The Review: Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 (8/10)

Today I decided to break my own rule I just started by watching something I have seen before. I watched Iron Man 2 which I have not seen in years. Two years ago I re-watched Iron Man and it made me appreciate the amount of growth the character has had in all these years since it happened. I felt the same way watching this one. Iron Man 3 I don't wanna talk about. I forgot that the villain in this one, Whiplash played by Mickey Rourke, had a good reason to be upset and really got into Tony Stark's mind. Robert Downey Jr. was in the damned groove making this. I had forgotten how irresponsible Iron Man had become. This takes place months after the first film and Stark is getting drunk, having parties, and scaring the hell out of anyone associated with his company.

The Review: Rough Night

Rough Night 1/10

I laughed during one scene when some guys were buying adult diapers in slow motion. It wasn't really a laugh so much as a smile with sound. Rough Night stars Scarlett Johansson, Zoë Kravitz, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, and Ilana Glazer. I enjoy four of those five people and while I didn't expect this to be an incredible film or anything I did not think this would be as lame as it was. This is not a funny movie but should have been. It felt like everyone was just acting out scenes and not really committed. Five friends from college get together for a bachelorette party an end up killing a guy and trying to get rid of his body and alleged funny ensues. Everyone is exactly what you think they are from being introduced. The mother getting divorced will hook up with her ex girlfriend from college. The one running for senate will win. The party girl will fuck up and because she is heavier will take the brunt of punishment. I'm sure it was fun to make this movie and be on set but it did not translate to film well. This was a straight up waste of time.

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Theater Whore: Ghost In The Shell

Ghost In The Shell 2/10

In all the controversy surrounded the new Ghost In The Shell movie people seem to be overlooking the most important fact: this movie was dull as hell. Its a movie where every once in a while I went “Oh, that looks kinda cool.” Other than that it just felt like a convoluted mess. I was not a huge fan of the anime and recently watched one of them on Netflix having no emotional attachment. But I am a huge fan of Scarlett Johansson. I am also not plagued by having problems with one race portraying another. Yeah. I'll be getting into that soon enough. So I was the perfect person to watch this movie and give it a fair shake.

The Review: The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book 7/10

I got around to watching the live action version of The Jungle Book expecting to not enjoy it for some reason. I had it sitting in my Netflix queue just wondering if I would ever get around to watching it. I did and really liked it. It took me a little bit to get used to the way some of the animals looked but once I did I was all in. This is about a kid named Mowgli...I am not going to tell you what The Jungle Book is about, you weirdos. Kid raised by wolves, begins to act a bit too human for animals taste, and is led towards a place where he can be left.

Theater Whore: Captain America Civil War

Captain America Civil War 10/10

No complaints! I have none regarding this movie. There will be some spoilers. I got back from seeing Captain America Civil War and am already planning to watch it at least one more time in theaters. This is more of an Avengers movie than Captain America which is not a problem for me. This movie had more surprises than I expected as well as characters. If you haven't seen the movie yet you really should not read this unless you care about spoilers. This was a great film.

Fictional Character Shaming

Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans who are in the upcoming Avengers: Age Of Ultron movie are in hot shit after making a comment about a woman. When asked about a potential relationship between the two actors and this woman Renner said “She's a slut. a complete whore.” Then he followed that up with saying that “she has a prosthetic leg anyway” which caused Evans to laugh even harder saying “I was gonna say something along that line!”

No woman should be made fun of in this manner by two men that are famous Hollywood actors and making a lot of money starring in blockbuster films...if she is real. They are talking about a fictional character Black Widow played by Scarlett Johansson.

Demand It!: Under The Skin

I hate these kind of films. What kind? Ones that you have to “get.” The ones that if you don't like it people trash you and question your opinion on every film that you say you enjoy. Under The Skin stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien that seduces men and then kills them. When I say it like that it sounds good until you realize that most of this “movie” is her driving and taking to terrible actors. Turns out they were real guys. It takes place in Scotland where the decision was made to say “Fuck it” to subtitles. The director also did Sexy Beast which was awesome but it was as if he took everything I didn't enjoy about that movie (drawn out scenes) and stretch it even further.

Theater Whore: Chef

Chef 8/10

Mala and I went to see this movie Chef that has managed to sip right past me when it came out a few months ago. The only thing I knew about this movie was that Jon Favreau was in it and there was food. So I made sure that we got full at the Arclight Cafe before seeing the movie (I'll be writing about that on my food blog soon). So we headed inside and checked out what turned out to be a really good film.

Favreau wrote, directed, and starred in this as Carl Casper, a professional chef that is stuck in a rut. He wants to be more creative with what he is making but the guy who runs the restaurant, Riva played by Dustin Hoffman, reminds him whose place it is and to calm his shit and just make what he's told. Molly played by Scarlett Johansson who is the hostess and everyone is getting excited because a food critic is coming. His sous chef Bobby Cannavale and line cook John Leguizamo are incredible in this and I laughed every time they were on screen.

Theater Whore: Lucy

Lucy 2/10

(heavy sigh) It sucks to have to talk about how shitty Lucy was. It has Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, and was directed by Luc Besson. That seems like it would be a great combination. But when you take into account that the more powerful the main character gets the least interesting she becomes it's a recipe for disaster. I was really looking forward to this movie but less than halfway through this I was ready to leave which is bad considering this movie is less than 90 minutes long.

Lucy is a young chick living in Taiwan that likes to party. That is all the character development you're gonna get from me and this movie regarding her. Some guy she is dating handcuffs her to a briefcase and she has to give it to this guy named Mr. Jang. They knock her out a couple of times and put a bag of drugs inside of her. It is called CPH4. A few other people get the same treatment but they seem more okay with it than she is. She wakes up and gets her ass kicked because she didn't want a guy touching her boobs. The drugs pop, she goes full Exorcist all over the room, kills a bunch of guys, gets a cab, and goes to talk to Freeman's character Professor Samuel Norman.

Interspersed through this movie were speeches by Norman. He is giving a lecture about human brains and potential. He keeps saying that humans use just 10% of our brains and dolphins use 20% and they kick ass. Humans use 20% when we are dreaming. The movie doesn't say that. A quick Google search does. Anyway, she shows him that she is becoming powerful and she will die in less than a day. She finds the guy that ordered the drugs in her and kills everyone but him because plot. She becomes stronger and less fun to watch. 

The rest of the movie is action that isn't even interesting because Lucy is so powerful, smart, and fast that there is absolutely no sense of danger. None! There is nothing like a high speed chase with no sense of death. She can walk into a room and stop everyone by waving her hand. The last 15 minutes had me asking “Are you fucking kidding me?” Remember how you felt watching Contact and she went across the universe and saw her dad? It was kinda like that where you roll your eyes so hard it hurts. Just watch this on cable next year. It is not worth paying for. And I gave it a 2 instead of a 1 because I saw Scarlett in a bra and it made me smile.

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Here is a list of movies you should watch that did Lucy better than Lucy. Chronicle (incredible), Limitless (which I didn't like but is watchable), The Matrix, Powder, Source Code (great film that no one watched), Transcendence (fucking horrible but very similar to this), Unbreakable, Looper (ugh...), and Akira.

Theater Whore: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier 9/10

After watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier I kept asking myself why this movie was so damned good. Out of all of the Marvel films the Cap ones have been the best. It could be the fact that there is no hype about who is directing it. Do you know who directed the first film? I didn't and never bothered to check until I was writing this. But with the films like Iron Man, X-Men, and The Avengers, who directed it has become such a big deal. But two brothers, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, who have done nothing but TV shows and movies I've never seen managed to create what could be argued as one of the best action/adventure/comic book films ever.

Chris Evans returns as Captain America and is questioning many of the methods being used by SHIELD. His suspicions match up perfectly with what has been happening on Agents Of SHIELD which is pretty cool. By the way, if you gave up on that show the way I did a while back, the last seven episodes leading to the upcoming finally have been great. Cap is still looking at the world as if it is the 1940's and a simpler time while Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson tries to let him know that the world is far more dangerous and different than he knows.

Theater Whore: Her

Her – 9/10

As you can tell, lately I've been cramming in a lot of movies with Cam since it is almost time for awards so the good stuff is finally coming out after a year of some of the most booty ass films. We decided to do another one of our double features. Last night the first film we saw was Her. This led to jokes between us about movies with vague titles like Them, They Live, It, and The Thing. This movie was directed by Spike Jonze which meant that at the very least it would be interesting.

It stars Theodore Twombly played by Joaquin Phoenix. He works at a place that writes professionally made hand written letters for people. Like, if you want to tell your kids, spouse, or friend how much you love them this place will do it for you and Theodore is one of the best at it. He is in the process of getting a divorce and refuses to sign the papers. While going to sleep one night he decides to check out some chat rooms. There is a small earpiece he wears to check everything from email to talk to people and finds a woman to talk to who goes from a 2 to 11 in terms of phone sex. I won't spoil what happens but everyone in the theater was dying laughing!

Perving On Scarlett Johansson

After discovering that Crystal Beth from Tha O Show shares my love of seeing Scarlett Johansson in tight black outfits I felt that I needed to write a blog about it. For those of you that have no desire to hear me babble on about how great she looks in The Avengers you should probably stop reading.