Verdict: ★ ★ ★ 1/2

When you go to a Rock movie, it’s pretty much assured you’re going to see the same stern eyed, tough talking, bleached toothed, wildebeest-girthed badass you see in every other Rock movie who does impossible feats of absolute craziness in every bulldozing, car jumping, people screaming, concrete smashing action scene.

Well… this is not that kind of Rock movie.

San Andreas surprised me with how different it is from the trailers that sold it. It’s a very well toned, nicely balanced instructional earthquake video that starts off with an oddly “out of place” 7+ richtor scale earthquake in Nevada which Cal Tech seismologists led by Dr. Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti) test a theory of magnetic prediction against. Apparently a few hours before an earthquake happens, the earth lets out a high magnetic field or something scientific like that. Omg! That’s awesome! Earthquake predictions! Wait. Um. Dr Hayes? The magnetic field is off the charts… OMG! Get out of there!

>Fa FOOM!!<

A quake that tears apart Hoover Dam like it was wet Kleenex erupts and according to what their laptops are telling them, it’s a precursor to the San Andreas faultline letting off some steam… or magnetic force… or something. All this is explained to us as our Cal Tech geeks run from crumbling concrete and jump over suddenly opening fissures.

That’s cool by me. Action while learning science rocks! Speaking of rock, LAFD heli-rescue pilot Chief Ray Gains (Dwayne Johnson) in about to sign divorce papers that his wife Emma (Carla Gugino) sent him in an oddly reminiscent Twister plot device when suddenly they’re brought back together after he rescues her from the top of that building we all see in the trailer. Almost immediately they get a call from their only daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) who is in San Francisco which is just where the San Andreas faultline crawls out of the Pacific. And, just like her mom and dad, she thinks fast on her feet in tight situations.

Thankfully, the almost bland flavor of family drama that threatens to derail the entire movie doesn’t, and we’re catapulted into the action of earthquakes rocking the west coast. The two female leads (Gugino & Daddario) as well as the two male leads (Johnson & Giamatti) all bring their A-game and offer strong, confident acting. Left behind are the weak damsels in distress and stepping forward are the ladies taking charge and saving lives. And the men are appropriately badass while maintaining the emotional pull necessary to be real human beings and not just plastic action heroes. Unfortunately you don’t see that in the trailer, which kind of pissed me off.

Screenwriter Carlton Cuse said it best when he said, “Part of the construct was making sure that each character had a mission and something that they were trying to accomplish. Alexandra’s character wasn’t just waiting around to be rescued. Carla wasn’t just a passive participant in Dwayne’s journey. I was trying to find those ways in which each character can express their heroism as an essential concept.”
Source: http://collider.com/san-andreas-movie-18-things-to-know-about-dwayne-johnson-disaster-movie/ (spoilers in article)

However, what the trailers (probably put together by studio execs) show and what the movie actually is, are completely opposite. Mr. Cuse’s thoughts about what he was trying to do with the female characters in the movie are completely opposite of what everyone saw in the trailers: Blake was waiting around to be rescued and Emma was just a passive participant in Dwayne’s journey.

What the artists who have actually applied the paint to the canvas are showing us, is different than what the suits making the deal are selling it as and that infuriates me. Because 1) most people aren’t going to see the movie based on what the artists wanted us to see. If they see it at all, they’re going to see it because of what the execs thought we would want to see. And 2) it just shows yet again that studio execs have no possible clue what people actually enjoy in art. Heroism is one thing, but strong female leads are awesome and we are woefully lacking of those in Hollywood. This movie is refreshingly bursting with strong female characters who aren’t waiting around for men to save them, like the trailers unfortunately portray.

In conclusion, San Andreas isn’t the movie you saw in the trailer. It’s a smart, easily flowing disaster movie with a strong cast who know how to make the audience feel safe and aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, all while allowing the tenderness of being human shine brightly.

Verdict: ★★★★

So my wife was cruising RedBox and found this movie, gave me a look like, “You wanna?” and I gave her a look like, “I’d rather eat blue stained glass from the Rose Window.” but being a good husband, I masked the look with, “Of course dear!”

I fully expected this movie to be another one of those We’re Having A Baby movies where the entire focus is on the mother to be and the goofy-go-lucky daddy stumbles over his own feet, panics through most of the movie, says the wrong thing all the time and is treated like a total idiot for “laughs”, and in the end the baby is born and all’s well that end’s well, credits roll.
(sighs)

That didn’t happen here, thank goodness. Despite the all-female movie cover, as if mommies were the only ones ever present during a pregnancy, this is a movie that is balanced between the mommy and the daddy… or in this case, the several mommies and daddies. I know, right?? What’s this? Equality between the genders? Oh em gee!

In WTEWYE‘ing, we follow several couples in their various states of relationship from conception to birth, each relationship as different as the couples who lived it and each path as hilarious and beautiful as life itself. I mentioned balance, and I meant that… I honestly couldn’t have made it through this movie without the help of the Dudes Group (seen above). These guys were worth the time it took to sit through this flick alone! Every time they showed up on screen, my head was back, my open mouth, my teeth showing as I laughed my ass off!

I definitely recommend this movie. It’s real (despite Cameron Diaz and J Lo starring in it), it’s moving and it will keep you smiling throughout the entire thing! Being a daddy of two, I can personally testify to the memories this movie brought back, and some I’m still living through.

Verdict: ★ ★

Why did a single, 300 page book like The Hobbit get made into an overblown, added to, filler-filled, eye-roll-worthy movie trilogy with all the trimmings… while a 13-novel, kick-ass, amazingly written fantasy fiction series get condensed down to a single, hum-drum 102 minute popcorny flick? How does that happen?

Joseph Delaney had created an entire world of monsters and witches and those who hunt them with full historical background and ideas, not to mention a story line that makes most of what comes out of Hollywood look like children’s number and color books… all under the heading The Last Apprentice. I recommend them for anyone interested!

So needless to say, I was a little excited to see a movie being made. One I figured might be the start of a cool trilogy, but as it seems… all of the Last Apprentice’s lessons were neatly trimmed and we pretty much got a “before and after” look at what could have been an amazing series of movies. Heck, I’ve seen slower transitions in my teenage daughter’s behavior when she gets grounded from her stereo.

When Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), an ancient witch suddenly gets a surge of power because of a rare Blood Moon appearing, she sees it as her opportunity to take over the world. Unfortunately for her, the only thing standing in her way is famed monster hunter Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges in his best Bane from The Dark Knight Rises voice) and his young apprentice Tom (Ben Barnes, who always seems to look astonished in every movie I’ve ever seen him in for some reason).

Tom’s your typical arrogant, trips over his own feet apprentice and the only things that separate him from Micky Mouse are the brooms carrying buckets of water. A few not so funny laughs come and go but don’t really break up the tension <coffcoffmonotanycoffcoff> of a sudden onslaught of witch-monsters who are attacking villages. A little bit of romance between our hero Tom and a young witch named Alice come and go, but it really does nothing for the story because neither Tom or Alice really seem to know how to act romantic. Mostly they just stare at each other from across a field or when right next to each other, exchange smirks.

<BAM!> Suddenly Tom’s bad ass and knows how to swing swords and fight legions of assassins with nothing but a staff. Holy cats! Where did this guy come from?

All in all, this movie is okay if you want to see some interesting CGI monster action, but even then, there’s not much of it. I’d say spend your money at Amazon on some of Joseph Delaney’s books instead. You’ll get a lot more out of them and since they’re young-adult, your kids might also!

Verdict: ★ ★ ★ 1/2

Jupiter Ascending… or should I say Jupiter descending! I’m serious… this girl repeatedly fell hundreds of feet through the air in this movie, over and over. Every time she turned around, the floor dropped out from under her or an entire city block fell over and she was on the highest tower. For some reason, no one could keep Jupiter on the ground and things were always coming apart.

That’s okay, good stunts are hard to find. Especially when the stunts are done through really pretty scenery. The Wachowski sibs have a knack for ultra-realistic graphics in very unrealistic situations. The Matrix and V For Vendetta were very pretty movies and this is also very pretty. You can watch this flick again and again just to view the beautiful set pieces built on a computer and just to enjoy them for what they are.

The first things I heard from many critics who’d seen this are that the story is boring and the romantic twist is so dull it makes a brick look appealing. Okay, to address that… this movie’s backbone is basically a corrupt politician trying to ice his competition. Booooring! However, the meat on the bones is what makes the movie work. Enter Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) who is a half wolf/half human hybrid legionnaire soldier who has the uncanny ability to track down anyone. He is hired by one of the sons in the most powerful dynasty in the Universe to hunt down the genetic lottery winner Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) who is destined to take over as heir to the dynasty. Or something.

Problem is one of the other sons of the dynasty, Balem (Eddie Redmayne) is a corrupt douchebag who wants to take over everything. That’s the boring part and his entire character is boring. Sheezus, I couldn’t hang out with this guy for even five minutes without killing myself. He just sits around and says quiet, threatening, egotistical phrases to everyone and has entire planets decimated with the snap of his tiny fingers.

Zzzzz… <snort> Sorry, I just fell asleep talking about him. Where was I? Oh yes, Caine and Jupiter together basically are the meat of the flick, and wherever they go, action follows. The best alien spaceship dogfight over Chicago that I’ve ever seen on film (or is it the only one?) is pretty early on in this movie and I enjoyed it immensely. It was right up there with the last space battle in Return of the Jedi for me. I loved it and for that reason alone, I’d buy this flick on DVD.

However, this brings me to the critics’ second problem: the romance between Caine and Jupiter. It’s pretty humdrum. She basically falls for him in the first few seconds of their meeting because… Channing Tatum with pointed ears. Who wouldn’t fall for that? He also rescues her from death, but that’s beside the point… he rescues her from death pretty much the entire flick through. However, he doesn’t fall for her back because he’s a soldier and soldiers don’t fall for royalty. So every step she takes toward him he takes a step back and the romance remains shallow and not tense at all. Until later when he basically decides to hell with the old days of soldiering and allows himself a little fun. Then the romance gets a little deeper. But not much because… Channing Tatum.

Channing Tatum is about as deep an actor as The Rock. I love watching them kick ass, but if anything more is asked of their acting ability, disappointment will follow. But that’s okay since this is mostly an action flick with pretty scenery.

Verdict: ✰ ✰ ✰ 1/2 –  –

As a long time fan of the Fast and Furious movies, I have an emotional stake in the characters that have driven this entire series. Vin Diesel’s acting, with the possible exception of looking angry, has the emotional depth of an engine block. But his almost insistent pounding of loyalty to his family in all these movies are what makes him the rock he is that everyone clings to. When the motor oil hits the fan, you know it’s okay because you expect him to be there with a four foot lug wrench in his hand, looking the bad guy dead in the eye without any backing down. And that can be comforting.

Paul Walker (rest in peace), on the other hand, has emotion pouring from those blue eyes of his. You never see Paul without a smile on his face unless he’s pissed… which isn’t often. I have always loved seeing Paul come on screen in any movie he is in because he takes things easy, is always at least a little humored by the situation, no matter how dire, and everything seems to fall into place with him there. I’ve always pictured Paul Walker as the Hollywood actor who forgot he was a Hollywood actor and just acted human. Humble. Grateful. In love with life. He, as a person, amazes me.

That said, this movie is all action from the first moment to the last. Clocking in at 137 minutes, this flick pushes the PG-13 envelope and keeps the language clean while doing stunts that literally had me gripping the armrests and saying the dirty words for them. Fortunately, I saw this movie during Avengers 2’s opening weekend and I was alone in the theater.

Sebastian Shaw’s big brother Deckard (Jason Statham) is right at home kicking all kinds of ass and making Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) work overtime as he avenges his little brother from that ass kicking he took in Furious 6. This time, Dom and his family aren’t alone. Along for the ride is a humorous, fellow ass kicker named Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell the way I remember him from the old days) who is above the pay grades of most black ops types. He’s the guy who tells Men In Black what to do! And he happens to have been hunting Deckard Shaw for some years now.

As it is, he and Dom are after the same thing for different reasons. So much for street racing in L.A. Hello counter-terrorism! And yet, taking it to the streets is exactly how Dom and his family get it done. With fast cars, smart plans, and lots of guts. Street Racing in L.A…. not to mention flying cars across Abu Dhabi… has never seen this level of power! Everyone in this movie is tough. And all throughout, everyone gets to show what they can really do. No one on the planet can tell me that hand to hand combat between Michelle Rodriguez and American Mixed Martial Artist Ronda Rousey is a cat fight. This was one of the best fights I’ve seen on screen yet!

By the time the two hour and seventeen minute mark rolled by, I had to pee so bad it hurt, but I couldn’t skip anything. <rant> Bring intermissions back, Hollywood! </rant> But I will say this… the tribute this movie and its cast performed for their late comrade, Paul Walker, was extraordinarily beautiful and I, for one, admit that I bawled like a baby! Not because he will be missed (he will be very missed) but because they made the tribute to him seem as though Paul Walker is still here with all of us, still a part of our journey, though he is for certain on other journeys now. The beauty of just simple looks, from the actors on screen during this tribute, can speak volumes and are told in just a few short minutes. This tribute alone made this movie priceless, at least to me.

Which leads me to the oddly placed spiritual aspect of Furious Seven… which helped it stand apart from the first six of the series. All throughout it was implied that “Eternity is in this moment” and the idea that being mindful, an ancient spiritual practice in many religions, gave the movie a level of depth I wasn’t expecting. It was touching and kept me grounded as I watched.

All in all, this was a very nice ending to a long series of extraordinary action movies that true fans will very much enjoy.

Verdict: ☆☆☆ – –

Out of the gate, this movie catapults itself into a high paced, action packed, slapstick-fest where every joke comes out of nowhere and smacks you in the face before running off laughing, and then the next one hits you!

I expected The Croods to run along the lines of Shrek but while the green ogre and donkey have a more linear storyline and character development to work from, The Croods seem more a chaotic plot befitting a family of cave people living just as Pangaea starts to break up. There are tiny emotional parts here and there that begin to tug at your heartstrings, but why cry when a good hearty chortle will do? The drama is trimmed tightly in this one, allowing more time to enjoy the brighter side of life.

This movie clocks in at 98 minutes, but feels more like 45. It zips along the plot of one cave family just trying to survive, when suddenly the land they’re living on starts breaking up and they have to leave. Enter a sudden boy interest that keeps dad on his toes more than the crumbling earth and you’ve got some crazy adventures! Especially when that boy has a bigger brain.

This is a fun, cute, quirky movie that never takes itself seriously at all and keeps the laughter coming. Inventive and cool, it has quickly earned a place on my DVD shelf!

Verdict: ☆ 1/2 _ _ _ _

Dracula rebooted! Why not? Everything else has been. Fear and horror surround history’s creepiest badass for centuries, spawning legends, stories and nightmares throughout all lands. But forget about all that! This is the Vlad you never knew, the Wallacian ruler we get to know from his wife and only son’s point of view. Who better than Luke Evans (Clash of the Titans, The Hobbit) to play that really good guy we know nothing about? Evans has that handsome face you can approach, the dashing next door neighbor with the Volvo and the Harley in the same garage. Here he looks like he just walked off the set of The Hobbit and was given the script for Dracula five minutes before the director yelled “…aaaand action!”

Wait. No makeup? What about hair? He looks like he just walked out of Lake Town and into Wallachia. That’s okay, no worries. One thing that sets Dracula apart from The Hobbit is the fact that there are no battle scenes. Oh, there are armies! The Turks attack Castle Dracula relentlessly. It’s just that Vlad has no army at all except for a few tough guys around him who stare solemnly at everything and hardly lift a sword.

Which is why Vlad decides to visit the creepy creature in a mountain nearby. Legend has it no one comes out of the creature’s cave alive. And that includes Turks, who have been seen entering the cave and not coming out. That’s good enough for Vlad! If it kills Turks, maybe he can figure out a way to use the creature. Unfortunately his plans go awry when the creature decides to use him! Bitten and becoming the Drac we all know and love to hate, Vlad then decimates the entire Turk army himself. It’s not even a contest.

Remember the scene in The Matrix Reloaded when Neo battled an army of Smiths? Yeah. Except it’s Vlad and an army of Turks. That scene alone almost made the price of a rental worth it. All in all though, the movie was pretty hum drum. This is the problem with having such cheap and readily available CGI. Instead of telling a story using CGI as a tool, CGI uses the story to advertise CGI. This movie is so chalk full of CGI from green screens to zillions of bats, it’s completely unrealistic. And no amount of CGI will help make a story deeper than it already is. The story in this CGI pool is desperately shallow, not much more than a wading pool. Sure, it’ll cool you off on a hot day, but you don’t get much exercise out of it.

Here’s a question: Why do the young sons of epic historical movie badasses all have that same, soft, compassionate, doe-eyed look as if they’d never seen a sword in their life and spend their off hours away from lessons caring for baby rabbits? Here’s side by side of the sons of Vlad from Dracula and the son of Maximus from Gladiator:

Verdict: * * * 1/2 – –

Yesterday I watched Gone Girl where everyday suburban people were dancing  because they did something very bad to someone they loved. Then I happened to see a Wayfarer.com commercial where everyday suburban people were dancing because they bought a really nice sofa for a great price and free shipping.

One of these scenarios I could wrap my head around and the other I just squirmed and grimaced the entire time. It’s not that GG was a bad story (I never read the book but everyone tells me it was so much better). It’s that the characters in GG were complete jerks to each other and practically everyone else… and I’m supposed to be drawn in?

I had heard the premise of the story before renting the movie, so I was already kind of prepared. I went into it as if I were watching a reality show. If you go into movies from a certain point of view, in this case, Nick (Affleck) and Amy (Pike) Dunn are two affluent writers who live in NYC and move to Missouri because Nick’s mom gets sick and needs care. Amy hates Missouri. Oh, and she also hates Nick after a while because he’s such a guy. There are other reasons, and I’ll admit, but the time I saw them unfold, I friggin’ hated Nick too.

But I also hated Amy because she’s essentially a pretentious hoity toity who speaks in a very mysterious, smoky, heady voice and uses big words and walks around hating herself and her life and everything she’s attracted into it. Suddenly <BAM!> Amy goes missing, and because she’s loved worldwide for her children’s books, her disappearance becomes nationwide CNN/Fox fodder and we begin to see what happened.

The entire story is three fold: We see things from 1) his POV, 2) her POV and 3) her diary’s POV. All blended seamlessly and it moves the story along well. Now, I won’t go further because there’s a lot to reveal and even one clue would be a spoiler so I’ll shut up about what happens. I will say that if you go into this movie as if it were a horror/thriller, you’ll be horrified/thrilled. I went into it as if it were a reality show because I identified with the characters about as much as I identify with Honey Boo Boo. This made it a popcorn flick for me and, while everyone else around me gasped, I laughed every time a new twist was revealed. This movie takes itself waaaay too seriously, in my humble. Like any marriage, the marriage in this movie could have used some laughs, but that’s just me!

No one was voted off the island, but the entire movie had me shaking my head thinking “God, these two deserve each other.” and “Thank God I’m not this eff’ed up. My life is lookin’ pretty good right about now!”

Verdict: ☆☆☆☆☆

Five friggin’ stars?? What are you crazy Jas??

Nope! You read it right, my friends. Don’t wipe your glasses and shake your head, don’t adjust your monitor settings. This movie was absolutely perfect in just about every single way! I was already a fan of Vaughn and Wilson, but wow! These two totally shot their humor into the stratosphere with this one.

The Internship… basically a 119 minute Google Advertisement that these two completely flipped on its back, yanked its pants off and shotgunned tequila shots next to from opening to closing credits without apologizing. It was one of the funniest movies I’ve seen since The Wedding Crashers!

Billy McMahon and Nick Campbell (Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson) play two mid-life, out of work salesmen who need something… anything… a bite in today’s recession when everything’s gone computer and just aren’t finding it. Brilliant as verbal mouth to mouth salesmen, they’re trying to look for just another step in a world where sales has gone digital.

That is until Billy stops Googling job searches and comes up with the brilliant idea to just Google Google itself and drops them both in the intern program.

What’s so amazing about the genuinely reactive chemistry this entire story pours forthwith upon our keyboards is the fact that just about everyone can identify with some part of this movie. Two oldsters who really aren’t that old (my God, the 80’s were just last week, right?) are thrust head first into the world of today’s internet where even the lingo is like another language… and expected to make it work. The kids don’t understand them and they don’t understand the kids. Sounds like parenthood, amIright? Another reason I identify with this movie! It was a total blast, every single second of it.

The Internship has nothing to prove. It is just a big jar of awesomesauce. If you get what I just said, you’ll love this flick. If you don’t get what I just said, you’ll love this flick even more!

Quick notes I jotted down while laughing my ass off the entire way through the movie:

~If you liked Wedding Planners, you’ll like this one
~Mr. Chetti, the Internship supervisor, played brilliantly by Aasif Mandviwala who’s comedy in this one reminds me very closely of John Turturro’s genius… hilarious!
~Keep it playing through the credits

I’m buying this one on blue ray. I don’t care if Google gets some royalty out of it. Heck, maybe they should for the brilliant marketing alone! Okay, I’m done before I ask this movie out on a date. Promise.

Verdict: ☆☆ – – –

This was an interesting political movie. Written and directed by District 9’s Neil Blomkamp, it was fairly simple in it’s plot because we’ve all seen this before… not in a movie, per se, but on the news! But what it lacks in plot, it makes up for in CGI.

The 1% The rich and powerful people on Earth decided they’d had enough of the world (they helped create) that has gone to Hell and, because they’re rich and powerful, built a space station (named Elysium) to live on with all their riches and power and just left all the poor people behind on Earth to suffer without any technology or privileges. Apparently by 2051, the rich and poor have grown so far apart, they’re completely alien to one another.

The healthcare on Earth is archaic for the 99% everyone who can’t afford to even eat properly and were forced to buy Obamacare have to live with very few hospitals and dismal medical coverage. Everyone on Earth is sick and everyone on the space station has their own healing chambers that fix everything from a cold to Leukemia and even old age in a matter of seconds. Occasionally human traffickers transport those who can afford a ticket up to Elysium but only a tiny fraction of those get up there because the “alien” ships are usually blown out of the sky by Elysium defenses. You know, because the rich don’t want to just build a few thousand more of these medical pods that will cure everyone on Earth. That would be an expense they are not willing to shell out.

Enter a dude named Max (Matt Damon) who gets sick from an industrial accident at his crappy job. Luckily he knows a computer whiz/human trafficker known as Spider, who can get him to the space station for healing, but only if he is allowed to turn Max into a human cyborg that can download data from the person who “built” the space station and therefore can hack into the system, change some code, reboot it (because Elysium is one big operating system run by Unix) and make everyone on Earth a citizen of the space station, thereby helping give medical attention to everyone for free. Think Obamacare becoming real Universal Healthcare with the click of a mouse and a reboot of a Windows machine.

A subplot in this story about the political turmoil on the space station reminds me of American politics at its finest from the perspective of an American joe schmoe. Everyone in office has no soul and is trying to unseat the politician above and there are agents in the field who also have no souls doing the dirty work. And no one is listening to the 99% majority of the people.

I don’t want to give too much more away, because I’d spoil the whole flick for everyone, but if you’ve been watching the news anytime in the past 20 years, you’ve seen this movie. It’s like Blomkamp watched the 6:00 news and said, “Hey, that sounds like a good plot!” In a recent interview, he did admit to this in a way by saying, “”This isn’t science fiction. This is today.” I found it interesting that Elysium police are called “Homeland Security” and that the Secretary of Defense on Elysium (Played oddly by Jodie Foster) has her own private assassins running around doing lethal, top secret covert ops and basically tells the President at least twice to take a hike in no certain terms.

All in all, it was a decent flick. There were emotional moments that tried a little too hard to pull the heartstrings and came off as corny, but otherwise, it was entertaining, if not disturbing when I think about the world we live in.