Day 33: Rubber (2010)

A French techno DJ decided to make a film about a tire that comes to life and kills people with its psychic powers. Sing to me, muse. Sing to me.

Starring: Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick, Ethan Cohn
Directed By: Quentin Dupieux

The Positives:

- This flick lets you know what it is in the very first scene: A man with a bunch of binoculars walks out of a desert to find a road full of chairs. A car randomly arrives and hits all of the chairs very slowly. Then a sherif with a glass of water pops out of its trunk, ignores the man with the binoculars, and walks toward the camera. He precedes to ask the audience a bunch of movie trivia which can only be answered with "No reason.", then pours the water out. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 'Rubber'.

- I love the in-movie audience and how they interacted with the film as it progressed. It's only a plus that it's composed of genuinely funny and interesting characters.

- Despite a slower start, it was pretty entertaining to watch the tire blow up rabbits and crows and people's heads. At least the first few times it did it.

- I was a very big fan of Stephen Spinella's character.

- The man with binoculars was pretty entertaining to watch too. Ya know, before he died like a punk as well.

The Negatives:

- Once the tire came to life it spent the next ten to fifteen minutes blowing things up in the desert. While that doesn't seem like a relatively long time, the premise got old fast and I stopped caring about it just rolling around, blowing up cans.

- Roxane Mesquida's character was pretty pointless. It's like her character was just introduced to parade around in water and look sexy. While I'm all for gratuitous naked women in horror comedies, I felt like a pervert just watching her shower. Nudity for the sake of nudity. Oh, and you're wrong black audience lady. She's very attractive, but her rack wasn't that impressive.

- Within the first thirty minutes I was already bored. The next fifty minutes were a pain to sit through.

- Remember that awesome audience I mentioned earlier? Yeah, they're all killed. Like punks. Halfway through the movie.

- Even though I was warned at the start of the movie this film is pointless, I didn't realize what a problem that would be. It's incredibly difficult to invest in a film that has no purpose.

Grade: D+

The flick has a charming premise but the pseudo-film gimmick quickly grows tired. I think I can go a while without seeing any more of these schlocky B-movie parodies.

Day 27: MacGruber (2010)

I have been bothered relentlessly by people to see this since it came out. Considering SNL's movie track record, I could really care less.

Starring: Val Kilmer, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig
Directed by: Jorma Taccone

The Positives:

- The intro song is excellent.
- Val Kilmer! He should be in everything! (Except Batman)
- Also, I'm glad Jorma Taccone is directing these days.
- Little things (Like MacGruber always taking his radio out of his car when he parks it) sell the '80s-esque tone.
- Ryan Phillippe still has a career? Yay!
- The 1980's soundtrack is marvelous.
- Highlight of the soundtrack? Eddie Money.
- Throat ripping.

The Negatives:

- The humor is real hit or miss. For every joke that works, one doesn't.
- Is it a double standard that I like to see naked women in films but can't stand male nudity? Probably, but it's still gross.
- Maya Rudolph isn't attractive. Stop pretending she is.
- I can't tell if the movie is making fun of action film cliches or actually falling for them.
- There is a significantly less amount of actual McGuyver-ing than I thought there'd be considering it's a parody of the character.

Grade: C+

The fact that it's the best SNL movie since Wayne's World doesn't mean much. Entertaining, yes, but nothing special.

Day 26: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

It's been a day of hectic travel across the country, so you'll have to forgive me if this review is a tad late.

Starring: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera
Directed by: Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois

The Positives:

- If the film-makers were trying to make Toothless cute and vicious at the same time, they succeeded.
- In fact, most of the dragons were very well designed.
- This is by far the best a Dreamworks animated film has ever looked, especially with all the emphasis on nature and fire.
- While the dragon fighting scenes could have easily looked chaotic and clustered, they actually came off as thrilling.
- I cared about Hiccup and his problems... for the most part., when he wasn't a whiny bitch.
- Craig Ferguson is a really good voice actor and he probably gave the best performance.
- The humor works in this movie quite well compared to other Dreamworks animates films which rely on fart jokes and funny voices.
- I love me some violence and drinking in a kid's movie.

- The ending was anything but anti-climatic, unlike most Dreamworks film which spend too much time on build up with little pay-off

- Lastly, what happens to Hiccup in the final battle is rare for a child's movie.

The Negatives:

- I find Jay Baruchel's voice too annoying for voice-over work. The fact he's the only accent-less character also bugs me, even though it makes his character much more accessible to the (American) audience.
- I feel like Hiccup and Astrid's relationship wasn't established properly. She just kind of starts to like him without any real reason, especially since she hated him at the start of the movie.

Grade: A-

This is Dreamworks Animation's best film, without a doubt. With q flick this beautiful, classy, and mature Dreamworks has finally won me over.

Day 21: Super (2010)

90 minutes of 'The Office"s Rainn Wilson telling crime to "Shut up!".

Starring: Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler, Nathan Fillion
Directed by: James Gunn

The Positives:

- I love me some Bacon. Kevin Bacon.
- The animated opening scene was probably the best part of the flick.
- Michael Rooker!
- I'm thankful Linda Cardellini still finds employment (even if her character was pointless and wasted). I like her.
- If you wanna go from a beginner to a pro, you're gonna need a montage. A good ol' montage! (Not a quote from this film mind you, but a 'South Park' quote I like to use to display my love for montages.)
- When the quirky jokes do work, they're really quite funny. Especially taking wrenches to the face. That's never not funny.
- I do find it kind of refreshing that when the Crimson Bolt starts out fighting crime, he doesn't get his ass kicked like most other super-powerless wanna-be superheroes do, but instead actually does some heavy damage (which of course causes more bad than good when he gets a tad power hungry).
- What happens to 'Bolty' is shocking... Horrible even. It does spin normal superhero tropes on their head however, and thus I approve.

The Negatives:

- I think the film tries too hard to be original via quirkiness and it doesn't work well enough for me to believe it helps. I found the imaginary scenes that take place in the protagonists head (think 'Scrubs') and eccentric tone much too distracting to feel fresh.
- It doesn't help that 'Super' is also pretty boring at times.
- Once more, a comedy flick takes the "He's Christian so he must be crazy" approach.
- I did approve of the pop-art style words popping up during fight scenes, referencing Adam West's 'Batman' of course. But then they only used it in like two scenes. You can't just do that shit once. Commitment dammit!
- 'Inception' proves Ellen Page has range, so I don't understand why she pretty much only plays Juno in everything she's in.
- I understand the Crimson Bolt is going through some rough times, but both he and Libby are pretty fucked up and I don't really know why I should root for them.
- The sugary-sweet ending felt tacked on nor did it give the film proper closure.
- Oh, and hentai in a main-stream film? I'm not ready for that.

Grade: D+

It's a dark comedy a bit too twisted to laugh at and it's uninspired to boot. I expected much more.

Day 7: Megamind (2010)

I'm a Pixar fanboy. I assume most movie people are. However, I noticed this does effect my judgement of Dreamworks films, so much so, that 'Megamind' will be the first Dreamworks film I have seen in two years. Here's hoping it'll change my mind on what the studio is capable of.

Starring: Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill
Directed by: Tom McGrath (Who happens to have directed what I consider some of the worst Dreamworks movies to date.)

The Positives:

- Dammit, I love David Cross! I know he does shitty movies like 'Alvin and Chipmunks', but I'm glad he openly admits he does it for the pay check. If he'd just do more films like this I'm sure he'd get better offers and better roles should hold me over until that 'Arrested Development' movie comes out. One day…. I can dream.
- A J.K. Simmons cameo!
- It doesn't matter if he's an evil fashion designer or an animated blue alien, Will Ferrell always gets into character and you can tell he has a lot of fun doing what he does.
- Brad Pitt is also delightful.
- It pretty obvious the writers of this film were very familiar with 80's pop culture and super hero tropes.
- Subtle superhero references like the Marlon Brando 'Space dad' jokes really, really crack me up.
-Megamind has a pretty solid soundtrack and it makes the most out of it. Setting the final scene to Michael Jackson's "Bad" is too perfect to call hokey.
- Animated movies should be fun for both kids and adults. I must say, this film succeeded.


The Negatives:

- I love Will Ferrell. I do. But still, I'd loved to have seen what Robert Downey Jr. would've done with this character.
-I understand not every animated film can be a Pixar film, and I should really stop comparing films like this to 'Toy Story 3', but when I see films like this attempt to be emotional, it just emphasizes how effortlessly Pixar can do it. It tried though, I'll give it that.

Grade: B

I realize the irony of expressing my love of Pixar on the opening day of Cars 2, (Which currently has a 34 on Rotten Tomatoes, making it Pixar's lowest rated film by a considerable amount), and it may seem a bit hypocritical now by saying this film doesn't have the emotional impact that Pixar put's into their films, but 'Megamind' is quite a fun and entertaining film. Don't skip it by assuming it's just animated filler.