Bad Moms

MOVIE:  Bad Moms

NUTSHELL:  A perfectly serviceable movie in which moms get annoyed and dance while they drink some wine.

GOOD THINGS:  Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Wanda Sykes, David Walton, Clark Duke!!! and Wendell Pierce

BAD THINGS:  I am not in what I would posit is the very narrow, and possibly imaginary, demographic for this movie.

FEATURES:  Mila Kunis, Jay Hernandez, Christina Applegate, Jada Pinkett Smith, Annie Mumolo, a lot of white wine, unsympathetic children, porn addiction

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  I wish there were more uncomfortable moments.  Other than the Clark Duke scenes and an inspired supermarket montage, there don’t seem to be any stakes.

NOTABLE:  I don’t think having children should be a requirement to enjoy a movie.

BEST PART:   Kathryn Hahn oh how I loved you on “Philly Justice”!

BEST LINE:  “Well, as a therapist, I’m not allowed to tell you what do to, but uh as a human being with two fucking eyes in my head, yea I think you should get divorced as soon as possible. This is some catastrophic shit. ”       

CROWNS:  2 out of 5

The Jungle Book

MOVIE:  The Jungle Book

NUTSHELL:  CGI Animals, a precocious child and somehow only one song

GOOD THINGS:  There’s a Garry-Shandling-voiced porcupine

BAD THINGS:  This is another one of those movies like Jurassic World that toys with the prospect of a precocious child being eaten by wild animals but never follows through.

FEATURES:  Really just a kid but also the voices of Bill Murray, Lupita Nyong’o and Idris Elba

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  One song.  Did I mention there’s one song?  Remember how much you loved the Jungle Book as a kid because of the almost complete absence of music?

NOTABLE:  I would like to be excused from colonial fables about everyone working together henceforth.

BEST PART:   Further confirmation that Scarlett Johansson is an incredible movie villain.

BEST LINE:  “Am I in the right monkey temple?”       

CROWNS:  3 out of 5

Captain America: Civil War

MOVIE:  Captain America:  Civil War

NUTSHELL:  Ken Burns’ “The Avengers”

GOOD THINGS:  All the great looking people doing super crazy awesome stuff like always, but…

BAD THINGS:  … with a lot of interpersonal trauma and drama which I frankly found very upsetting.

FEATURES:  Everyone plus Paul Rudd, Daniel Bruhl, Chadwick Boseman and…. Marisa Tomei?

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  But, but, but I only want Natasha and Clint to be in love forever and ever!

NOTABLE:  Spider-Man does nothing for me and I’m very sorry if that is upsetting to you.

BEST PART:   30 second Martin Freeman blasts

BEST LINE:  “I hate you.”       

CROWNS:  4 out of 5

Keanu

MOVIE:  Keanu

NUTSHELL:  Key and Peele embark on an extremely messy recon mission to save the cutest (and most popular) kitten in history.

GOOD THINGS:  Tiffany Haddish, badass kittens, Method Man, Andrew Ridgeley jokes, the name “17th Street Blips”

BAD THINGS:  I would like to know more about the Allentown guys.

FEATURES:  Nia Long, Anna Faris, Country Bear Jamboree remnants, Luis Guzman, Will Forte

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  I hate snakes but it’s nice to finally see one with a believable character arc.    

NOTABLE:  Guys!  Never leave your lady alone with Rob Huebel!

BEST PART:   Keanu’s derring-do and words of wisdom

BEST LINE:  “I know everything about hip hop.”       

CROWNS:  5 out of 5

“Sometimes there’s no lesson. That’s a lesson in itself.”

It’s April, you guys and I still don’t quite know what to say about 2015. It was kind of subpar? Sometimes the movies I really hated would make $652 million dollars and sometimes I would accidentally see a movie I saw in 1977 already. Plus the movies I liked were musicals on Broadway about the founder of the Coast Guard and experiencing a ticket broker feeding frenzy reminiscent of that time I tried to eat tacos in front of a Weimaraner.  Plus more than anything else, the U Talkin’ U2 to me podcast continued to rock my world

I liked Love and Mercy quite a bit. I tried to be a good filmgoer and go to a bunch of movies at the beginning of award season but after I saw Spotlight I pretty much thought I wouldn’t see anything better so I stopped trying. There’s some… revulsion is not a good word for it… but I look at the trailers and advertising and marketing of a lot of movies and have no interest. I know, invest in a drive to the local independent cinema. I honestly tried but had some time management issues in 2015 that curtailed my movie watching in general. It’s a scandal that with such time constraints I still sought out movies I knew would be at best problematic and at worst really horrible. But come on how funny are those car movies where they never stop talking about family and the timelines are all crazy? And that whale movie was B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

So maybe 2016 will be pretty cool with Keanu and the lady Ghostbusters and Martin Freeman being Brooks Brothers Man in “Captain America: Civil War – No Not That One, A Different One”. Also did you know they still make the Star Track movies and the billionth one is coming out on my birthday?

I just looked at a list of movies coming out in 2016 and it made me a little sad. There are lots of sequels, you guys! But Emma Watson has a few movies coming so that’s cool. And something called Bill Hader R Rated Comedy which is somehow the minimum and maximum information I need to make plans to see it right now.

I’m sorry I don’t have any recipes/menus for the Oscars (and that this is 6 weeks late for that.) But, here is a list of great stuff from 2016!

Trainwreck
Kingsman
Spy
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Anomalisa
What We Do In the Shadows
Ant-Man
Documentary Now
Survivor
Jane the Virgin
Portlandia
Children’s Hospital
No You Shut Up
Fresh Off the Boat
Key and Peele
Orphan Black
Community
The Grinder
Archer
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Brooklyn Nine Nine
Parks and Recreation
Rick and Morty
Wolf Hall
Better Call Saul
Silicon Valley
iZombie
Veep
Review
The Soup
The Great British Baking Show
Mad Men
Fargo

Yeah there is stuff on here you can’t believe I didn’t list. But I guarantee that it’s on a streaming service and I haven’t seen it yet. 2015, you guys! It was pretty annoying!

Bridesmaids

MOVIE:  Bridesmaids

NUTSHELL:  Wedding-related shenanigans get out of control when the unraveling Maid of Honor feels threatened by the Bride’s new friend.

GOOD THINGS:  Wendi, McLendon-Covey, Chris O’Dowd, Rose Byrne, Ellie Kemper, best use of a song since Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, Annie Mumolo

BAD THINGS:  If you’ve been part of a debauched bridal party or had a female friend, this movie is one of those things that can be too true to life to totally enjoy.  Then again if either of the above describes you, you might actually enjoy it even more like I did.

FEATURES:  Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig,  Jill Clayburgh, Melissa McCarthy

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  The engagement party toasts are not up to the level of pain of Mike’s answering machine messages in Swingers but almost.     

NOTABLE:  I love this movie for its understanding of the battleground that womens’ friendships can become and the male cast of the movie is one I’d want to have in every movie:   Chris O’Dowd, Jon Hamm, Matt Lucas, Franklin Ajaye, , Ben Falcone, Terry Crews (!!!!), Michael Hitchcock and Tim Heidecker     

BEST PART:   The airplane scene is my favorite scene in a long time.   

BEST LINE:  “Fuck off, Helen.”       

CROWNS:  5 out of 5

Thor

MOVIE:  Thor

NUTSHELL:  Thor is in so much trouble, you guys! 

GOOD THINGS:  Clark Gregg, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgard, Idris Elba and Jeremy Renner as either Hawkeye or Bullseye (unfortunately I can only think of Alan Alda and a cartoon horse when I think of those names)

BAD THINGS:  Anthony Hopkins gadding about to an acute degree.  One of the Hemsworths who reminds me that we have run out of American actors and thus have to deal with unappealing Australians from now on.

FEATURES:  Natalie Portman, Colm Feore

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  Tom Hiddleston in his big boy helmet.  You will always be Magnus being totally irritated by Wallander to me.  

NOTABLE:  Make time to stay after the credits for an additional scene that I didn’t understand but you might.    

BEST PART:  Direction by Kenneth Branagh which is the only reason I saw this movie.   

BEST LINE:  He’s a complicated fellow, isn’t he! 

CROWNS:  4 out of 5

 

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

MOVIE:  The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

NUTSHELL:  Morgan Spurlock’s looksee into product placement and how marketing, like Elvis, is everywhere.

GOOD THINGS:  Pretty interesting and funny.  It is occasionally delightful despite being also horrifying and ultimately depressing. 

BAD THINGS:  I don’t need to hear from Ben Silverman, John Wells, Ralph Nader, Donald Trump or Brett Ratner anymore, even if they’re being mocked. 

FEATURES:  Noam Chomsky, Peter Berg, J.J. Abrams, Ok Go, Big Boi, Sao Paulo  

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  Entire film is very nervous-making.  I mean, you knew the marketing was there already, right?  And yet…  Also, WTH is Sheetz?

NOTABLE:  I still kept with my original plan and went to 7-11™ afterwards to buy a Senor Chang™ (Hangover 2™) Blue Raspberry Fanta™ Super Big Gulp™ Slurpee™. 

BEST PART:  Spurlock’s continued giggling over Mane ‘n Tail

BEST LINE:  “So this is like the Inception of documentaries.”

CROWNS:  4 out of 5

 

Eragon

MOVIE:  Eragon

NUTSHELL:  Dragon movie + Directed by a visual effects guy x Book written by a teenaged boy = Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

GOOD THINGS:  I was 20 minutes late to this movie and only saw it because I had to kill time and the only alternatives were seeing Rocky Balboa or staring into space for two hours.

BAD THINGS:  Scandalously rampant scenery chewing by all involved except for the 18-year-old lead actor (with the acting chops of an 11-year-old Rupert Grint) who is unable to do anything except intermittently make big eyes.

FEATURES:  Begbie as the evil sorcerer!, John Malkovich as King Bellatrix (can that be right?), Djimon Hounsou, female dragon who is voiced in a manner that brings to mind Upstairs, Downstairs rather than… oh… say, a dragon movie?

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  The ticket sellers tried to talk me out of going into the movie late but I assured them that I knew there was something about an egg that won’t hatch unless the rider’s there, etc. Then they only had a golf pencil or that marker that verifies $50 bills fo

NOTABLE:  There’s apparently a location in the world of Eragon called Eve Arden that the characters spend most of the movie trying to get to. More importantly, they talk about getting to Eve Arden the rest of the time which is funnier than you can imagine.

BEST PART:  There is a shot of the dragon in fancy armor that makes her look like a demented beagle in a cloche hat and this made me laugh several times during the movie and for at least a week afterwards.

BEST LINE:  First you must learn the ancient language of the elves!

CROWNS:  1 out of 5

Poseidon

MOVIE:  Poseidon

NUTSHELL:  A “rogue wave” upturns a hideous cruise ship on New Year’s Eve and a group of non-characters try to find their way to safety.

GOOD THINGS:  A wasted Andre Braugher, a couple of nice, tense sequences, fireballs, Das Boot lighting in bridge area

BAD THINGS:  Kevin Dillon, Fergie, Jimmy Bennett as the greasy kid stuff, Mia Maestro, no Bingo, no cruise ship jokes? Oh the humanity!

FEATURES:  Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum, Josh Lucas, Jacinda Barrett, Freddy Rodriguez, dancing, 25% of the Black Eyed Peas, inexplicable, unexpected, unneeded backstory when you least expect it

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS:  Richard Dreyfuss as a gay, Kevin Dillon in a puffy shirt, watching Fergie get higher billing than Andre Braugher

NOTABLE:  It is very hard to make a movie about a cruise ship that I don’t like. But here it is!

BEST PART:  There’s a diving into fire thing that’s ok.

BEST LINE:  They just opened the elevator with a spatula. Write that down. Actually that was me talking during the movie.

CROWNS:  2 out of 5