Comedy

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

February 13, 2012
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Overall:★★½☆☆ 
Filmmaking/Artistic:★★★☆☆ 
Storytelling:★½☆☆☆ 

So, your kids should really like this one.  It isn’t terrible for adults, but then again, it isn’t all that great.

The plot is: For some reason a kid (Josh Hutcherson) and The Rock (insert 2 minutes of standard blended family boy trying to find himself shooting death eyes at stepdad) go traipsing off to somewhere near the filming of the latest season of Survivor, find a helicopter pilot from the Comic Relief Agency (25% surcharge for pilot bringing his cute daughter from High School Musical, additional 10% if she is not allowed to sing), and fly through some kind of whirlpool vortex thing straight into an updated Land of the Lost.  You know, elephants are small, dragonflies are big, stuff is dangerous, those-aren’t-rocks-they’re-eggs (gasp!), that kind of deal.  And the island is sinking and it’s really Atlantis and Michael Caine stars as long-lost-grandpa dressed up like Barbie’s Adventure Ken.  And somehow Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson cooked it all up years ago.

That is to say, the story is pretty ridiculous, and doesn’t flow… it feels like one set up scene after another.

For the positive stuff, Dwayne Johnson is, as always, very good as a comedic and physical actor.  Josh Hutcherson plays his role well (looking forward to him as Peeta in Hunger Games), and Michael Caine is enjoyably hammy.  And some (but not all) of the special effects are fun.  It’s just that the script is, well, nuts.

So, go for the kids.  There is no bad language, or it is very minimal.  The Rock is funny.  The adventure is decent, if predictable and/or stupid.  But if it’s date night, pick something else.

Three Idiots

January 15, 2012
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Overall:★★★★☆ 
Filmmaking/Artistic:★★★★☆ 
Storytelling:★★★★☆ 

Wow, that was a good movie. Recommended by friends at work, and they were right. If you like movies from India, you’ll like this one a lot.

The Producers (2005)

January 15, 2012
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Overall:★½☆☆☆ 
Filmmaking/Artistic:½☆☆☆☆ 
Storytelling:★★☆☆☆ 

Almost un-watchable.  Your Movie Monkey is not anti-musical, he just can’t imagine people waiting in line to see this on Broadway.  The jokes are just tired and goes on way, way, WAY too long.  Mel Brooks certainly has some classics (Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety, Young Frankenstein) that are brilliant, but everything thereafter just seems to recycle the same tired jokes.  Rotten Tomatoes says it was more suited to the theater than the big screen.  Not if Your Movie Monkey is the one who bought the theater ticket.

Paul

January 15, 2012
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Overall:★★★½☆ 
Filmmaking/Artistic:★★★½☆ 
Storytelling:★★★☆☆ 

Your Movie monkey is a huge fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost… so it’s not quite as good as Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead.  But it’s a good time, especially after they get “warmed up” in the second half.  Jason Bateman almost steals the show.  Critics have said that the alien (Paul) was the funniest/best part, but Your Movie Monkey completely disagrees.  He’s kind of the straight man, and a little grumpy, and YMM is not a fan of Seth Rogen, at least not as much as the rest of the world is.  Too crude for kids, of course, as the R rating suggests.

Cedar Rapids

January 15, 2012
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Overall:★★★☆☆ 
Filmmaking/Artistic:★★½☆☆ 
Storytelling:★★★☆☆ 

Very fun to watch Ed Helms and John C. Reilly interact.  The script could have used some work… the first half feels a little slow, but it gets better.  Of course the stuff that makes it rated R is completely stupid and unnecessary.  It would have been better without all the crassness.  Also fun to remember what a good actress Anne Heche is when she isn’t speaking that alien language.  Not great by any means but reasonably funny.

Date Night

January 15, 2012
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Overall:★★★½☆ 
Filmmaking/Artistic:★★★½☆ 
Storytelling:★★★½☆ 

Watching Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, and Mark Wahlberg interact is fun.  Parts of it are unbelievably stupid.  Overall enjoyable, wish they had edited out at least 10 minutes.  Also tired of the constant theme in Hollywood that marriage is boring and unfulfilling because you can’t do what you want to do every second.  (Who cries if they don’t get to do what they want to do every second of the day?  Infants.)

Office Space in a Factory: Extract

September 18, 2009
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Overall Rating: C
Filmmaking/Artistic: B−
Storytelling: C
MPAA Rating: R (Some language, some drug use, some adult themes)

The pitch

What if we tried to re-do Office Space with an assembly line, and added this like hot chick who was like an ultra discounted Julia Roberts from Duplicity or a modestly discounted Theresa Russell from Black Widow?

Overview

A movie that’s a kind of dramedy about work likfe that isn’t terriby successful at either at comedy or drama, but does have a few good moments and some great character actors.  If you loved Office Space, you’ll like this.  If you liked Office Space, you’ll find this ok.  If you’re not a fan of Mike Judge, you might want to invest (the $9 and the 2 hours) in something else. 

Review

Your Movie Monkey enjoyed Office Space, but not quite to the extent most of his friends did.  The parts his friends found hilarious, he found amusing.  He also found it a bit loud (the soundtrack was extremely jarring).  His favorite part was Mike Judge’s brief scene as the manager of a Bennigan’s-esque restaurant, scolding Jennifer Aniston for not wearing enough “flair”.   The Monkey was also of fan of Beavis-N-Butthead in his grad school days (his roommate was an ultra-fan, who may have actually quoted BNB on job interviews), and later King of the Hill and, although not quite as whole-heartedly, The Goode Family. 

With this background, and with a half day vacation and permission from Beaudelaire to watch a movie, The Monkey headed out to Extract, having heard from both friends and critics, “not as good as Office Space, but ok”.

These reviews were spot on.  Jason Bateman plays a guy in his late 30′s who owns an extract factory with a lworkine (although it really, really looks like a movie set version of a factory) full of crazy characters.  Although the stereotypes were present, Judge doesn’t really hit you over the head with them.  Through a once in a million accident, a worker loses one of his, um, family jewels, and the other may be in trouble as well.  So Bateman is under the pressure of a potential lawsuit from this kind of not-quite-there-but-nice co-worker.

Bateman (the characters names aren’t terribly memorable) is also having marital troubles, and neighbor troubles, in that his nerdy and annyoing next door neighbor won’t take no for an answer regarding Bateman’s attendance at a Rotary Club dinner.  (The neighbor is played brilliantly by David Koechner, who keeps coming over and insisting on payment for the tickets.)

It seems almost a shame to describe any more of the plot, because it just sounds terrible.  Bateman’s marital troubles go from bad to worse in a kind of Simple Plantype way, and a gorgeous female grifter ends up employed at the factory and causing lots of trouble.

All the character actors do a wonderful job.  Ben Affleck far exceeds Your Movie Monkey’s expectations as Batemans stoner new-age bartender and confidant, Dustin Milligan as a young moronic gigilo is able to pull off stupid-good-looking-guy in a way that doesn’t beat you over the head, JK Simmons is JK Simmons, and others are great.

But somehow, you never really want to see more, but you also don’t want to leave.  The marital matters are played well, and are kind of sad, but then the movie’s supposed to be a subtle comedy, but it’s kind of a bummer.

All of this has come during a two week period when many of Your Movie Monkey’s friends are seeing their marriages either take serious turns for the worse or dissolve completely.  Because of this, Your Movie Monkey found some of the feelings portrayed by Bateman and his on screen wife to be believable and real, although of course placed in an over the top, Mike Judge setting.

If you’re a fan of Mike Judge, you should probably see it.  The movie definitely isn’t for kids, as there is prostitution and drug use and infidelity and other topics that aren’t appropriate.  Judge himself makes a fun cameo appearance, which is great.  But whether it was Your Movie Monkey’s mood after all these marital issues happening in real life with his friends, or just the movie itself, it didn’t really seem to have the oomph of some of Judge’s other work.

Too clever by half: Julie and Julia

September 13, 2009
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Overall Rating: A−
Filmmaking/Artistic: A
Storytelling: B+
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Rare coarse language, some “sensuality”)

The pitch

Imagine that old Saturday Night Live sketch where Julia Child gushes blood all over the chicken, but no blood and we’ll get Meryl Streep to do Julia’s accent.  Oh yeah, and we’ll get Nora Ephron to write it and we’ll add a modern heroine straight out of a Lifetime movie to get the chicks to come, but we’ll keep Meg Ryan out so their husbands can tolerate it.

Overview

A very life affirming movie about Julia Child, with a very Hollywood version of a modern woman thrown in.  It’s a nice look a couple who clearly loved each other and loved life, and who changed the face of cooking in America.

Full review

Julie & Julia is a movie in 3 parts.  One part is the story of Julia Child in Paris (and then later in Cambridge, MA) as she first discovers that culinary experience and goes on to write the seminal book Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  The second part is the modern hook, a young, whiny New Yorker named Julie Powell who is depressend in her job and her new Queens, NY apartment, and decides to cook through Mastering (all 500+ recipes) in one year, and blog about it.  (This is in 2002, when blogs were first beginning.)  And the third part is the food–beautifully shot French food cooked by both Julie and Julia.

The Julia part is as heartwarming as any story presented on film.  Julia and her husband Paul, who works for the foreign service in Pairs, are completely in love, and enjoy every minute they spend together.  Julia is a tall, quirky, and very self-assured as she conquers many obstacles.  She enrolls in a very male-dominated cooking school, where the female director (or head administrator) clearly hates her, and tells her many times that she has no discernible talent for cooking.  Julia rises above all this, and ends up by chance meeting Simone (Simca) Beck at a party, who happens to be writing a French cookbook for English audiences.  This becomes a labor of love for Julia, whose unflappable spirit prevails, and even though many audience members know the ending (clearly, she’s going to get the book published and eventually become a household name in the US), it’s still wonderful to watch.

The food is also a star.  From Julia’s first bite of an unbelievably butter fish in Paris, to Julie’s gorgeous creations from her tiny Queens kitchen, the sumptuous creations are definitely a co-star.  Your Movie Monkey has read that all the food was real, cooked on stage.  However they accomplished it, it’s a great treat… some have even called it food porn.

The third part of the movie is less entertaining and slightly less watchable.  The modern Julie comes across as, well, modern but certainly quite whiny.  Her husband seems a complete cartoon.. you know the type — dark, handsome, of a somewhat slight build so as to be non-threatening.  He lives to support his somewhat snotty bride in her quest, and the one time he does blow up briefly at her for being so self-absorbed, he comes back after a day and esssentially realizes that he was wrong in not putting his entire life on hold in support of her project and moods. 

Interestingly, Your Movie Monkey’s wife Beaudelaire, who read the book before seeing the movie, claimed that the movie actually made Julie far nicer than she appeared in reading the book.  Beaudelaire claimed that, while she quite enjoyed the idea of cooking through Julia’s book in a year, she found Julie Powell’s writing so coarse that it was a difficult read.   In fact, one of Your Movie Monkey’s co-workers told him that she refused to see the movie after reading the book.  For more info regarding this, follow the links in the blog entry by Maki Koitoh.

Despite the kind of potato-skin-with-extra-colby-jack appetizer of the story of Julie, the entree of Julia in Paris makes this movie an enjoyable.  Meryl Streep is absolutely dead on with her imitation of Julia Child, and Stanley Tucci  gives a subtle performance as her husband Paul.  Amy Adams as Julie and Chris Messina as her husband Eric provide good performances given the material they had to work with.

When San Francisco is just too darn conservative: Madagascar 2–Escape to Africa

December 8, 2008
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Overall Rating: C-
Filmmaking/Artistic: C
MPAA Rating: PG

Overview

A very strange, somewhat disturbing follow-up to the original Madagascar, this sequel makes no sense unless you’ve already seen the first one, and has a bizarre “anything goes” morality that will probably go over the heads of really young kids, but give pause for those who are older.  An uninteresting story, plus stolen bits from The Lion King, make this a “skip it” movie.

Mini-review

Your Movie Monkey somewhat enjoyed the first Madagascar, especially the penguins, but this second journey definitely goes downhill.  Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffer, and Gloria the hippo are back, and while attempting to fly back to New York, crash land in Africa.

While there, each has a kind of separate story.  Alex is in the middle of a remake of the lion king, complete with Mufasa-esque dad and Scar-esque evil uncle.  (Producer: What should we do with Alex’s character?  We’re 15 minutes short.  Writer: Hey, I know, there’s this other animated lion movie…)  Marty finds that in Africa, he’s indistinguishable from all the other zebras, because they all look like him (and talk like him, since Chris Rock does all the voices).  It bothers him that Alex can’t tell him apart from the other zebras, so somehow, captivitiy was a good thing.

Gloria falls in love with a very big hippo named Moto Moto, and Melman professes his undying love for Gloria.

The movie is not very interesting… even Your Movie Monkey’s favorites from the first, the penguins, fall a little flat.  They are still somewhat amusing, except for the bit about the doll.  Somehow, the lead penguin has fallen in love with a bobble-head doll.  There are even “incriminating” pictures of him with the doll used as blackmail.  This was a very strange, inappropriate turn for a kids’ movie.

As was Gloria’s relationship with Moto Moto.  Firstly, Gloria and Moto Moto hang out in some form of pond that is clearly meant to look like a hottub.  Moto Moto is even drawn to look like a naked human, as he has chest hair drawn in on his skin in this hot tub scene.  His entire attraction to Gloria is admittedly physical.  Your Movie Monkey found these scenes creepy, and not altogether appropriate.

Plus, there’s a wierd subtheme about making a sacrifice (of Melman) to the “volcano gods”, in order to get water flowing again.   (Melman does this to save Gloria.)  This idea dreamed up by gender-bending King Julien of the lemurs, who at one point pops out with coconut bosoms and asks “Now who’s attracted to me?”   The movie at first makes it seem like Julien is just crazy, and the audience knows the real cause of the water shortage is a logjam upriver.  But when the jam is cleared, and Julien hints that maybe it wasn’t the volcano gods, the volcano kind of spits lava, as if to say “yes it was”.  Strange.

The best part of the movie (IYMMHO) was the return of Alex’s old lady nemesis from New York.  In her fight against the wild beasts of Africa, the beasts had better watch out.

Overall this is a morally ambiguous film that does not portray very good messages.  For a better review than Your Movie Monkey’s, check out the  Decent Films Guide.

Third Time’s a Smarm: High School Musical 3

November 24, 2008
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Overall Rating: C+
Filmmaking/Artistic: C-
MPAA Rating: G

Overview

More of the same… better than HSM2 but not as good as HSM1.  A very, very long movie that could have benefitted from some editing.  Still, an upbeat, positive movie for kids, with two leads who only share a kiss.  Hurray for not growing up to fast.

Full review

Your Movie Monkey is one of those middle-aged dads who has been dragged into the High School Musical franchise by his charming daughters, Drama and Queen.  In the first installment, Your Movie Monkey was beyond impressed with this made-for-TV Disney production, because it was like Grease (if Grease were cleaned up) had essentially positive values, catchy songs, decent (if not terribly original) messages, depicted inter-racial friendships without alluding to the fact that they were inter-racial, and, perhaps most importantly, found a young actor who could some how pull off a realistic basketball star who was conflicted about his inner desire to croon show tunes.  As would be expected, the franchise had enough material for about 1.15 movies, and has now made 3 installments due to their success, so they are losing quite a bit of steam.  But, to make sense of #3, one must begin at the beginning, with the back story.

In part 1, we start at some kind of resort/dude ranch during Christmas vacation, where high school junior Troy communicates with his dad through their basketball relationship, and his mom encourages him to go to the kids party to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  There he meets Gabriella, who communicates through reading a book in the corner.  (Hollywood code: She’s smart!)  During a karaoke sing, Troy is handed the microphone at the middle of an unknown song, shrugs his shoulders, and sings like he’s been doing it since he was 3.  Gabriella chimes in and they sing well together, never missing a beat or a handoff, and they bring down the house, but go off sad to never see each other again.

Well, until the next scene, where she’s the new kid in his high school in the hot bed of theatre arts, Albequeque.   Read more »

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