“Magic Mike” (2012)

I went into “Magic Mike” with very low expectations. And I’d love to say that I’m a big Soderbergh fan, but really, we all know why I bought the ticket:

 

But I can say, with very little pause, that “Magic Mike” was quite possibly the worst movie I have seen this year, and quite possibly ever. Which is saying a lot, because seeing bad movies and feeling superior is what I do best.

The worst part is that this could have been a decent, dare I say, good movie. Stop laughing. I’m serious.

Here’s what could have been done to salvage this movie:

-Scrap the dialogue.

-Scrap the girl, Brooke (Cody Horn) and her brother, Adam (Alex Pettyfer): recast if roles are kept. The scenes between these two are so bad, they are physically painful to watch. Cody Horn is probably a lovely person, but this movie is not her best work (I sincerely hope).

-Rewrite script: was there a script? Was dialogue written and reread beforehand? Or did the actors just ad lib on set? Reid Carolin I’m looking at you.

-rewrite to: striper strips for some sort of misguided desire for female acceptance, use dialogue with Joann etc to show that his only relationships with woman are for his body, have the business thing a subplot for the personal storyline, with it building, some sort of definite goal he can achieve (a certain $$ amount, or some sort of investments maybe? Something more concrete than a credit score) (or if going the credit score route discuss why his credit score is so low in the first place). Either move Adam’s character to the forefront and have his struggles in some way relate to Mike’s, or scrap him all together. Have climax of the film be his break through with girl that all his other relationships with women are superficial but he’s ready to have a meaningful relationship.

-Have Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) be a woman, or have his betrayal be with someone other than Adam’s character. I like Matthew McConaughey. I even like Matthew McConaughey in this movie. But his character, or rather all the characters in this movie, is a device. Either use him well as a device, or make him an actual character.

-Have someone who has actually spoken to another human being ever in their life write the dialogue. Good actors can deliver bad dialogue and make it believable. Bad actors delivering bad dialogue makes for scenes so painful to sit through the audience wishes for an aneurysm to end their suffering.

-Use two-shots during conversations, for the love of god, not everything has to be a single (it makes it feel insincere and forced) (or, if you’re going to do singles because you’re trying to express Mike’s isolation or whatever, put the camera closer to his eyeline).

-Either make the drugs a thing, a big thing, or get rid of them. Commit to it, or don’t do it.

-Cut at least 2 minutes out of every single scene.

-Get rid of the title cards with the months on them, for the love of all that is holy and good could they think of no other way to demonstrate the passage of time? A tv news report, a month business report from one of his business guys, a trip to a bank every month, a calendar… those are off the top of my head at nearly 1 am. Why… why why would anyone use title cards saying “JUNE” on them.

-Have a score, even if it’s just some light emotional crap. Something instead of the room tone going on for the three hundred reaction shots of Brooke making the exact same face.

-Have Brooke and Mike hook up earlier, give a reason for the tension. Then it makes her valuing him as a person instead of just a piece of meat more important.

-Circular logic, but either hire actors who can carry a scene, or at least don’t put two actors who can’t carry a scene in a scene together.

-Don’t ever have siblings refer to each other as “brother” and “sister”, don’t have them do it fourteen hundred times in the course of a 2 hour movie. We got it the first time, the very first time, when Adam said, in the truck “I live with my sister”.

-The dialogue hanging over into the next scene works sometimes, but interestingly enough, never at all in this movie. Not once.

 

Even with really low expectations, this movie still manages to disappoint. I wanted to enjoy some eye candy, but instead ended up gauging my eyes out over the terrible acting and god awful dialogue.

E+ I just made up that grade up. The plus is for Channing Tatum’s smokin’ body.

“This Means War” (2012)

The recipe for a good movie is simple. You take a good story, with interesting characters, and you hire competent people to make the story come to life. It’s astounding how very few movies get both these pieces right. Perhaps I expect too much. Perhaps my expectations for a fun movie are too high. Or maybe I’m not particular enough when selecting my movies. Whatever the case may be, I had to see “This Means War” twice to reconcile how bad it was despite how much I wanted to like it. I did really want to like it.

FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) are CIA agents, apparently not the best of the best, who get “grounded” in the second scene. Tuck starts thinking about how he’d like to get himself a nice girl and settle down. So despite all evidence that this would never happen in real life, he tries online dating. Immediately, he is connected with Lauren (Reese Witherspoon). They have an extremely short first date, then she meets FDR around the corner in a video store (because this is 1998). She is a complete bitch to FDR, who for some reason finds that attractive. He then stalks her at work, and practically harasses her into agreeing to see him.. Meanwhile she goes on a second date with Tuck, who by what the audience sees of their dates, is an attractive, sweet, British guy. So Lauren meets FDR at a club where he is a complete slimeball. But then he saves her from an embarrassing encounter with her ex, so suddenly she’s willing to give him the time of day. FDR and Tuck soon discover that they’re dating the same woman and turn it into a competition, which at it’s best involves manipulating Lauren into thinking that they are also interested in her interests. There is a weak subplot woven in about an angry Russian bent on revenge and it all comes to a head when FDR and Tuck’s friendship falls apart, Lauren is finally able to make a choice between them but ends up leaving both in a burning restaurant, and then angry Russian shows up looking for blood.

I like Chris Pine. I like Tom Hardy. I enjoy movies with good looking men. And with the exception of some lines that seemed like they were written by someone who has never been on a date in their life, the acting was not the problem with this film (okay, there are other exceptions too, but we’ll get to those in a bit).

Exhibit A

There should never be a single frame of a hollywood movie out of focus unless it is a stylistic choice made by the filmmakers. And yet, in this film there is a shot that is out of focus. Worse yet it is used multiple times in the scene. How does this happen on a professional set? How did the AC screw up, the operator not notice, the scriptsup and director not notice (if they had video tap which they pretty likely did)? Then in the editing room, the editor chose that out of focus shot to put into the film? Was… that the best take? Was that the ONLY take? Was the film behind budget so they had time for one take of this one set up, and it was out of focus, but they got it so they had to move on. Or they were behind budget so they didn’t use camera assistants, and the operator was trying to focus and op (which on a static shot would not be that hard, but okay). Focus the camera! Hello hollywood! If I wanted to see a movie out of focus I’d download it illegally from the internet, I wouldn’t pay $8 to see it in a theater (I was willing to blame the projector, until I saw the reverse shots of the woman he was talking to were in focus).

Exhibit B

Continuity is another area where hollywood films should be fairly on top of things. Everyone loves to find mistakes in movies, where the milk van drives through the background of a period piece or where a hobbit is wearing shoes, and there’s a certain amount that audiences can forgive. But in “This Means War” it’s like they didn’t even try. Continuity is all over the map. Things appear and disappear all over the place.

To add another nail in this technical sloppiness coffin, the audio is out of sync with the actors lips consistently through this movie. Word on IMDB is that they edited some of the dialogue to get the film from an R rating to a PG13. So they just cut wide, rerecorded the dialogue and hoped no one was looking that close. Awesome. You know what would happen in any other profession if you did that? It was to the point that it seemed like at least once every scene someone’s lips did not match what the audio was saying.

My apologies to Angela Bassett but she was only in this movie for maybe a total of five minutes and a toaster would have been more convinces in her role. She was like a robot who has heard a lot about how humans “mean bosses” behave.

Then the writing at times. Oh the writing. Too many chefs not enough indians (as the not at all politically correct phrase states)? With three writers credited, it’s not entirely clear who should shoulder the blame for this script, but there were parts that had certain audience members wondering if maybe they were drinking antifreeze while writing the script. Strange things are never explained. Why is there a character named FDR, that seems like it could use a 30 second dialogue exchange. Why is there a glass bottom pool on FDR’s roof? Why is one of the signs FDR’s character has changed is that he watches “Titanic”? Why is there a bullet proof Tahoe… in existence… at all? Why does everything they shoot at explode? Why does Tuck take her to a trapeze? Why is Lauren not at all upset to learn the two guys she’s been dating are CIA agents? She is not phased at all. Not in the least. That is something that would give me pause. Especially after being kidnapped by vengeful Russians.

Memo to screenwriters: scary bad guys kill people, they don’t drive them around and make empty threats.

To add insult to injury, Lauren has a friend, Trish (Chelsea Handler) who is so obnoxious through the course of the movie, it’s tempting to jump into the screen and hit her in the face. Why is the new “in” thing in movies for normal people to have unbearably obnoxious friends? Her character is over the top and Chelsea tries really hard to be funny. But she falls so pathetically short, she’s comparable to the kid on the bus making fart noises in high school. No one thinks you’re funny, honey, you’re just weird and disgusting and immature. If I went to the movies for the rest of my life without hearing anymore penis jokes, I would die happy. You know what isn’t funny? Penis jokes. You know what I’ve had enough of in all movies, but especially “comedies”? Penis jokes. Grow up. You’re not ten anymore.

Furthermore, there was more chemistry between FDR and Tuck than there was between either of the guys and Lauren. To be fair to Reese Witherspoon, her character was a cardboard cut out of a woman. Why would either of these guys want to date her? They never discuss anything of any substance, she’s a cliche (really with the puppy and the kids? and the paintings?). She’s pretty and she’s smilie and why not! She doesn’t care we lie to her and stalk her and are pretty all around creepy. Also, why would you, if you had an attractive, sweet, earnest, obviously successful, British interested in you, why would you waste your time with the slime ball? You wouldn’t because you’re a, by all accounts, semi-intelligent woman. I saw this movie because of Chris Pine and even I would have chose Tuck over FDR.

This film, like so many on the market these days, is formula. A fill in the blanks, no thinking required, “oh it’s different because it’s a SPY rom com”, film. Which is fine. There is a time and a place for formula. Just do it right. Have it in focus, make the characters interesting, explain weird things like naming a character after a US president’s initials. Within the first few scenes any audience member who has ever seen a movie can tell you what’s going to happen. It’s obvious that Tuck will go back to his wife and kid, it’s clear that Lauren will end up with FDR, even though I was hoping she’d dump them both when she found out they’d been lying to her, but apparently she can overlook that easier than any real woman would. You know that the Russian is going to show up and put Lauren in danger, and you know that she will come between FDR and Tuck.

Contrary to what this blog might imply, I don’t have a problem with “bad” movies, if they’re fun. If I’m enjoying the chase or the hunt or something. This movie was not, for me, fun. It was difficult for me to reconcile how much I love Chris Pine with how much I was not liking this movie. I thought maybe if I saw it again I’d like it better. It didn’t work. I liked it even less the second time around. I could go on for another 1500 words of things I didn’t like about this movie, but I think we all just need to cut our losses. The only thing I can say for this movie is that it’s better than “One for the Money” because at least this one had Chris Pine and Tom Hardy to look at.

D: skip it and watch “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” if you want a hot, spy/action movie, or “Unstoppable” if you’re just watching for Chris Pine.

“One For The Money” 2012

It’s been awhile, but we’re going to slide right past that and jump into this delightful treat of a movie (but let me assure you, I do see good movies now and then).

The first phrase that comes to mind when thinking of how to describe “One for the Money,” apparently based on the novel by the same name, is incomprehensibly bad. Katherine Heigl plays possibly the dumbest protagonist to ever appear in a movie, as Stephanie Plum, a fiscally irresponsible, unemployed ex-retail employee who finds herself in desperate need of a job. So she goes to her cousin who through no fault of his own offers her a job as a bounty hunter, and oh the plot thickens, offers her the job of catching the man who broke her heart in high school. If this sounds some what familiar to “The Bounty Hunter” (2010) staring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, that’s because it is exactly the same plot. Only this one also wants to be a gritty, crime movie (I like to think this film daydreams about being “The Departed” (2006)). Jason O’Mara even sort of looks like Gerard Butler if you squint and tilt your head to the side. So, we’ve got “The Bounty Hunter” only not as good (and were this a review of “The Bounty Hunter” I’d qualify good, but as it’s not, I can safely say, without hesitation, that this movie is not as good as “The Bounty Hunter”).

Enter our heroine, somewhat completely empty headed, Stephanie Plum decides to not only become a bounty hunter, but no, she’s also going to be a detective. And even though she sees “Joe” (O’Mara) every other scene, she goes out asking questions about his whereabouts, and stumbles into a crime spree involving a boxer, a butcher and a candle stick maker (okay, no candle stick maker). She manages to put everyone in danger and gets a few killed, delivers some really terrible dialogue, and then saves the day.

There are so many things wrong with this movie it seems like a joke to even start mentioning them, but what sort of review would this be if I didn’t rip this movie apart.

First: This woman loses her job at a department store and can’t find another one. I know the economy is rough, but being unemployed for six months with your finances to the point that they repossess your car? I think I’d be working at a burger place or something long before the 6 month mark.

Second: She starts bounty hunting, then happens to find a mentor bounty hunter. Okay… this guy spends half his time saving her ass. Why doesn’t he just get Joe and get the money? He’s very “Oh how cute, you want to be a bounty hunter *pats on the head*” which she goes along with because she’s an idiot.

Then we find out she’s friends with a cop, so the rest of the time she’s calling on her cop friend for help, a cop friend who couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag with a flash light and a pair of safety scissors. I was ready to call cut on the scene in the movie theater.

So when she’s not being helped by her Mister Miyagi (Daniel Sunjata), or her cop friend (Nate Mooney), she’s being saved by the guy she’s trying to bring in, Joe, who is a cop who shot a scumbag while off duty (and like any good cop, ran from the law). She is the definition of a strong female lead.

Third: We’re told more than we’re shown or that we get to experience through the character. We’re told she lost her job, we’re told she was married but isn’t anymore (but not to Joe, it’s just presented as a random bit of information), we’re told that her and Joe have a past, and we’re told that Joe is a cop who skipped out on his bail (we do get some flashbacks of the crime, but not until late in the movie). We have no reason to care about any of what is happening in the film, and frankly it’s discouraging that the main character repeatedly and needlessly puts herself in harms way and survives to the end of the film.

The dialogue. Oh, the dialogue. “I know, right?” and “Solid” are quotes from this film. The dialogue is so unnatural and heavy handed, I wondered for a minute if the person who wrote it had ever conversed with another human being before. The plot is formulaic for both “crime” movies and romance, and the characters are duller than your grandmother’s steak knives from 1961.

However, I did laugh. It is a film that inspires you to laugh at how terrible it is. It doesn’t seem like an insult to humanity, just another b film that didn’t make the mark. It does make one wish that something good would come out of Hollywood now and again, and those film lovers out there shake their heads at the sheer terribleness of it, but at least we can laugh at it (certainly not with it).

1 star out of pity. Skip it and watch “The Bounty Hunter” on netflix instant.

The Change-up (2011)

The Change-Up is nearly everything that’s wrong with Hollywood. It’s cheap trash, polluting society with its garbage. Some would say I should better educate myself on a film before I go see it, to avoid events like this. And maybe they’re right. But in this case, I saw the trailer. I thought “Hm, that looks cute.” and as previously confessed, I like Ryan Reynolds (fool me once, Ry, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me). Myth of the American Sleepover was sold out, so we opted for this garbage. I forgot, of course, that now “R Comedy” means offensive humor.

The Change-Up is disgusting. The language used is deplorable. I enjoy a well placed expletive as much anyone, but every other word is not “well placed”, it’s bad writing. This movie is the fast food of the film industry. Cheap. Cheap laughs by having baby poop go in someone’s mouth. Cheap laughs with racist jokes. Topless women right and left. Toilet humor. Constant reference to genitals. The “f” word every time any character opens his or her mouth. Drug use portrayed as cool, and work/career shown as lame. Obviously and poorly CGed children banging their heads on cribs and anuses farting (yes, you read correctly).

The audience is expected to believe that Dave (Jason Bateman) and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) have been friends since high school, even though Dave has a successful career and a family, and Mitch smokes pot all day as an out of work actor and sleeps around. I don’t know many sets of friends whose lifestyles are that different who remain remotely close. Dave’s character seems to be a semi-decent guy who loves and cares about his family. Mitch is the slime of the earth. And while the film does bring up Dave’s being “embarrassed by Mitch” it’s because of his hijinks and not because he’s a despicable person.

There are funny moments, and this movie had a lot of potential, but instead of developing characters and relationships, and building plot points, the filmmakers went for cheap laughs aimed at the lowest of movie goers. The “heart” of the film is so forced it’s almost laughable, but there’s no poop jokes, so the audience knows it isn’t supposed to be funny. Production quality was also surprisingly lacking for a studio film. In several scenes it is obvious that some of the lines were redubbed (ideally to make them better, but who can tell); the syncing is off (the lips aren’t saying the same words as the audio), and no apparent effort was made to hide the fact.

Additionally, children are put in dangerous situations for humor, Mitch smokes a joint while driving, and both lead characters get behind the wheel after drinking.

Here’s a challenge, Hollywood. Make a comedy that doesn’t expect the audience to have the maturity of a thirteen year old boy. Make a comedy that isn’t for children that doesn’t use a four letter word. Write an original comedy that is funny to twenty-somethings that doesn’t involve human waste.

Media influences and defines our society, and at the same time it is also shaped and defined by society. So is this a society, a culture, a country that wants to be defined by The Change-Up? Are we proud to stand by this movie and say “Yes, that is what our culture is about.” The 1500’s had the Italian Renaissance, we have America’s Got Talent, Teen Mom, and The Change-Up. I hope and pray that five hundred years from now humanity looks back at our culture, our media, and shakes it’s head in disgust, because, at least, then we will have evolved to something better.

0/5 stars. I wouldn’t watch this again if they recut to only be the scenes where Ryan Reynolds is shirtless.

Larry Crowne (2011)

Three scenes into Larry Crowne internally I was shrieking “Tom Hanks, why have you forsaken me!”. From the beginning there are gaping plot holes in the story line that the audience is expected to ignore: a. this man is being fired from an hourly position at a Walmart-esq mega store because he doesn’t have a college degree, b. this man could afford the home and car on his hourly wage at said mega store previous to being fired, c. this man is unable to get another job in retail, d. this man loves his Chevy Tahoe.  At some point, the amount of holes the audience will overlook is exceeded. With a good story, engaging characters, you can get away with almost anything. This film had neither.

The characters are difficult to identify with; you have Larry Crowne (director Tom Hanks) who is too pathetic to hold a job at a mega store, dress himself, get his hair cut, or get to class on time, Mercedes (Julia Roberts) a bitter drunkard turned professor without clear reason for being a bitter drunkard with the exception of her immature sleaze ball of a husband, Dean (Bryan Cranston), and Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) ‘quirky freespirit’ to the point of obnoxious. Of these motley and difficult to rally behind characters no one seems to have any goal or purpose in the movie. Indeed the movie itself is directionless, allegedly taking the audience through Larry Crowne’s first semester of college (ever, as he says repeatedly in the film). News flash, Larry. You’re hardly the first, only, oldest, or most interesting person starting college after two careers.

Throughout the film, Larry is treated like he’s much older than Hanks’ 55 years, or as my friend delicately put it like he’s mentally handicapped. He allows a young woman he’s just met, Talia, to change his wardrobe, hair style, decor (culling his ‘clutter’ from the living room), and his name when she decides, for no apparent reason, to call him Lance instead. Larry’s willingness to let Talia take such control over his life leaves the audience wondering why, a question which is never addressed in the course of the film. Mercedes irrationally answers the question the same way Talia’s boyfriend does, assuming Larry has feelings for the girl, even though there is absolutely no additional evidence to support it. This leads Mercedes to grumble bitterly about how he must have come to college to get a younger woman, an assumption that makes absolutely no sense, and has little reason to effect her life. Mercedes is apparently angry because her husband published two novels and sits at home looking at porn while she’s at work, a situation that’s led her to drink to the point of alcoholism, and be bitter and judgmental towards innocent guys like Larry. Another series of arrows that make little sense.

The romance between Larry and Mercedes is barely identifiable, until she drunkly invites him in for a roll in the hay. A move that has everyone scratching their heads as the audience is led to believe Mercedes thinks Larry’s into and dating young women. There is no build up, there’s an uncomfortable staring contest during a lecture, which apparently means they’re secretly mad for each other. Then when they kiss, and Larry celebrates, the audience isn’t celebrating along because they have nothing invested in this ‘romance’.

As if the meandering Mercedes, Larry, Talia, Talia’s boyfriend love triangle isn’t meandering enough, there is an oddly misplaced scooter gang subplot, a strange focus on Mercede’s poor choice of shoes, and a new thrift store opening, none of which tie into the ‘plot’ in the least.

There is a scene at the end between Larry and Mercedes that shows what a cute and sweet movie this could have been if anyone making it had taken it seriously, but it’s just a glimmer and by the time it rolls around the invested movie goer has given up on the film.

In the end, this movie is memorable only by how much better it should have been and how flat it fell. There are scenes that are painful to watch, unintentionally awkward to the point of being on par with watching the nude scene of Titanic with your mom. The film is allegedly about “finding your reason to live” (based on the official summary from Universal via IMDB.com), yet the main character finds only a bitter, alcoholic communications professor. Either something profound got left on the cutting room floor or someone missed the mark.

To make matters worse, there were shots in this movie that should have been abandoned before the camera rolled. One look at a tap monitor should have had someone saying “This isn’t working.” and moving on to the next set up. But some how the editor managed to a. select said shots and then b. hold on them for torturously long amounts of screen time.

D+ because there were some laughs but there were more scenes taking place in a Tahoe. If you want to see Roberts and Hanks together watch Charlie Wilson’s War, someone actually wrote a script for that one (oscar winner Aaron Sorkin, if you weren’t aware).