Verdict: ☆☆☆☆ –

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) has got a lot to learn about women. Being the number one covert operative in the world throughout most of your career can have that sort of impact on one’s retirement, and Frank is feeling the heat from his now girlfriend Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), who wants adventure more than ever now that she’s had a taste of it!

But Frank has other ideas in mind. He’s retired, and loves shopping at Costco, and buying things for their house… and generally playing Suzie Homemaker. This doesn’t strike well with Sarah, who flat out tells him their relationship is getting stale! Luckily for her (but not so lucky for the world), a Wiki document has leaked on the internet about an insanely nightmarish weapon, even worse than a nuclear device… portable, untraceable and Numero Uno on every arms dealer’s shopping list since the document leak.

Oh, did I mention the document referenced Frank and old buddy Marvin (John Malkovich) as involved in its origins? Suddenly the two of them are right smack in the US Government’s spotlight again, not to mention MI6.

Everything you enjoyed about the first movie, you’ll enjoy about this one. No one believes these “old people” still got it until they come face to face with ’em and find out that R etired E xtremely D angerous actually means something. With even cooler stunts, jet setting around the world in an unbelievably crazy quest to get to this mysterious device first, Frank’s gotten a little sloppy now that he’s been distracted by keeping Sarah safe and meeting ex-girlfriend agents from the old days, and his brothers/sisters in arms don’t mince words in making it known.

This was a fun flick, as action packed as the first one, with twists and turns as complex as Paris, London and Russian streets can provide! Heck, just watching Bruce Willis try and be romantic is hilarious in itself! You’ll find yourself jet setting and sipping wine and feeling for that gun under the cushion until the credits roll.

Verdict: Hahahahaha! (wipes tear) Oh, you were serious?

Well, this movie starts with Air Force One flying over the Bermuda Triangle and goes downhill from there. The President (John Savage) has long hair and jokes around about both the Bermuda Triangle and his long hair… and that’s pretty much the first minute of the movie. A freak storm suddenly comes out of nowhere and lightning strikes one engine. Apparently, a random flight attendant is in charge and knows more about modern avionics than anyone because she immediately screams, “We need to evacuate you now Mr. President!” Because, you know, one lightning hit is apparently all Air Force One can withstand. Secret Service and top brass generals leap to the random flight attendant’s demand and scramble the President to an underwater escape pod. Instead of just diverting the plane to Florida at an altitude that would suffice gliding right in, Air Force One maintains current course and altitude which means the President has to visit Davy Jones’ Locker in a capsule that has a crush depth of 25,000 feet, enough food for seven days and a .45 caliber pistol with 100 rounds of ammunition.

I’m not making this up!

Air Force one completely explodes from that one lightning strike on the engine and the escape pod jettisons, but not before the President shouts to everyone “Save yourselves!” It was right about here that I realized I had two full minutes invested in this movie. But this is what you pay me for, right? Seeing these movies so you don’t have to!

Enter our heroes, an elite soldiering force of kids who look like they got their fatigues at The Gap walking slowly and proudly off a helicopter that just landed on a random Navy ship. After the deck is hosed down with official nautical garbledygook and militaryish twaddlespeak, laced with a few “Yes sirs!” our boyscout heroes are off to rescue the President from the unmerciful depths.

The ship’s skipper, Admiral Linda Hansen (a rather rough looking Linda Hamilton) who has experience fighting terminators and shit, calls the shots. I will give her this, when first meeting our high school glee club heroes, she gives them a once over as if she’s about to burst into laughter. I don’t think I could have held the laughter back, so I admire her for that. Give that woman an award or something!

She is in charge of the mission to bring the President back, but not before several mile-high tentacles surface and position themselves around each ship present and accounted for. Keep in mind, we’re still in the Bermuda Triangle here. Enter Dr. Zimmer (a bearded Jamie Kennedy… wait. Jamie Kennedy?? Seriously??) a biologist who is aboard the flagship for some reason and even has his own lab. You’ll be able to tell who he is, he’s the one who starts chattering in scientific jargon and can almost immediately identify the tentacles as “tube worms, but with a very extravagant embodiment that seem to possess some sort of bio-electric genesis which is contrary to any of the species in its respective phylum.”

To which the admiral shoots him the look you see in the picture above. I’m not kidding, I screen-shot this just so you can see her expression! It’s like, “Wtf?”

Yeah, I would have looked at him about that way too.

This entire movie is a baked July-deposited cowpie slathered with extra thick, government cheese topped military jargon that would make even the most gung ho marine remove his cover and scratch his head in confusion. If your eyes just glazed over with that last sentence, my eyes literally glazed over throughout most of this flick… which actually helped blur the atrocious movie makeup everyone had on. The blur, oddly, made it more realistic.

If you’re still reading this, 1) I applaud you because you have more patience than I do and 2) the plot so far is that the President’s still at the bottom of the ocean (I can’t believe I just typed that) and there are giant indestructible bio-electric genesii tubeworms blocking the way to him.

If you’re looking for a rompy, barely acted, half assed attempt at a movie andSharktopus Vs. Dinocroc isn’t available, aaaand it’s raining outside, aaaaaaaaand you have no vacuuming to do… this might be your movie.

Wow, we got this one right under the wire and we are excited! These are the Movie Madness picks for the actors, writers, directors and pictures that are going to walk away with the Oscars on Sunday February 22nd on ABC at 7PM ET/4PM PT.

We’ve got some surprises, no brainers and even a few wild speculations, but you’ll never know who chose what unless you take time to listen before tomorrow’s show. We have bruises, contusions and even a concussion from the amazing battle but I think we made some really good picks. We managed to duck the sniper fire, escape the Nazis and even avoid the Whiplash as we at the Madness made some awesome choices (and a feeble one or two). Join us a couple of hours before the Oscars and you’ll see how hard we worked.

Be sure and let us know what you think (and how badly you beat us on the picks) at: #260-573-0015, for voice mail (we’ll play it on the show), or you can email them to us at: moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com. You can also post them to Twitter, Facebook or the Ultimate Movie Geeks community on Google+

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As a movie buff since the age of 5, and someone who is not a sports fan, The Oscars are my only live tv event that is equivalent to the Superbowl. I have great respect for everyone that is nominated , but l do get frustrated at some of the Academy’s picks, nominating the same people over and over again , I am looking at you Meryl Streep and Bradley Cooper, and not giving Leonardio DiCaprio an award yet. He definitely deserved one for  Wolf of Wall Street. He wasn’t just playing himself! ( at least, I hope not ) There are always Oscar snubs every year , this year most notably the movie Selma having the director and lead actoor not nominated although the picture was. And the Lego Movie was one of the best 3 animated movies I have ever  seen in my lifetime!

So for the main categories I will point out what  will win , according to  awards already won, and what I  would vote for if I was a member of the Academy. The median age of Academy members is 62, and there are 77 % males and 23% females/ That needs to be changed to fit in with the 21st century , if you ask me.  This is probably why Crash won over Brokeback Mountain, and why The King’s Speech won over The Social Network, which is a far superior film.

Best Picture:  Boyhood, as people are impressed by the 12 year long dedication of the cast and Richard Linklater , highly original concept. I would have voted for the Imitation Game , as I love true stories and it was the only movie that I would like to own and watch again.

Supporting Actor: JK Simmons because of his extraordinary turn as an verbally abusive teacher! This is a choice I agree with,

Best Actress : Julianne Moore gives a very nuanced performance as an early onset Alzheimers patient, and has already won an award. I would vote for Rosamund Pike as her performance made the movie Gone Girl what it is. I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie and she was the character I hated most all year

Best Actor::This is the only category that is not clear cut as all the nominees are equally strong. At first Michael Keaton got most of the buzz, then it was Eddie Redmayne  playing real life genius Stephen Hawking. The Academy loves to reward actors who can play real people effectively, and I do too that is I why I would vote for Benedict Cumberbatch

He excels at playing arrogant geniuses, but unlike in Sherlock, and the Fifth estate, he shows true vulnerability here and his performance was the only one that moved me to tears!

Supporting Actress :Patricia Arquette is the sure thing. I like her and Reese Witherspoon ,but would vote for Patricia as Reese has already won an Oscar for Walk the Line.

Best Animated Movie: Big Hero 6 and I agree,nothing else comes close except The Lego Movie which wasn’t even nominated

Best Documentary : Citizenfour ( about Edward Snowden) and I agree

Best Director : Richard Linklater, which would be my second choice after Morten Tyldum ( The Imitation Game

Welcome to our first annual all-encompassing, massive and incredibly incisive Movie Madness Prediction episode! Every wide release movie of any interest to entities, in this or any other universe, is included in over 35 predictions. Many of the predictions are surprising, nearly to the point of insanity (hello Doug), and others (hi Craig) are near to absolute brilliance. Then there is Jeremy who manages to keep Doug and Craig from each others throats (and gives some pretty insightful predictions too).

This could easily be our most super-sized episode ever, but you need to tune in to find out…you snooze you lose. It is definitely one of the most fun episodes ever! You can’t miss this one. This is the Movie Manic saying, as always, please give us your predictions, praise and snarky comments (we can take it): at #260-573-0015, for voice mail, or you can email them to us at: moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com. You can also post them to Twitter, Facebook or the Ultimate Movie Geeks community on Google+

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Verdict: * * * 1/2 – –

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is a college kid who looks and acts smart, but loves to party and has a real creep for a boyfriend. Not just a creep who looks at other girls’ boobs, but the kind of creep who is a courier for extremely powerful drug lords and wears Stetson cowboy hats made in Taiwan. Yeah, that kind of creep.

Sorry, didn’t mean to throw that Stetson made in Taiwan thing at you. That may have been a little strong. Seriously though, he makes it a point to tell her his Stetson is made in Taiwan, so… he’s creepy. Where was I? Oh yes!

Anyway, being creepy, he lures Lucy into delivering this particular shipment of drugs for him and we sit there for almost ten full minutes while they argue about it. All this time, the scene Lucy, her creepy boyfriend and his Stetson are chewing up are punctuated by scenes from the Serengeti with big cats stalking prey, as if the writer/director (Luc Besson, The Fifth Element, The Transporter) pretty much thought the audience would be entirely too stupid to see what was happening here. Lucy is being stalked by predators (her creepy boyfriend, his Stetson, and the powerful drug lord). Okay, we get that.

Then suddenly I start to see, as Lucy goes along with the drop off and the shizzle really hits the fan, what Luc Besson was trying to do. Much like The Fifth Element and practically everything else he’s ever done, he has injected a very sophisticated rhythm into the movie that creates a 3D perspective from a 2D screen.

Now, just so you know, there are no real spoilers in this review. Everything that happens in the movie, you’ve already seen from the trailer. You know what happens to Lucy. The deal goes south, they need her to deliver the baggie of a brand new synthetic drug to the United States and the only way to get it through customs is to sew it into her abdomen. Unfortunately, word of this didn’t reach a couple of thugs who work for the drug lord and one of them beats her up because she wouldn’t let him rape her. The baggie leaks inside her and WHOOSH! Off goes her brain into orbit towards Godlike power.

This is all inside the first half hour of the movie. After that, things really take off and you’re left pretty much breathless when the credits roll. There is a subtle philosophical idea that this movie is riding on, brought to you by Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman), that asks, “Are humans more concerned with ‘having’ than with ‘being’?” All throughout this movie, everyone wants something. Everyone is trying to get something. Bad guys want their drugs back. Cops want the bad guys. Everyone wants to shoot guns because guns make them feel powerful. Prof. Norman wants to know what Lucy knows but isn’t sure the human race is ready for that knowledge.

But is that such a bad thing that we’re more concerned with having than being? People are wrapped up in their own individual worlds, each world containing everything they think about and feel emotionally, and yet they never do see beyond that world. We cannot (at this time) walk in another man’s shoes, so to speak. All the while Lucy ascends beyond quantum physics and sees all these individual worlds as One World moving in an infinity of different directions, all measured by time. As she sees them, she can control them and she basically spends 24 hours ascending from human to “beyond” as her brain capacity is gradually activated more and more.

Lucy is an idea about ascending to the next level of evolution… really fast. What would actually happen if we expand our minds and open up our worlds? Will this happen eventually? Could we, as limited consciousness individuals, really see that we are each One with All? Could we see beyond the labels and illusion and see that we simply… are?

With action and philosophy combined, Luc Besson brings what I would consider a beautifully done piece of art to a world in which it would be most attractive. He blends action and violence with thought and by the time the credits roll, you’re both wired and deeply composed at the same time! I think this flick would have been better done with a much younger lead actress, however. ScarJo is awesome, but a little old to be the naive party “kid” she was supposed to playing. That said, I thought this one was really well done!

Verdict: * * * * –

When I first watched HTTYD, I thought at first it was just another goofy animated movie. I mean, c’mon… a scrawny kid with a nasaly, Canadian accent the son of a mighty viking chief? But as the movie played on, I started really enjoying it. The movie didn’t take itself seriously, and even the nasaly Canadian kid made fun of his own character. I liked the sequences, the way the story unfolded, the tension of the dragons and the struggles of man verses beast in almost every fashion. The action was incredible and the humor had me laughing out loud.

When I first heard that HTTYD2 was coming out, I cringed because I thought it was just another goofy animated sequel that Walmart would have in its $5 bin in six months, sitting right next to Fern Gully 2; A Financial Rescue Attempt. But as this movie played on, I ascended from liking the characters to truly fall in love with them!

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and Astrid (America Ferrera) are coming into their own and Chief Stoic (Gerard Butler), along with his right hand man Gobber (Craig Ferguson), is trying to train his son how to be the next chief of the vikings in Berk. But Hiccup was never one to go along with rules and as he and Astrid stumble across an enormous dragon army controlled by the fearsome, mysterious man Drago, it opens up a whole new world of dragon-wrangling for our young hero.

I won’t give much more away, suffice it to say that comparing the first HTTYD to its sequel is like comparing a bottle of Budweiser to an entire twenty four pack of Budweiser! The bottle of Bud will do ya in a pinch and tastes great (less filling!) but the suitcase will bring your friends to the party and everyone will enjoy themselves so much more!

I do realize that describing children’s animated movies with melodramatic alcohol references may not win me over at my daughter’s school or get me invited to community little league games. I’m sure I’ll deal with that while I’m hanging out with friends drinking a suitcase and watching this movie again. But for now, I just added HTTYD2 to my Amazon wish list and tagged it as the highest priority!

If you liked the first movie, you’ll love the second movie! I don’t consider it a sequel at all, really… but a second part to one big story. Apart, they’re wonderfully done little adventures, but together, they make for one beautiful, fulfilling epic that you’ll walk away from with your fists in the air going “Yeah!”

This is definitely one of my most anticipated films of the year…even more now that I’ve seen the trailer! The Man From U.N.C.L.E. looks like great fun and Henry Cavill seems a pretty good pick for Napoleon Solo. Even more, Armie Hammer might be a very credible Ilya Kuryakin-my favorite character! I’m putting all my hopes on Guy Ritchie and his unusual sense of the serious amid the absurd. I loved the 60s TV series and hope to love the movie as much. Enjoy! Release date: Aug, 14, 2015

This movie is powerful,brilliant, and heartbreaking! I don’t often wish movies went on for longer but I did here! If I had actually seen this in 2014  it would have been my Number 1 pick for the year! At least the Academy got something right by nominating this movie , it is miles better than Boyhood and Birdman , and very similar to Foxcatcher with its  bleak look at unhappy and lonely people ! Alan Turing is a genius and  has never been a people person as he was so different from the other kids in school he was bullied. He had only 1 great friend named Christopher which he remembers so fondly he calls the  code breaking machine Christopher in memory.

He and Keira Knightley are fast friends immediately, connected by their ability to do crosswords in 6 minutes  ( impressed! takes me 10 minutes)  and both being outcasts in their field , she being a woman in a mans job. When she says why are you helping me? He says  a quote  Christopher once said to him  “Sometimes its the people nobody imagines of that can do the things no one can imagine!”

Turing  has a secret that can’t get out as his  superior  is always looking for any reason to get fired , When it does, the injustice of how this  war hero/code breaker  was treated  made me cry for 10 minutes! Only 2 movies a year have the power to do that these days. When I was a kid I would cry at anything!

I really hope Benedict Cumberbatch wins Best Actor for this , as you forget that he also plays Sherlock Holmes, he lives and breathes the tortured, vulnerable, brilliant  Alan Turing.

I am glad he  got a posthumous  pardoning from Queen Elizabeth in 2013 , but he should have been respected when he was alive

Verdict 5/5 This movie is definitely worth owning on DVD

Hey guys, Join us as we race to the finish of our Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2015! Who will win out in this battle of the blockbusters? Which member of the team makes a surprise pick in his top 4? And who once again opens himself up for ridicule betting against a beloved franchise? You’ll have to listen in to find out and see if your guesses are right!  There may be a surprise or two! Once again, feel free to let us know your Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2015 at: # 260-573-0015, for voice mail, or email us at: moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com. You can also post them to Twitter, Facebook or the Ultimate Movie Geeks community on Google+

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