Action, 131 Minutes, 2013
Both Jason Sudeikis [IMDB] and Jennifer Aniston [IMDB] can be hit or miss. Aniston, particularly, is known for making many perfectly average – and perfectly bland – comedies. Harmless enough, true, but nothing special. Going in to this, therefore, I was hoping for nothing more than a decent time-waster and a few chuckles. Instead, I’ll happily admit, this ended up being pretty damn hilarious.
Drama, 94 Minutes, 2011
The movie revolved around two friends in an eternal bromance bonded over their mutually shitty childhoods. They make a good living stealing cars from mourners at funerals. Their baggage makes them unable to keep other relationships intact. They begin to empathize with the child of the woman renting an apartment from them and it eventually changes their lives forever. It’s difficult to discuss specifics without spoilers but it’s probably not to hard to see that this is about finally growing up, cobbling together families that shouldn’t work but do and finding out what’s really important in life.
Zombie alert!
See the review of “Infected” on our sister site, MoreBrains.com dedicated to all things zombie!
Drama, 94 Minutes, 2010
This is a quiet, little, personal drama. Like most quiet, little, personal dramas this lives or dies on the success of the actors. The script is crucial as well, of course, but good actors can carry a weak script – and weak direction, lighting, staging and pacing. If the actors can grab you up front and convince you that their characters are authentic, you’ll accept just about anything else.
Action, 131 Minutes, 2013
Straight from the “Die Hard” [IMDB] home kit comes this story of a struggling everyman whose dream is becoming a secret service agent to impress his precocious, politics obsessed daughter. When the White House is attacked by a team of terrorists (white terrorists, you racist) he teams up with the action, kung-fu grip president and gets the job done!
Documentary, 89 Minutes, 2013
Do you like “Calvin and Hobbes”? Of course you do, you’re not an idiot! Everybody does. (Well, everybody except for sad, attention-craving contrarians who scream, “that sucks, now pay attention to me!” about everything great.) By taking the position that something everybody loves is great the movie sets itself a pretty easy row to hoe.
What was Thanksgiving made for if not watching terrible movies with loved ones while eating way too much of way too much? We tried out some new turkeys this year, here are our impressions.
Horror/Comedy, 70 Minutes, 2009
The first movie we have is holiday-appropriate but not family appropriate. We still watched it, but we did not feel good about it. As promised by the poster there are “boobs in the first second” (for those that care, they are, in fact, the only boobs but that’s probably beside the point).
Anyway, an ancient Indian shaman summoned a demonic turkey to kill all the pilgrims and now he return every 505 years (except the movie actually takes place 400-some-odd-years after the intro) to kill the first batch of white people he finds.
The movie is a hell of lot of fun. Terribly acted, terribly realized, raunchy, family-unfriendly fun. There’s actually some clever, introspective gags here. The cast can’t deliver them but you’ll laugh at them trying either way.
“Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan” on IMDB
Horror, 90 Minutes, 2013
The first scenes of this movie, set in the 1800’s, had me worried. We do see a monster-killer with an ax and he’s… maybe, 5′ 10″? The word “giant” didn’t really come to mind. But it’s okay! Turns out he was just a little baby Bunyan back then. He was afflicted with a terrible disease, you see. One that let him live for hundreds of years and grow into an invincible giant. Terrible, it was!
So now it’s 2013 and a bunch of attractive teens are in the woods. They find the remains of Bunyan’s best friend, the blue ox Babe, and steal one of his horns. This angers Bunyan. He approaches the group and shares his feelings of violation and sadness. They apologize and return the horn. They then help the sobbing giant to rebuild his makeshift monument as modernized, but respectful, rendition of Minnie Riperton’s classic, “Loving You” plays out the scene.
Nah, I’m just fucking with you. He axes them all. He axes them good.
Comedy, 95 Minutes, 2013
The wife decided that all the killing wasn’t in keeping with the the spirit of a holiday celebrating the start of a genocide, so we moved on to a comedy. Or, more specifically, we thought we did. If you never laugh – I mean ever – does it still count as a comedy?
Honestly we only had this in our queue because it popped up when we saw Danica McKellar [IMDB] in the differently terrible “Tasmanian Devils” [Our Review]. Sue us, we still like her! Just because her career has ended with movies like this doesn’t mean she’s a bad person or anything!
The movie blows. It tries to be a raunchy, bromance romp but ends up just raunchy and gross for the sake of being gross . It’s slow, scattered and joyless. But, Danica, we’re still rooting for you!
Comedy, 99 Minutes, 2012
For our last turkey we decided to give this a shot. The first one was awful but the non-existent budget and terrible acting made it exactly the kind of terrible that you share with those you love. This one isn’t.
I don’t what the fuck this was. Imagine enough mescaline to drown congress. Now imagine doing all of it while watching “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”. Now imagine that, while you’re doing that, somebody is periodically hitting you in the face with a hatchet while reading “War and Peace” in Hebrew. Now, just for shits and giggles, imagine what kind of singing voice a fax-machine made of jelly-beans would have.
It’s kind of like that. Not at all good and not bad enough to be fun. There might be drugs that would make this movie great – the people that made it clearly had them – but I’m not sure what they might be and I have no desire to experiment.
So, as we wrap up, I think we have to give the non-existent “Golden Turkey” award to the original “Thankskilling”. The sequel was a huge disappointment, but the original was a hell of a lot of stupid fun.
Horror, 94 Minutes, 2012
Nearly all genre television is produced in Canada. Sure, it sounds crazy, but it’s true! If it has aliens, dinosaurs or ghosts it’s probably filmed in Toronto. Apparently it’s cheaper or easier or something. Whatever the reason, pretty much every supporting character says “aboot” and all the doughnuts come from Tim Hortons.
Sci-fi, 109 Minutes, 2013
This is writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s [IMDB] highly anticipated follow-up to his surprise 2009 hit, “District 9” [IMDB]. While vastly different in tone and scope the two films share a distinctive feel. With a few script changes they may have quite believably been set in the same timeline. There’s a closeness, an immediacy, to the direction and staging that permeates everything.
Family, 91 Minutes, 2013
It used to be that companies like “Pixar” had to suffer poor imitators. Other companies would come along and produce, at best, paint-by-numbers knock-offs that hit all the same notes but couldn’t hope to match the music. For every “A Bug’s Life” [IMDB] there was an “Antz” [IMDB] and for every “Finding Nemo” [IMDB] there was “A Shark’s Tale” [IMDB]. These big-budget semi-clones where never terrible but they were always missing something.
