Movie Reviews

So, I've finally caught enough movies on the cable channels that it is time to give you guys some more movie reviews. For those of you who may have missed my previous movie reviews they very rarely have anything to do with the actual movie, almost never tell you whether you should see it or not and instead focus on some random part of the film....

Jeff, Who Lives At Home This is one of those movies in which a lot of very funny people attempt to make a serious movie which has a couple of light parts and then pass it off as a comedy. When it is done very well, such as with Will Ferrell in "Stranger Than Fiction", you get truly amazing movies. When it is done poorly it is especially cringe-worthy because everyone is out of their element and no one walks away happy. The good news for this movie is that it does not fall into the second category. However, it doesn't even come close to the first one. Instead it lands in some kind of in-between space where not only are you unsure if parts are supposed to be funny or not, but I'm not sure the director knew either. Watching this movie I came away neither very moved nor very entertained. Jason Segel has proven he can do more than comedy in short bursts, but if he was planning to use this movie to start working on more serious roles he picked the wrong one.

50/50 It is entirely possible that I was not as enthusiastic about the last movie because I has just seen this one, which was really good while managing to toe that line between sad and funny extremely well. It tells the true story of a friend of Seth Rogan (played in this instance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who found out he had cancer. Not normally the kind of thing which would be at the center of a comedy, Rogan encouraged him to write about his experience and this was what they came up with. I have to say, I thought it was great. Rogan managed to tone himself down and Gordon-Levitt is fantastic without trying to over-act. Honestly, "50/50" was everything "Jeff" was trying to be but never pulled off.

Contraband Normally I'm all for a good action movie that also has some plot behind it. The problem is that this movie spends way too much time trying to be a caper movie instead of giving in to its true calling and adds a few too many twist and turns for its own good. After a while the ending just becomes bogged down with complications, as if they had two movies, didn't think they would get a sequel and just trying mashing them into the same space. I may have to watch it a second time just to figure out how a few of the things were pulled off, which, honestly, I'm not inclined to do since I barely enjoyed it the first time around. Also, I have a seriously hard time taking Mark Wahlberg seriously when he threatens people in movies because I know in reality he's like 5'4".

Mr. Popper's Penguins Just kidding. I wouldn't watch this with someone else's eyes.

That Guy... Who Was In That Thing Every know and again I enjoy a solid documentary and this one follows around 16 character actors who have has varying levels of success without ever getting to the point of being household names, even as a couple of them win major awards. If you have even a little bit of interest in pursuing acting as a career it is the kind of movie you should watch, because it give you a lot of tips about managing your career, money and life. Now, there is something self-serving about a bunch of people talking about themselves, trying to tell you how grateful they are about the level of success they have reached while simultaneously (but subtly) complaining about not being more famous. Still, the amount of actors you will recognize from something you watched in the past is kind of funny. Ironically, I just can't think of any of them right now.

Real Steel I remember when I first saw the preview for this film, which appeared to be a real-life version of the children's game Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robot, and saying that while it looked utterly stupid, there was an above-average chance I would end up watching it once it was on the movie channels. Clearly I know myself all too well, as that is exactly what happened. Now, the movie wasn't actually based on that kids' game, it was based on something even worse - another movie. Seriously, this was a straight rip-off of the late-80s movie "Over The Top", right down to the rich ex-wife's parents who want to take the kid away from his biological father. If they were going to do this much ripping off the least they could do was include an homage by having them arm-wrestle at some point, but they couldn't even do that. If Hugh Jackman wants to rip-off Sylvester Stallone than he really should do some of his lesser-known work because if he checks out the mid-90s of Sly's IMDB page he would find plenty to pick from.