Andy Gapin

Given my obsession with Zooey Deschanel, checking out Our Idiot Brother was obviously a requirement for me, even if it took an extra week. But Zooey aside, the cast for the movie is pretty stacked. And for the most part, that’s what the movie became to me, a showcase of actors and actresses that I enjoy.

Our Idiot Brother isn’t a strong movie in any real sense, but Paul Rudd makes it work in the way that he pulls most things off. The story is just average and doesn’t really progress along too much. It feels as though it’s trying to tell a little too much at once. While most of the film tries to focus on the relationship between Paul Rudd’s character and his three sisters, a lot of time is still spent developing the individual lives of all four characters before everything can really culminate in Rudd ruining each of his sister’s lives–or rather exposing how they’ve ruined their own lives. Because of the three sisters, each of with coming with a male (female in Zooey’s case) counterpart, there was a lot of Rudd to spread around. Three may work well in theory, but I felt as though there were too many relationships to build.

Like I said, the movie itself is mostly average, but I walked away from Our Idiot Brother with a few other thoughts:

• Zooey Deschanel and Rashida Jones as a lesbian couple is almost too much to handle.
• I’ve said it a thousand times before, but Steve Coogan needs to be in a million more things. Everything, really.
• I’m really glad Adam Scott is on Parks and Recreation now and I’d also like to see him in a million more things.
• Elizabeth Banks looks even better with as a brunette than she does as a blonde.

Despite having a thousand relationships to build out, if you need a few laughs and are interested in any of the things I’ve just mentioned, Our Idiot Brother could be well worth the cost of an AM cinema ticket on a rainy weekend morning.

Rating: B-

Captain America was never a superhero that interested me in the least. I don’t know why, I just never cared about him. Given that, I really had no burning desire to see this up until recently. The trailers actually made this movie look like it could be decent so I figured I’d give it a shot. I’m glad I did too because Captain America was solid.

Captain America is good a similar way that Iron Man is great. Everyone gets something, but without making a lot of sacrifices (not that I know much about the Captain America comics anyway). You get a half decent story, great effects, good action scenes, some eye candy, and characters you care about.

That being said, one of the best things about Captain America is something that you probably won’t even realize on your own (I hadn’t even really thought about it until Discover Blogs’ Malcolm MacIver pointed it out on his blog Science Not Fiction). The hero’s enhancement is different than in any other story. In Captain America, the enhancement comes from a deliberate experiment that goes exactly as planned with no negative side effects. In addition to that, the subject chose to be enhanced and made this choice for altruistic purposes. And lastly, the enhancement isn’t just a physical one, but also a moral enhancement. I’m not going to go further into this because you should read MacIver’s post about it, but after realizing this having this pointed out to me, the whole movie and story just feels better.

Up above, I compared Captain America: The First Avenger to Iron Man, but I wouldn’t go so far to say that it’s on that level or anything, but it’s not that far behind. Captain America is good comic book movie that does things right.

Rating: A

Horrible Bosses has a great cast. It’s that simple, it’s just a solid cast and everyone pulls their weight. I’m not a huge Jennifer Aniston fan (she’s alright), but she was pretty incredible in this movie. Between her, Charlie Day, and Kevin Spacey, I don’t know who was the best. Charlie Day’s character is pretty much a slightly smarter Charlie from It’s Always Sunny, but I was more than okay with that. His high-strung, yelling-because-he-doesn’t-know-how-better-to-communicate antics were perfect for the character.

While I’m lucky enough to not hate my bosses at my current job, Horrible Bosses hits on a pretty good premise for a flick that most people have fantasized about at some point in their lives. Killing your boss, who hasn’t thought about that in even the smallest way? I’m not calling anyone (myself included) homicidal, but you know what I mean. So that sort of makes the idea not entirely original, but they work with it. The jokes aren’t always the best and sometimes there are big gaps without anything awesome happening, but everything that does happen is at least delivered well by actors that I love. At the end of the day, that’s good enough for me.

Horrible Boses isn’t going to win any awards or blast you with a ton of creativity, but it’s got people you like in it and they’re doing what they do best.

Rating: B

Too much Cameron Diaz.

Not enough Jason Segel.

After saying that, there isn’t a lot left to say. Bad Teacher isn’t nearly as funny as it would have been if Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz at least shared the screen 50/50. Instead, we get Cameron Diaz as the single main character and Jason Segel with a much more minor role. Hell, Lucy Punch spent the second most amount of time on the screen after Diaz. I’m not complaining about that, I like her, but Jason Segel was completely underutilized. The fact is, Bad Teacher has more than enough talent at its disposal to make for a good movie, but wastes all its time on Cameron Diaz. This is so problematic, it’s not even funny.

Actors aside, Bad Teacher could have also benefited from having more likable characters. I’m pretty sure the only likable character was Jason Segel’s. Justin Timberlake’s and Lucy Punch’s characters are only marginally more likable than Cameron Diaz’s completely awful character. What’s worse, is that while Justin Timberlake and Lucy Punch play characters that are unlikable in a way that works positively for the film, Cameron Diaz’s character just plain sucked all around.

With unlikable characters and focus on the wrong actors, you’d at least hope for a solid script, but holding out for such a thing will just yield disappointment. The film had potential, but it went unfulfilled. There was weren’t jokes where there needed to be and most of the ones that were there fell flat.

Bad Teacher isn’t an entire loss, it does have a few moments, but only so much as to be worth streaming from Netflix. I wouldn’t bother even wasting a DVD rental on it.

Rating: C-

Super 8 may not be in any way at all related to Cloverfield as a project, but you’ll feel a very familiar vibe while sitting in the theater watching it. It’s a bit of a different style, but the creatures are very reminiscent of each other. Though, this make sense as J.J. Abrams produced Cloverfield and the same guy designed both monsters.

Super 8 opens with one of the most powerful opening shots I’ve seen in a movie. It’s simple and nothing is said, but those first few seconds really set a tone for the whole movie and convey so much more than any words could have. Beyond this, the movie keeps with a steady pace and focuses on a handful of nerdy kids making their own film to enter into a contest. Abrams does a great job of creating characters that we actually care about and in some ways remind us of ourselves 15-20 years ago, almost in a Goonies or Stand By Me kind of way. Almost. When shit goes down in their small town (rhyme not intentional), you feel a legitimate connection to the kids.

While much of the movie’s success relies on an element of surprise that was carefully curated, you won’t actually find much to be surprised about. For the most part, you won’t be disappointed about not being surprised, however.

Super 8 brings a return to a more innocent time where integrity matters in a way that will  remind you of the Spielberg-branded films of the 80s you grew up with. Super 8 is not the the perfect film, but it’s engaging, sucks the viewer right in, and has no lack of great acting carrying it through.  The bottom line is that this is a solid film and worth two hours of your time.

Rating: A

I’m going to make this a short review and not go into any depth…mainly because I just don’t feel like putting much effort into a post right now. Hey, at least I’m honest, right?

X-Men: First Class works. Well. X-Men is a series that has always had a lot of potential, a lot can be done with it. This movie shows the positive side of that very well. It’s just done right and stays accessible to non-comic book readers. There is a solid story line that gets us from point A to point B without a lot of extra fluff and we get a nice set up for a full trilogy of prequels that could lead right up to the start of the first X-Men movie. And most importantly, we get some nice character development. X-Men: First Class is energetic in all the right ways while still keeping a stronger focus on story and the connections between characters.

My fiancée who isn’t that into comic book movies and didn’t care to see this was surprised at how much she liked it. So yeah, check it out.

Rating: A-

Every Friday the 13th, a group of friends heads over to my place and we watch some horror flicks. This is something we’ve been doing for roughly 7 or 8 years now. Generally, we have a set list of movies prepared beforehand, but last week, our planning failed us. We got through Piranha, which was awesome, but then it was on to Dinoshark. Unfortunately, Dinoshark nearly put us all to sleep. It was quite boring so we aborted it and decided to see what Netflix had for us to stream. After a few minutes, we all decided on ThanksKilling, hands down the most ridiculous sounding of all the movies we considered.

ThanksKilling bills itself as being the “ultimate low-budged experience.” That’s not far off form the truth, this is extremely low-budget. In fact, I’m pretty sure that there’s currently enough cash in my wallet right now to cover the entire production budget for ThanksKilling. Whether or not it’s the ultimate experience, I don’t know, but the entertainment level was off the charts. There’s that cliché saying “it’s so bad it’s good.” That is not ThanksKilling. This is head-hurtingly bad, but if you take this review as a warning to not view this flick, you’re making a mistake and missing the point. But I will say this, ThanksKilling demands to be watched in a room full of people that are able and willing to Mystery Science Theater 3000 the hell out of it.

The premise of ThanksKilling is surprisingly simple, a foul-mouthed, shit-talking, and axe-weilding turkey kills people. It’s that simple. There’s a slight explanation, but between awful acting and fact that nothing really makes any sense, the explanation is rather pointless. But yes, it’s a killer turkey on Thanksgiving. The turkey itself is a poorly-made, rubber-looking puppet that is somehow able to speak English and no one is bothered by this fact. That being said, the English-speaking abilities of this turkey work in our favor, as what makes this film actually worth watching is the horrible shit talking and one-liners from the turkey. Lines like “gobble gobble, motherfucker” and “you just got stuffed” are  littered throughout the entire film with reckless abandon. It’s quite wonderful.

ThanksKilling doesn’t spare the killing, there is plenty of it and much of it seems to have no real reason to it…which is the best kind for a horror flick. However, the characters seem rather unaffected by the deaths of others, they seem to only care about surviving themselves and even when family members are killed, they show little distress or sadness. It’s hard to tell if this is due to extremely poor acting or a poor script. Probably both.

One of the oddest things about ThanksKilling is that there is a certain JonBenét Ramsey joke that made it into the movie that completely throws you off. ThanksKilling was made in 2009 so a JonBenét Ramsey joke is neither topical nor edgy. However, what makes this joke worth noting is that it is said on three separate occasions in the movie. The second time the joke was made, our entire room was left completely dumbfounded, yet the characters in the film seemed to make no acknowledgement to the fact that roughly 20 minutes earlier, the same girl said the same joke. At first, it seemed as though this may have been a major editing goof that somehow made it into the final version of the film, but when the joke happened a third time, it was clear that this was intentional. I really don’t get this, to be honest, but it’s little things like this that make ThanksKilling such an crowd-pleaser.

There is plenty more ridiculousness worth mentioning, but much of what this film has to offer is the shock value of it all as it happens. I wouldn’t want to take that away from you.

Entertainment value (with friends): A
Quality grade: D-

Piranha is a wonderfully gory piece of entertainment that I should have seen while in theaters. Snoozing on this one was a mistake. Piranha is pretty much the Snakes on a Plane of the aquatic movies…only it’s better than that, it’s more of what Snakes on a Plane should of been instead of what Snakes on a Plane actually was.

Piranha marries together horror and comedy in the perfect way with just the right amount of each to make it much more of a horror comedy than a campy horror flick. Half the hilarity comes from the straight up ridiculous approach taken that makes it clear that the makers of this film were in on the joke in just the same way that the makers of Eight Legged Freaks were.  In fact, a reference to Eight Legged Freaks couldn’t be more appropriate for Piranha.

The gore is not rationed out lightly, instead the blood, guts, and dismemberment are poured on so heavily that it puts Starship Troopers to shame. Seriously, this film should replace the beach scene from Saving Private Ryan and become the new gold standard of bloody references.

When Piranha isn’t dumping gallon after gallon of blood onto the screen–which is most of the movie–it’s pretty much softcore porn. There are plenty of boobs and naked girls to go around, enough to make you double check the disc to make sure it’s not a Girls Gone Wild video.

The only real knock against Piranha is that they had Christopher Lloyd on board and completely squandered him. When you have Mr. Lloyd at your disposal, you can’t waste it! You need to use him to the fullest extent. He should be in every scene. Scratch that. He should be on screen at all times. Unfortunately, this was not the case. He was little more than a cameo in the Piranha.

That mistake aside, Piranha is just great and super entertaining. Watch this. Now.

Entertainment score: A

If you follow Judd Apatow on Twitter, you were probably more excited for Bridesmaids to be released so that the retweets would stop rather than actually being excited to see it. That’s not to say that the film wasn’t presented in a way to make one want to see it, it’s just that…well, there were a lot of retweets.

Bridesmaids declares itself as a chick flick (for the record, I don’t mind a good chick flick. I went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic in the theater by myself), but it doesn’t take much to realize, even before you see it, that it breaks the mold a bit in an attempt to be a female-casted version of the Hangover. Sure, it’s a wedding movie, but it’s not really a wedding movie. We barely meet the groom and the wedding-related stuff is barely important, it serves more so as a conduit for a story about maturing childhood friendships, early mid-life crisis, and brides-to-be shitting in the middle of the street while wearing a wedding dress. Bridesmaids is, at times, a raunchy movie that reminds us that girls aren’t always prissy and proper…not that we all need such a reminder. Some of us were already well aware of this fact and don’t doubt the ability of women to be funny.

Kristen Wiig does what she does best with Bridesmaids which is good because she plays the only character that really gets much development. This sort of leaves her to carry most of the movie herself with only little bits of help from the rest of the cast. Luckily, she’s up to the task, for the most part. The biggest problem with the Bridesmaids is that it felt like it was a bit up and down. The film is mostly a series of lulls joined together by brief periods of hilarity. It felt as though Wiig and her writing partner Annie Mumolo had a bunch of ideas that would have been great for a series of SNL sketches, but then just tried to throw filler in between them. The funny parts are really funny, but there is a lot of fat that could have been cut away to produce something that was leaner and more consistently funny. Kristen Wiig is great at sketch comedy so she really makes these sections of the film work, but in between, I just felt myself waiting for the next sketch to hit.

Bridesmaids is worth seeing if you were already convinced that you wanted to see it. It’s worth the two hours of your time, but if you were on the fence before reading this because what you saw in the trailers wasn’t enough to completely sell you, you’re best waiting for a Netflix rental in a few months.

Rating: B

It turns out that many people aren’t a fan of zom-coms/zombedies/zombie comedies these days. Many think the sub-genre of the zombie sub-genre has gone too far. I disagree. I like to laugh and I like gore and I like zombies. When it comes the matter, sometimes I feel rather Plessy about it and sometimes I feel more Ferguson; that is, sometimes I like my gore and comedy integrated and sometimes I’m in a more “separate, but equal” mood. A well-done zombie comedy is a nice way to bring on the zombie-goodness while still providing laughs for both myself and my fiancée who isn’t big horror fan.

Aaah! Zombies does a great job of this and it brings an entirely unique idea to the table that I’ve never seen before…or even heard of. The flick takes on the perspective of the zombies instead of the still living. Some movies like I, Zombie have been based upon the premise of following the transformation into a zombie, but this is different. Except for about the first five to ten minutes of the movie, Aaah! Zombies is based wholly around a group of friends (and a random weirdo they pick up along the way) who have already become zombies. The transformation takes about thirty seconds.

At first, they don’t even know they are zombies, they are walking around and interacting with each other, but the reality is, they are in fact the undead and the rest of the world sees them as such. This is actually handled rather well. Most of the time, the movie is in color and we see our friends as looking like normal people and moving at a normal speed. Sure, they may sustain some injuries along the way that they can’t feel, but for the most part, they look normal to themselves and each other. However, many scenes flash us a black and white glimpse of what they really look like to others. They are slow-moving, decaying zombies complete with groans and the desire to eat flesh. Obviously, there is a bit of a discrepancy here–the undead are simply unable to move at the same pace as the living–and this is handled perfectly. To the undead, the rest of the world appears to be moving at a breakneck speed around them. People walk and talk super fast.

This is the kind of thing that could easily become a mess and not work at all, but it’s done right and the writing and comedic performances are done more than well enough to pull the whole thing off. It’s actually done so well, that you barely even know it’s a low-budget affair.

In an odd way, and for lack of a better way to describe it, the film is almost like a mash-up between Re-Animator and Clerks. It’s mostly just friends hanging out and being zombies, but it borrows some ideas from movies like Re-Animator that aren’t strict with their zombies. For example, the undead in Aaah! Zombies can function without their bodies and their limbs can be controlled even after being detached from the rest of the body. If you’re stickler for the rules of being undead, you may be somewhat peeved, but it’s all in good fun.

This is definitely worth checking out and with it currently being available on Netflix Instant Watch, you really have no excuse.

Rating: A-

Here’s the trailer: