Author Archives: Frankie B.
This Is the End (2013)
By: Frankie B. (A Toast) -
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This Is the End is one of those movies that sounds awesome on paper, but seems like it would be hard to execute in real life. I am a huge fan of Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogen, so I was all in on this movie as soon as I heard that it was officially being made. If you get a chance check out the awesome short, Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse; it is the basis for This is the End. In this movie you have all of the modern-day stoner/slacker movies idols such as Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson playing the central characters in the movie with cameos from just about every big name in the comedy world. It was great to see that what seemed great on paper translated really well to the screen and it looks like Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg might be the next two big names when it comes to comedy directors.
At the start of This Is the End, Jay Baruchel travels to Los Angeles to rekindle his fading friendship with Seth Rogen. Jay doesn’t like L.A very much so he tries to stay away as much as possible but that has taken a toll on his relationship with Rogen, so he comes to have a bonding experience that consists of getting high, eating fast food, and playing video games. Seth has another plan in mind and he wants Jay to bond with his current group of friends that consists of James Franco, Jonah Hill, and Craig Robinson. Jay and Seth go to a party at Franco’s, and soon after they arrive a massive “earthquake” hits, killing a large number of the people at the party. The five friends hole up in Franco’s mansion and some apocalyptic shenanigans start going down.
When are we going to see Pineapple Express 2?
A Toast
This movie is simply hilarious, and every single actor in the main cast gets their time to shine. Rogen and Goldberg did an excellent job of balancing the amount of focus placed on each character but never forgot that this was a story about Jay and Seth. Their story is the heart of the movie and gives the movie some emotional weight. Laughs definitely come at a steady pace in this movie and there are never any “slow” moments to speak of. There are also a ton of references to past movies made by the group and Pineapple Express seemed to be the one that got a ton of focus. Pineapple Express 2 is a movie that I want to see get made and after seeing the “trailer” for it in this movie, I really hope it becomes a reality.
This is what happens when you stare directly into Michael Cera’s butthole.
For a movie that is supposed to be focused on comedy, the action in this movie was really well done. The beginning parts of the apocalypse feature large action set pieces and comedy mixed together and it works from start to finish. The “creatures” in the movie are designed in a rather creative way and they are both terrifying/hilarious in certain instances. Danny McBride absolutely owns every single scene that he is in. There are a lot of people that do not like his brand of comedy but I find him to be hilarious, this movie showcases his talents and he gets most of the most memorable moments in the movie. There are also a few notable cameos in the movie that need to been seen to be believed; I don’t want to spoil them by describing them.
What do you mean, this is an all dude orgy?
It was refreshing to see a comedy take on the apocalypse as a backdrop because it is usually the focus of dreary dramas or over the top action movies. Instead we get a hilarious over the top comedy with an awesome cast and hysterical performances. I have seen countless crappy movies about the apocalypse and this was the first comedy that I have seen that focuses on it. Hopefully Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg continue to fuse different genres with their comedic style, so we can get another movie with the same quality as Pineapple Express or This Is the End.
Verdict
This is the funniest movie of 2013. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have created a hilarious/horror mash up with one of the best comedic ensembles ever created. Check out this one if the normal summer blockbuster isn’t your cup of tea and you want to laugh your ass off.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time that there is a reference to Pineapple Express.
Take a Drink: every time a celebrity dies on screen.
Take a Drink: every time Jay says he hates Jonah.
Take a Shot: every time you see a demon’s dick.
Dead Man Down (2013)
By: Frankie B. (Three Beers) -
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The first three months of the year are clearly turning into Hollywood’s dumping ground for movies that they have no idea what to do with. 99% of movies released within this time frame should probably have been released straight to DVD but you need to put something in the theaters. Dead Man Down happens to have fallen into the category of being a “dump movie”. It looks like no one knew what to do with this movie.
Dead Man Down follows the revenge driven lives of Victor (Colin Farrell) and Beatrice (Noomi Repace). Victor is seeking to kill his boss, Alphonse (Terrance Howard), who ruined his once happy life and Beatrice seeks retribution for being permanently scarred in a car crash. They are each looking to become whole again and their journeys inevitably collide with explosive and deadly results.
Will anyone ever forgive Colin Farrell for this?
A Toast
Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace are the lynchpins of the entire movie; without their performances it would turn into a horrible mess. I am so pumped that Farrell has finally decided to start trying over the past few years, after seeing him in such debacles as Pride and Glory and Miami Vice. Rapace is excellent as usual and continues to prove that she can be a major force in Hollywood for the foreseeable future. I also wanted to say that no matter how ugly they tried to make her look in the movie, she still came out looking sexy.
The action scenes are pretty intense and realistic which is always a great thing. I loved the fact that Farrell wasn’t portrayed as a one man army, and he needed to be planning ahead of his targets to even have a chance of being successful. Niels Oplev proved that his success as a director was not only limited to the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is going to be interesting to see what he will be able to do with a well-written script in the future.
Beer Two
As good as the two leading performances in this movie were, the secondary performances were incredibly weak and poorly written. Terrance Howard was there to get a check and he never seemed like he was fully invested in his character; he came off a bit wooden in every scene that he was in. Dominic Cooper shows up and plays a “cartoonish” up and coming gangster, whose storyline was flat from the very beginning of the movie.
Terrance Howard should try paying Marvel to get his role in Iron Man back.
Beer Three
The screenwriter of this movie must have gone to the George Lucas School for Dialogue because it was on about the same level as the Star Wars prequels. Rapace and Farrell did a great job with what they were given but the other actors didn’t step their game up to compensate for the shit quality of the dialogue. With a better screenplay, this movie could have been very good, but it ended up getting dumped in an early March release date against Oz the Great & Powerful.
This is an above average revenge movie that got very good performances from its two lead actors. Check it out if you are looking for a more adult oriented movie as opposed to the new Oz movie that just released from Disney.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time there is an awkward moment between Farrell’s and Rapace’s characters.
Take a Drink: every time Beatrice mentions the color of her rabbit’s foot.
Do a Shot: every time cookies or Tupperware is mentioned.
Exit Humanity (2011)
Exit Humanity (2011) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frankie B. (A Toast) -
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This is a movie that I have seen previews for several times over the past year. Each time I saw it, in my mind I was saying, “looks cool but seems just like every other zombie movie”. I will admit that I was completely wrong, because this kicks the shit out of any movie/television show involving zombies over the past five years. The fact that it takes place during the Civil War and the years immediately following the Civil War only adds to the greatness of the film. Every actor in the movie leaves their mark on it and it introduces a few legends of the horror genre to the new generation of horror viewers.
Exit Humanity tells the tale of Edward Young, a confederate soldier, who during the course of being ambushed by a squad of Union soldiers comes face to face with a zombified soldier. He takes the zombie down and then we find out that six years later there has been a zombie outbreak in Tennessee. His wife and child become zombies and he is forced to take action. He comes face to face with the realization that he has nothing left and latches on to a promise he made to his dead son. The promise he made is the only thing that is keeping him going and continuing to fight for his life.
The Day (2012)
The Day (2012) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frankie B. (Four Beers) -
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The Day is a WWE Studios production and is the first movie from the studio that does not feature a wrestler in the main role. They actually managed to secure a pretty solid cast consisting of Shawn Ashmore, Ashley Bell, Dominic Monaghan, Michael Eklund, and Shannyn Sossamon. That is an unbelievably solid cast for somethin as second rate as a WWE production. Ashley Bell is worth the price of admission because she is really head over heels better than everyone else in the cast.
The Day tells the story of a group of survivors in the near future after an undisclosed disaster wipes out a large portion of the Earth’s population. The group consists of Shannon (Shannyn Sossamon), Mary (Ashley Bell), Rick(Dominic Monaghan), Adam(Shawn Ashmore), and Henson(Cory Hardrict). They are surviving day to day by scavenging and moving from place to place. They encounter an abandoned house and decide to rest, but they soon come to see that things may not seem as good as they appear.
A Toast
The performances of Ashmore and Bell are really solid and they are the glue that ultimately holds the movie together. Bell gives a very quiet and intense performance and really embodies her character who is supposed to be the loner of the group and the one no one knows anything about. She is an excellent actress and really deserves to be in higher profile movies than movies like this and she definitely has a very bright future ahead of her. Shawn Ashmore is the other part of the equation and he plays the damaged one of the group as his wife and child were killed by a group of cannibals. Their relationship evolves throughout the course of the movie and is one of the main storylines of the movie itself.
Thank God, John Cena is nowhere to be found in this movie.
Beer Two
Unfortunately for The Day, the two main performances are really where the good stops… Shannyn Sosamon gives a horribly wooden performance and her character does the most illogical things. She defies logic at every turn and actually makes the group’s lives harder than they need to be. Her character is just terrible. The main villain is also not very threatening and we get to know next to nothing about him and his group throughout the course of the movie and they never seem to present a credible threat. The other performances are also pretty wooden as well and they don’t really contribute anything to the movie at all.
Beer Three
The story is standard and it does not take a ton of chances to differentiate itself from all of the other post-apocalyptic movies out there. The only one who is a developed character by the end is Mary and she is also the main focal point of The Day which makes it not as horrible as it should be. The thing that did unfortunately ruin the movie for me is Shannyn Sossamon’s performance and her character’s actions which just defied logic at every turn and just killed the film at times for me.
Forgot how to act.
Beer Four
You can see some of the twists way before they happen and the story was just underdeveloped, which is a shame because there were some innovative ideas in here. I can’t really delve into some of them, because it would spoil some things. The lack of development is what makes this an average movie rather than a good movie.
This is a movie that is a rental at best in my opinion. If you can stand having to trudge through some terrible performances to get to a gem then you will be surprised with what you will see and get from this movie, especially since it is coming from WWE Studios.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time Shannyn Sossamon does something completely illogical.
Take a Drink: every time Ashley Bell does a death stare.
Take a Shot: every time Ashley Bell lights the same cigarette.
Red Dawn (2012)
Red Dawn (2012) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frankie B. (Four Beers) -
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There has been an enormous amount of remakes in Hollywood over the last few years, and Red Dawn has been lost in the confusion. Originally slated to come out in 2010, the movie was delayed because of MGM’s financial woes and was almost sold off on a few occasions. This is a movie that I was on the fence about because the original was far from a classic and no one was really clamoring for a remake of it. But it did have Chris Hemsworth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in it, so I was willing to give it a chance.
The remake of Red Dawn tells the same basic story, with the North Korean army replacing the Cubans and Russians from the original. We follow brothers Jed (Chris Hemsworth) and Matt(Josh Peck) as they try and liberate their town with the help of other teenagers, coming to be known as The Wolverines. They use guerrilla tactics to try and drive the North Koreans from their town and hope there are other people fighting like them across the US.
Just the actor that you want starring in your action movie.
A Toast
Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Chris Hemsworth are really the only two things to be recommended in this movie. Morgan lends credibility to any role that he is in and is good as a Marine that comes to help out the Wolverines. He provides some much needed humor and clarity to the events that have been unfolding through the film. Hemsworth gives an amazingly charismatic performance as Jed, the leader of The Wolverines. He commands your attention in every scene that he is in and seems to be the only actor in the movie that had any clue of how to handle an action scene. Adrienne Palicki also provides some eye candy in this testosterone-fueled action movie and she is always great to look at.
Beer Two
This movie leaves a lot to be desired in the acting department. All of the performances in the movie besides Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Chris Hemsworth are pretty piss poor. Josh Peck does his best Hayden Christensen impression throughout the entire movie by acting as wooden as possible. He has almost no ability in relaying emotion and is just horrible. The rest of the cast isn’t much better with Connor Cruise, Isabel Lucas, and Josh Hutcherson being dreadful as well. The producers and casting directors really went all out in remaking this movie, because the horrible acting from the original was recreated perfectly in the remake.
Where’s Charlie Sheen when you need him?
Beer Three
Since the movie was originally filmed to have the Chinese be the antagonists and then switched to the North Koreans, there was a huge hole in the story. There is no explanation given as to how the whole situation came to be or how the North Koreans could possibly stage a surprise invasion of the US. In the original at least they gave you the circumstances that could lead to an invasion in the opening credits; in the remake you get next to nothing.
There is also the explanation that the North Koreans used a new EMP to knock out our defenses and render us helpless, yet cars are still able to function, there is power, and cell phones still power up. EMPs would generally kill all electronic devices and electrical grids, but you can’t have an exciting movie without power, cars, and cell phones, right? Also the North Koreans created a closed circuit communication system that only they could think up and were impervious to an EMP blast. At least the original tried crafting a story that seemed plausible; the remake was just a hole-filled train wreck of a story. Also forgot to mention that we are supposed to believe that Josh Peck is a star quarterback; I laughed out loud in the theater at that one.
Beer Four
The action and special effects should be a focus for a movie like this, right? Looks like someone messed up and forgot to remind the director and the producers. The fact that all of the Chinese Army patches had to be covered with North Korean patches is something that I could accept if they were done correctly, but they look terrible and stand out way too much. The special effects are B-movie quality at best, and the scene where you see troop parachuting in looks especially terrible, like something done in the late 90s. The action isn’t much better with most of it consisting solely of large explosions. The limited amount of firefights were standard fare and are not really thrilling or exciting. The lone fight sequence in the movie between Chris Hemsworth and Will Yun Lee was passable at best. After seeing the action and special effects it was no wonder why MGM was in no particular rush to put this in theaters.
This movie is wooden, just like the acting of most of the cast. It’s a really bad sign when a remake of a mediocre movie ends up being worse than the original, and that is what you get with the 2012 version of Red Dawn. Good luck, if you decide to see this movie.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time Josh Peck oversells an emotion.
Take a Drink: every time “the briefcase” is mentioned.
Take a Drink: whenever you hear “Wolverines”.
Last Call
There are no additional scenes in or after the credits.
District 9 (2009)
District 9 (2009) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frankie B. (A Toast) -
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Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 was one of those movies that came out of nowhere and exceeded everyone’s expectations. It was an August release from a first time director and was a science fiction movie. Most people were probably expecting SyFy Channel-quality acting performances and story. This turned out to be one of the most well received movies of 2009 and is generally considered to be in the upper echelon of science fiction movies ever produced. There is nothing that is weak in this movie and that is the surprising part; you would figure from a first time director something would be lacking, but there wasn’t.
District 9 tells the story of Wikus van de Merwe, who is a representative for Multinational United (MNU)in South Africa. He is tasked with moving the Alien population living in Johannesburg to a camp 200km outside of the city. The aliens, also known as Prawns, landed over South Africa in 1982 and were forced to live in a slum called District 9 ever since. As he is in the process of evicting the aliens, he is sprayed by a black liquid and begins to change. From that point it is a struggle for survival for Wikus and he has to battle the corporation he worked for, a group of bloodthirsty Nigerians, and the aliens he was trying to help.
Mutated shrimp are on the loose in South Africa
A Toast
The characters in the movie are all played by mostly unknown actors and this being their first chance at Hollywood success, they all seized the opportunity and did an amazing job. Sharlto Copley has this movie resting firmly on his shoulders and he does not falter for even a second throughout the course of the entire film. He is so engrossed in the role that you can almost believe that the documentary being shot in the movie is real. His character is real in the viewer’s eyes and he is a man who for all of his faults is still trying to be a good man and do his job. You almost never see his wife and him together on-screen together but you get the sense that they love each other and their relationship is what is really driving Wikus to do everything that he does.
The all-CG character Christopher Johnson, a prawn, was also phenomenal. The actor who played the role, Jason Cope, did a fantastic job of getting the audience to connect with the character even though we don’t understand what he is saying except for what is written in subtitles. He is one of the only prawns that seems to think for himself and is trying to find a way off of the planet in order to rescue the remnants of his race. His journey coinciding with Wikus’ is the most intriguing part of the movie because what starts off as a hugely adversarial relationship turns into one of shared survival and hope.
The special effects in this movie cannot be ignored as they are some of the best in a film to date. The mark of success of CG effects is how seamlessly they can be integrated into a movie and not distract you. The aliens in the movie are not pristine angel-like characters; they look like over-sized shrimp, thus the nickname, prawns. Each alien has their own distinct look and movement style which show the incredible amount of detail that was used in creating this film. It also doesn’t hurt when you director has the backing of Peter Jackson and WETA. The alien weaponry is fucking brutal and the movie in no way shies away from show the gruesome effects the weapons have. You see people get ripped apart by the electricity guy, blown away by the concussion gun, and filled with holes by the alien version of a machine gun. The amazing thing about all of the effects is that you think that they were being done by practical means, which happens to be quite the accomplishment in today’s movie industry.
No caption needed for this piece of comedic gold.
Neil Blomkamp is quite the talent and it surprises me that he is usually left out of the discussion in Hollywood when discussing the best young directors. This is one of the best debut films in history and his next movie Elysium is shaping up to be in the same class. If you have watched his original short Alive in Joburg and his Halo short movie, then you will have probably realized that all he needed was a bigger budget to create something truly special. I am so pumped for Elysium and I haven’t seen any footage yet. Going off the fact that Disctrict 9 was incredible, and the amazing cast that he assembled for Elysium, I am sure that it will be a can’t miss movie.
This is one of the best science fiction movies ever created and is one of my favorite movies of all time. Neil Blomkamp is going to be one of Hollywood’s premiere directors in the next few years, mark my words. The combination of stellar special effects, story and realistic characters made this movie a winner on every front. If you haven’t seen it then you are doing yourself a disservice, go get a hold of it right now. Watch it on Netflix, Amazon, Blu Ray, or pirate the damn thing (Ed- Wait, don’t do that). Just go and see it.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time someone mentions cat food.
Take a Drink: every time Wikus acts like a selfish prick.
Do a Shot: for how goofy the Nigerian warlord is.
Pitch Perfect (2012)
Pitch Perfect (2012) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frankie B. (Two Beers) -
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This is a movie that I was pumped for from the first time that I was the trailer. I am a huge Workaholics fan, and it was awesome to see Adam DeVine from Workaholics getting a shot at the big screen. I also for whatever reason tend to like these campy PG-13 movies, so I was ready to see it opening weekend. The cast includes Anna Kendrick, Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Rebel Wilson, Adam DeVine, Elizabeth Banks, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. The cast in this movie is very talented and most really have to be triple threats: acting, singing, and dancing. I am also a fan of having Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow on-screen at the same time because they are both extremely easy on the eyes and are very good actresses.
The story follows an all-girls a capella group, The Bellas, who try to beat the reigning a cappella group, The Treble Makers. Beca, played by Anna Kendrick, wishes to become a famous DJ in Los Angeles, but is forced to go to college in Carolina because her father disapproves. There she is introduced to the Bellas, who are scouting for new members. She also meets a boy who works in the radio station with her. One girl suggests that she should audition, but Beca turns down the offer. She later decides to audition, and passes the test along with Fat Amy, played by Rebel Wilson, and a few other girls. It turns out the boy she met passed the test to be in the Treble Makers, rivals against the Bellas. Both of these groups aim for winning the international a cappella contest, creating tension, and forbidden romance.
Thank God, these assclowns are not in this movie.
A Toast
First and foremost, this is a comedy and it turned out to be one of the funniest movies of the year so far. I laughed out loud pretty consistently throughout the entire movie and that, to me, is the sign of a good comedy. If you are sitting around waiting for the next laugh and not engaged in the story then the filmmakers messed up. It was also great to see that the trailer did not spoil the funniest parts of the movie and instead used a lot of alternate takes for the material in the trailer. The quiet Asian girl in The Bellas is fucking hysterical, she says the most outrageous shit underneath her breath and it was just too funny at certain points.
If Adam DeVine is in the movie, we need to have a Workaholics reference in the review.
Anna Kendrick plays the outsider in this movie, not wanting to connect with anyone around her because she thinks that she is going to go off to LA to produce music. She can really sing, if it is really her singing in the movie, and it just adds another dimension to her talent that was never shown on-screen before. Rebel Wilson steals the show in every scene that she is in, and provides most the biggest laughs in the film. Her character is not-self conscious about her appearance and that is refreshing to see when plus-sized women are usual made fun of or relegated to lesser roles in movies. The mash-ups in the movie are also creative for the most part even if they exclusively use overplayed pop music, but since they are so well done it actually adds to the movie rather than takes away from it. This movie is what the show Glee wants to be, but it will never get there because it is too campy and wacky for its own good.
Beer Two
The movie is slightly predictable and you can tell what is going to happen over the course of the movie within the first half hour, but it’s still a good ride. There is also no real clear-cut villain in the movie, not that there really could be in a movie about a college A Cappella group. Other than those very minor complaints this movie is solid as hell. There also could have been more Brittany Snow in the movie, but can’t really complain because she is smokin’ hot in almost every scene that she is in. The shower scene with her and Anna Kendrick pretty much made the movie worth seeing by itself.
Heaven
Pitch Perfect is one of the best comedies of 2012 and features some of the best young female talent that Hollywood has to offer. Rebel Wilson, Anna Kendrick, and Brittany Snow make the movie worth seeing and that especially goes for Wilson, who steals every scene that she is in. I actually ended up liking this better than Bridesmaids because it was just a flat-out funnier movie. It was also great seeing Adam DeVine from Workaholics bring his comedic styling to the big screen. Go see this movie, and I promise you that you will not be disappointed.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time you hear the name “Fat Amy”.
Take a Drink: every time the quiet Asian girl says something crazy in her whisper voice.
Do a Shot: when Anna Kendrick knocks a dude out.
The Words (2012)
The Words (2012) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frankie B. (Four Beers) -
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The Words is a movie that got my attention when I heard about the cast it would be featuring. Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Olivia Wilde, Dennis Quaid, J.K Simmons, and Ben Barnes star in this movie and from all indications from the cast list alone this should be a really strong drama. Then I saw the trailer and it looked like another substandard drama with a ton of drama clichés thrown in. For the most part that is exactly what this movie is: an over-complex piece of mediocre drama.
The Words tells the story of Clayton Hammond (Dennis Quaid), an author who has just released a book entitled, “The Words”. He is having a public reading and while he begins to read out of his book, we transition to the story within the movie. The book centers on Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper), an aspiring writer living in New York City, and his girlfriend Dora (Zoe Saldana). Rory writes a book that is rejected by every publisher in New York and is completely dejected and about to quit writing. He finds a manuscript in an old briefcase that his wife bought him on their honeymoon in Paris. He copies the manuscript word for word and that is where the movie really takes off.
Sadly there were no Hangover shenanigans in this movie.
A Toast
The cast in this movie is excellent and they do the absolutely best they can with the material they were given. Zoe Saldana proves that she can actually act and is not just another pretty face in the sea of pretty faces in Hollywood. Her chemistry with Bradley Cooper is what really drives the movie along and gives it its heart. Cooper also shows a lot of promise in one of his first dramatic roles in his career. He carries the movie on his back for a good portion of the running time and maybe this will lead to an increase in dramatic roles for him in the future. It is also always great to see Olivia Wilde in pretty much anything and she does a great job for the limited amount that she is in the film. It also doesn’t hurt that she happens to be one of the most beautiful women on the planet, so it is always great to see her on-screen.
Beer Two
The movie does have an awfully large amount of clichés in it and it really doesn’t have enough going for it story-wise to overcome the clichés. We also don’t really get to know the characters in the movie because it switches perspectives regularly and you never really get to connect with any of the characters. For a drama this is one of the essential parts to being successful and the movie never really accomplishes that.
Beer Three
The movie does get a bit overly complex with the story within a story within a movie. It is kind of like Inception but with no action and a much less interesting story. The main story that followed Cooper and Saldana was engaging and the other two stories just seemed to be needlessly tacked on to make the movie seem “different”. The movie would have been much better had it just stuck with the main story and gotten rid of the secondary stories.
Inception- the action packed version of The Words
Beer Four
The ending was pretty weak and seemed to be overly open-ended to try to keep the movie in people’s minds after they left the theater. When the credits rolled it seemed like the audience was waiting for there to be an extra scene because nothing is really resolved at the end of the film. So in a way… it was a mediocre, action-less version of Inception. The story within the story was also extremely weak and there is almost no connection with the characters in that part of the movie.
This is a very mediocre drama and you really shouldn’t be racing to go see this. If you like over-dramatic, mediocre movies then you will love this one. But if you want to see a great piece of drama then you may want to to skip this.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time the movie switches from the main story to the story within the story.
Take a Drink: every time Bradley Cooper’s character doubts himself.
Do a Shot: for having Zoe Saldana and Olivia Wilde in the same movie.
Hell (2011)
Hell (2011) DVD / Blu-ray
By: Frankie B. (Two Beers) -
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This is a movie that I have seen the promotional image a hundred times for but I never knew what it was about. From the image I really thought that it was another generic zombie movie, but let me tell you something, this movie is anything but generic. It definitely brings along a new twist on the apocalypse type movie and brings in solid characters as well. I also failed to realize that the movie was from Germany when I initially purchased it, and all of the dialogue was in German. A slight oversight on my part, but even with subtitles this movie was awesome.
Hell tells the story of a group of survivors trying to make it in a world where solar flares have destroyed the Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth is slowly cooking as a result. Most plant life has died out and a good portion of the animal population has died off as well. We follow a pair of sisters, Marie and Leonie, and Marie’s boyfriend, Phillip, as they attempt to find shelter, water, and food. The world around them is a living hell; you cannot stand in the sun for more than a few minutes at a time because it will literally cook you. When looking for gas, they stumble upon a mechanic, Tom, and take him into their group, but are not sure if he can really be trusted. From that point forward it is a fight for survival against the environment they now live in and the other survivors of the world.
Thankfully there were no mutants involved in the production of this movie.
A Toast
This is not a movie that tries to make light of the situation that its characters are in. You truly get a sense of how horrible this world is from the start and it rarely lets up throughout the course of the movie. Every time a character has to go into the sunlight they have to cover their head and face along with any other exposed skin because even limited exposure to the sun at this time is life threatening. No one in the world can truly be trusted as seen at many points in the movie, and the world these characters live in is just plain horrifying. The only thing I predicted in the movie was the presence of cannibals, which seems to be the go to solution that most filmmakers turn to while making apocalyptic movies. Other than that the movie is fantastic.
I really do love these independent “horror” movies made on a very small budget. They are forced to have quality stories and strong characters because they don’t have expensive special effects to fall back on. It is also ironic that this movie was produced by Roland Emmerich, who is one of the main abusers of special effects in Hollywood (2012, Independence Day, 10,000 BC). Hell really has to survive on the interactions of the characters in the movie. The relationship between the sisters is central to the movie and is really the driving force of it. Marie is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure her and her sister survive, similar to the sisters in Zombieland. Tom is also a very interesting character because you think he is going to be the one to betray the group, but (SPOILER ALERT) he ends up being the one who is willing to put his life on the line to save the others. The movie had a lot of strong moments for each character and that is really what elevated it above the generic crap that is flooding the horror market right now.
The sun is such an asshole.
Beer Two
While this is a movie that does many things different from your normal run of the mill post-apocalyptic movie, it does fall back on some of the default situations seen in many of the movies in the genre. I called the presence of cannibals about 5 1/2 minutes into the movie and it was only a matter of time until they were introduced. It seems weird to me that most writers feel like human society would so easily turn to cannibalism. I’m pretty sure that human would be last on my list of things to eat in any situation.
Do not be fooled by the overly generic promotional images. This is one of the better independent horror movies that you will see this year. I really liked this movie and would recommend it to anyone who is a horror fan. Give it a try and I bet it will exceed your expectations. Also keep in mind that it is in German, so you may want to take that into account before you watch.
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time you hear, “It’s a trap”.
Take a Drink: every time you think that Phillip is a little bitch.
Do a Shot: upon the realization that someone is a cannibal.
ParaNorman (2012) Drinking Game
ParaNorman (2012) DVD / Blu-ray
Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time refers to Norman as being “weird”
Take a Drink: every time you see a piece of zombie memorabilia in the movie.
Take a Drink: every time there is an old school horror movie reference.
Read the full ParaNorman (2012) Review
