By: Marielle -

Time to get bogged down by some more cases of the seen-its!

The Five-Year Engagement -

It’s getting unbelievable how often trailers give you the entire plot. Sure, a movie about a long engagement and unbearable, meddling parents and a couple who have completely reasonable grounds for putting off their wedding seems like it’s predictable—so why does it matter? But, can’t we just pretend we don’t know what’s going to happen in this one?

Who thought she’d run into that door?! That was crazy!!

Romantic comedies about weddings are certainly familiar ground. It’s like, you turn on the TV every day and there’s one being advertised for or featured as the afternoon movie. It’s the same basic story with the same basic climax (if you can call it that! Amirite?) with the same basic ending. Would it kill romantic comedies to spice it up once and awhile? It’s been decades! How are we supposed to stay interested when it’s the same routine day in and day out, romantic comedies? Go shave your legs at least.

Beer Prediction

I’d watch Jason Segel shave his legs and enjoy it, and this Emily Blunt character seems charming enough. But, if you’re going to retread such mundane ground, you have to do better than slapstick pratfalls, punchable parents, and relying on the actors to make it work.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits -

Have pirates been done before? Of course. But, these ones are claymation and delightfully British! What’s that? Those so-called Caribbean pirates were British? I said, delightfully.

The makers of Wallace & Gromit, Aardman Animations, practically have a patent on cute and funny clay adventures. They manage to make a worn-out trend fun again (the last time being somewhere between The Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and when that first swarm of haggard, slutty-Captain-Jack-Sparrows did their walks of shame on November 1st, 2003.) It certainly seems more clever, charming, and funny than all of those Bruckheimer milkings combined. I can even ignore that it’s unnecessarily in 3D. (The claymation is cool enough, guys.)

Beer Prediction

The Raven -

Someone appears to be copy-catting the “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe in their devious murders. Or at least I have to assume so; I’ve never read it because it sounds super boring. It’s a well-known narrative poem from the mid-1800s, and if The Simpsons did it, you know it’s engrained in our culture. And because of that, I’m vaguely familiar with it. And there ain’t no murder mystery involved.

Cue the ‘nevermore’ puns.

It’s my understanding that there is literally a talking raven in the poem and I’m surprised this doesn’t have a CGI one that squawks to John Cusack as he tries to solve the case. They might as well: it seems about as cheap as wanting to write a murder movie but needing popular, classic, and free source material to add a sense of gravitas and dollar signs to your flick.

(I miss you, Mr. Show)

Beer Prediction

To add insult to injury, the acting sucks 19th century gothic revival titties.

Safe (2012) -

There seems to be a movie called “Safe” every couple of years (just 1995, 1998, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011; no big deal) similar to how there’s a movie where The Stath is punching Asians in the face every couple of years*. (Interesting sidenote: Jason Statham is described as being a former “black market salesman” in his IMDB profile. I would much rather find out ‘of what?!’ than write a preview for this, but thems the brakes.)

All black market ponderings aside, this one looks kinda cool. Once again, protecting a special kid isn’t new, but The Stath always delivers on suave-yet-hardcore action. And what more do you want from a Jason Statham movie anyway?

Beer Prediction

To quote the man himself, “You ain’t ever gonna get an Academy Award for doing Crank [2006] and you certainly won’t for doing all the other movies I’ve done.”

*Reference needed.