150 Movies in 90 Days: Trouble with the Curve and Despicable Me

July 9: #35, Trouble with the Curve

Because you can never get enough of Clint Eastwood playing grumpy old guys

 

I love baseball and like romantic comedies, so I figured Trouble with the Curve would be right up my alley. A little family drama is always good, too, and I tend to welcome genre-mashups. The final positive indicator here was Clint Eastwood in his twilight playing a grumpy old man. I think we all love that.

Trouble with the Curve opens with Gus (Eastwood) grumpily trying to pee. After he finishes urinating, he promptly walks right into a coffee table that he apparently doesn’t see and kicks the table across the room to teach it a lesson. Right away, I thought a) “hey, this is me in forty years!” and b) “okay movie, you’ve got my attention.” 

It’s unfortunate, then, that most aspects of the film are just slightly above mediocrity. The acting is fine, with Eastwood settling back into his trusty role as a crochety old guy, Amy Adams deftly handling her role as Mickey, a workaholic lawyer with daddy issues, and even Justin Timberlake not making me want to murder him during the film’s nearly two-hour running time. Timberlake isn’t a “bad” actor, he just gets cast in roles sometimes that cannot fit into. This one (Johnny, a former baseball standout who has become a scout after a career-ending injury), happily, is an exception.

Even his best efforts can’t help awfully-written scenes like the one where he pulls over to watch a bunch of kids play a sandlot baseball game, only to freak them out by loudly commentating the action to the point where he is oblivious that they have stopped playing and started watching him. The kids (“What a weirdo!”) know what he’s doing is strange and unrealistic, why didn’t the screenwriter? 

The baseball stuff is a bit disappointing, too. Sometimes, it is very realistic, especially in terms of how the three main characters banter about players. Other times, it’s completely unrealistic, such as the talk between scouts at Atlanta Braves headquarters, which is too polished and feels like acting, especially when contrasted with the casual, conversational acting found in something like Moneyball.

There are some other issues. The player that Gus, Mickey, and Johnny have traveled to a small southern town to scout is not only poorly cast from an athletic standpoint, but is written with such an effort to make him a stereotypical “cocky athlete” that he instead becomes a huge distraction. They could have taken it down a notch  instead and gotten the point across without having him crazily admonishing his teammates for interrupting his daydreams about signing huge endorsement deals while riding on the bus, like a high school villain in a Disney movie.

The issues between Gus and Mickey are handled beautifully, though, even if it gets a bit one-note because Gus has a tendency to be so withdrawn and awkward that their conversations don’t get anywhere most of the time. As a scout, Gus was always on the road when Mickey was growing up and has not really been much of a part of her life, and both characters are realistically played and written to bring this conflict to life.

Despite all of this and some interesting parallels between father and daughter (both workaholics, both believe that there’s more to making choices than what looks good “on paper”, a theme of the film), the film ends disappointingly, with all of the loose plot ends getting tied up in record speed (even for a film with rom-com elements) and a sequence of near-impossible events that actually cheapen what should be a happen ending. Okay movie, but it could have been much better. Grade: C+

July 9: #36, Despicable Me

"No, no, no...I said 'DART' gun."

So after watching the sequel recently and really enjoying it, I decided to borrow the original Despicable Me from my brother and watch it with the kids. I had pretty high hopes- my brother said it was in his top five kids’ movies, although he also really liked Eight Crazy Nights, so there’s that.

To make a long story short, since I have a crapload of movies to watch and I should get to the point, I was mildly disappointed…but only because the second one is so damn funny. The first Despicable Me is still a good animated family film. It’s got the requisite heartwarming story with a moral to it, along with memorable characters and distinctive, quality animation.

What it lacks that the second film has in abundance is laughs. There are funny moments, but just not in the way that part two has them. The songs by Pharrell Williams (who does the original music for both films in the series) are better than in Despicable Me 2, but the second is better in almost every respect. Better villain, better slapstick comedy, funnier minion moments, and so on. Still, a very good movie to watch with the kids, or hell, even by yourself if you don’t have any. Grade: B-

150 Movies in 90 Days: This Means War and Monsters University

July 8: #33, This Means War

"You've seen it in Bangladesh...you know that's not true!"

I've got a fairly well-documented man-crush on Tom Hardy, who is one of the more underrated actors out there. Therefore, I've been watching movies featuring Hardy whenever I get the chance (check out Bronson to see Hardy really stealing the show), although I hadn't gotten the opportunity to watch This Means War until, well, yesterday.

Part of the reason I didn't make an opportunity to watch it is that I thought it might be kind of a turd. Even yesterday, I wasn't very excited to see it. I figured it'd be a pretty uninspiring rom-com/action mashup made in a contrived attempt to attract the ladies (for the romantic parts) and the guys (for the action stuff) at the same time.

Well, I was kind of right. But there are times when This Means War rises above those expectations.

Those times don't include the opening of the film, which starts with a fairly bland action sequence to establish the movie's two CIA operatives, Tuck (Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine), followed by some banter between Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), and her beyond annoying best friend, Trish (Chelsea Handler).

Early, on, the script is very flat, especially when the dialogue between Lauren and Trish is obviously supposed to be witty. It doesn't help that Chelsea Handler is not only an awful human being, but a terrible actress. Her character (and her acting) are obviously supposed to be a blatant ripoff of Samantha Jones from Sex and the City, but she doesn't have the chops to pull it off.

So anyway, through strange but believable circumstances, the two guys end up hitting it off Lauren. At that point, rather than singing a song about the hilarious, yet troubling circumstances of the situation, they decide that they will both continue to date her and the best man will win. And there's your set-up: two highly successful CIA operatives (FDR has a pool in his ceiling) fighting over a woman who looks like a gremlin.

You know it's true.

From then on, things actually pick up a bit. There are hilariously inappropriate uses of government resources as the two spy on one another and try to undermine each other's attempts to win Lauren over. There's the obligatory friend fight, which is pretty entertaining. There are some funny scenes, including one where the two men watch a secret video feed of Lauren and Trish as they discuss the pros and cons of choosing either guy. Then, there's a pretty awesome paintball scene which is not only funny, but represents the best action sequence in the movie.

The chemistry between Pine and Hardy is very good, and watching them banter (or bicker) is a good time. However, the part of the film where they finally start actively sabotaging one another doesn't last long enough, instead getting swept aside so that we can get into a subplot about a terrorist they are after, followed by a lazy resolution. This is still a likeable film, but it almost enters guilty pleasure territory, really. I docked it some points because Chelsea Handler, too. Grade: C+

July 8: #34, Monsters University 

I guess all of the scary professors lost their jobs when monsters learned that laughs worked better than screams?

I was cautiously optimistic about this one. I am pretty much a Pixar fanboy, but it's hard to ignore the fact that they've lost a bit off of their fastball in recent years. Brave was pretty good, but certainly not great, and Cars 2, which I ended up liking more with subsequent viewings, still didn't measure up to their other work and made me think this sequel might be short of the greatness we usually expect from the studio.

Monsters Inc. was great in part because it took an absolutely ingenious concept and rode it for all it was worth. The idea of "monsters in the closet" actually being real and using magic doors that transport them into kids' rooms to elicit screams that are essentially natural resources in the monsters' world is brilliant. However, the fact that Monsters University is a prequel and not a sequel means that that same imagination is not found here. Instead, we see monsters at college, learning to scare (although the lesser monsters take courses in door construction and so on), which gives the movie plenty of humorous setups for easy laughs, but doesn't give us the imaginative ideas that we expect from Pixar.

The film actually avoids being predictable, even if it means that at the end (don't worry, I won't spoil anything) some quick work has to be done to build a bridge from this film to Monsters Inc. The animation, as usual, is outstanding and a joy to behold. I still believe that nobody does animation quite like Pixar, even if other studios have made films with better scripts or more laughs in the last few years.

Ultimately, your thoughts on Monsters University will depend a lot on how much you liked the previous film. If you loved Monsters Inc., you will be glad just to see Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan again, even if the prequel doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor. If you weren't much of a fan of Monsters Inc., this movie won't change your mind. Grade: B

150 Movies in 90 Days: Despicable Me 2

July 6- #32, Despicable Me 2

I watched the All 4 One video for "I Swear" and was disappointed they weren't all wearing white and rolling around on a hill.

 
So, I never saw the original Despicable Me, and the trailer for the sequel was freaking terrible. With annoying music and an all-around spazzy vibe, it seemed like it was put together by Robin Williams on a caffeine binge. However, I also realized that when I can combine my dadly duties with my quest to watch a buttload of movies, it's a good thing. So off I went with the kids to see Despicable Me 2.

And holy crap, it was actually funny! It wasn't that the script was inherently clever or that the situations were exceedingly comical, but it's hard to think of an animated movie that has done physical comedy better than this one did in the last few years.

The minions? Freaking awesome. And there were some other great scenes, too, particularly when Gru first meets Lucy Wilde, or when Gru goes on an ill-advised date. Unless your comedic tastes are really high-brow, you'll at least get a chuckle out of the wonderfully-animated pratfalls and bloopers. Did I mention the minions are hilarious? I don't care if their voices are ripped right out of the Worms video games or not, they're funny.

There are also some beautifully plotted and animated action sequences, and the production altogether is top-notch. You can tell that Universal dumped over $75 million into this thing. Sure, Steve Carrell sounds more like Adam Sandler doing one of his rather annoying voices, and the film doesn't exactly do anything new. Still, it made my kids and I laugh together, and maybe that makes me impossibly biased, but to me that's one of the most important things an animated family film can do. Grade: B+ 

150 Movies in 90 Days: The Running Man and American Psycho 2

So. Far. Behind. I'm buried beneath a buttload of writing work and a final draft for an independent study course that ran into the summer. It's okay, because like Todd Parker in Boogie Nights, "I gotta plan, I gotta very good plan." In the meantime, I'm just trying to watch a movie whenever I can, so I've got two more, including the first certifiable turd of the summer.

July 2- #30, The Running Man

If you've seen The Hunger Games or American Gladiators, this will seem very familiar

 

When I saw this was readily available to watch for free (even available in its entirety on YouTube), I knew I had to see it, mostly because it's one of a few notable holes in my 80s action film viewing history. An Arnold film, shot in his prime, that I haven't seen yet? Blasphemy!

I don't know how I got through my childhood, which was literally spent watching rated R movies, without seeing this. After all, Commando and Predator were classics that I watched dozens of times. Anyway, while watching this, I was aware that grown up me may not see it as impressionable ten-year old me might have, so I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt.

And right away, The Running Man tested my resolve. I mean, watch the first scene of this film and tell me that's not legendarily bad acting, even by Arnold's standards. I mean, that's like Cinemax soft porn acting. I'm telling you, I've seen plenty of Arnold's films, and that's bad acting, even for him.

You know what's not bad? Jesse Ventura as Captain Freedom. Ventura either got the memo about how over the top he was supposed to play Captain Freedom, or simply reverted to his pro wrestling days, because Captain Freedom is pure gold. Of course, this is an 80s action flick, so there are other great touches to enjoy as well. Want a woman working out in lingerie? There you go! Want a villain who wears hockey gear and kills with a bladed goalie stick? Why not, here you go. How about a couple of corny one-liners after Arnold kills bad guys? Sure, you know we've got that covered here.

There are some interesting ideas here, doubtlessly coming from the Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) book of the same name. Many of the ideas can be found in something like The Hunger Games. You've got a government that controls everything and has separated the nation into "districts", a competition where your life is at stake, and a reality show that documents said competition. Between this and Battle Royale, it's almost like Suzanne Collins just plain ripped off these concepts and pieced them together, knowing that her target audience wouldn't know the source material! But we all know people don't really do things like that, right?

Pictured: the FIRST "Sub-Zero". No, really.

Anyway, instead of talking about what has ripped off the ideas in this film ("American Gladiators" also obviously coming from the competition in the movie), let's talk about some of the issues. For one, it's a story of a government that rules with an iron fist, but they still have to "convince" Arnold's character, who has been framed and is a convict, to participate. Then, they go ahead and force some of Arnold's buddies and the obligatory love interest to participate, making you wonder why he had to agree and other people could simply be forced.

That kind of stuff is to be expected though, I guess. There's a lot of great stuff here, though. One of the prizes you can get by competing on the show is a trial by jury. Ha! A guy gets launched into a target and killed and Arnold says, "Well, that hit the spot." On top of it all, this is an 80s version of what people actually expected life to be like in 2017...four years from now. There's a lot of great stuff here, even if this doesn't stand alongside Arnold's other classics. Grade: B

July 5- #31, American Psycho 2

Check your brain at the door

Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time watching movies knows that there are different kinds of bad. There's so-bad-it's-good (a cousin of so-dumb-it's-funny), there's bad on purpose, and there's lovably bad. Then, there's just plain bad. Not bad in an entertaining way, not bad on purpose as a kind of parody, but just awful. I'll let you guess which one American Psycho 2 is.

I knew that I should avoid this. I knew. In a way, that's why I watched it- to see if it was as terrible as I expected. I'm here to tell you, American Psycho 2 did not let me down.

First of all, it is a sequel in name only. Basically, it's an incredibly stupid story of a girl (played by a 19-year old Mila Kunis, seen here during the middle of her run on "That 70's Show") who first says she's obsessed with getting a prestigious position as a teaching assistant with her professor  (which almost always leads to a shot at being an FBI investigator) so she can find and kill other killers, Dexter-style.

To accomplish this, she has to take care of the students who she thinks are her biggest competition for the job. To do this, she kills them, even though she's a freshman and freshmen aren't eligible for the position, as is pointed out early on in the story. Oh, but then again, how is she in a class with juniors and seniors taught by a former elite FBI profiler, in that case? Oh, fuck it, who cares.

The story takes place in apparently the smallest college in the world, which is located in the smallest town in the world. We know this because we see the same ten people over and over again, and they all know each other extremely well. The psychiatrist that Rachael (Kunis) sees is best buddies with her professor (William Shatner, I shit you not), for instance. Oh, and when Rachael's parents visit her and they go to a restaurant, it's the same restaurant that her psychiatrist is at, because there's only one restaurant in town, too.

Fortunately, even in the world's smallest town, people don't notice when others simply disappear, or are murdered in the middle of the day at a table in the public library. This allows the story to continue even as dead bodies rot in the library or in dorm rooms, as everybody blissfully continues their lives, unaware of the rotting carcasses around them as Rachael keeps doing her thing. I mean, I can suspend my disbelief, but this movie takes it a little far. For instance:

- Her psychiatrist breaks client/doctor privilege and calls the professor right away after his first consultation with Rachael, saying she's a "sociopath". Why? Because she said, "I have to have this teaching assistant position" in a very determined voice.

- During a car chase at the end, one cop chastises another for "driving 60 in a 30" even though they're chasing a criminal. He even writes the guy tickets and gives him a running total of his fines to try to get him to slow down. It was at this point in the film, I realized that everyone in the town is completely nuts.

- Oh, and how is this tied to American Psycho? Well, there's a flashback in the beginning where Rachael explains that her babysitter was obsessed with serial killers and decided to take her over to Patrick Bateman's house one night. Bateman was about to kill them both when Rachael escaped and stabbed him with an ice pick from behind. When both Batemen and the babysitter were found dead, it was a big mystery and she "was never placed at the scene", even though her fucking babysitter was there.

Seriously, fuck this movie. Grade: F