offs are not content and instead we get our feed bombarded with crap they keep labeling as original. I wish that instead they would spend more time between releases, so they can make watchable content. They have the ability, I have seen some Netflix content that I didn’t mind but lately it just seems like they are churning cheap rip offs of shows and movies that were successful. The problem with this is you get content with very little substance that panders and it is getting harder and harder to justify paying for the subscription when good content is diluted with this crap. Skip this so they don’t keep making crap like this.