Last weekend, I returned to Vancouver
to continue the quest Evan and I had to see every
movie ever. Okay, that's a lie. I had a family vacation on Vancouver
Island for a week, and when that was done, I hung around in Van
City for a few days so Evan and I could catch up on the latest blockbusters we
had both missed. We caught Guardians of the Galaxy on Wednesday night, then on
Friday we drove to a theatre and saw The Expendables 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hercules, and 22 Jump Street .
Yes, we got back home at a quarter to one in the morning. Yes, it was worth it.
Throughout my visit, we also watched Sabotage on VoD, the first half of Blitz
(it was too boring to continue) then switched to watch Superhero movie. I also
watched the first season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Evan worked on Thursday, and I
didn't have anything else to do), and on Thursday evening, we went to an improv comedy show instead of a movie, because I've never gone to a real one before,
and I can always catch up on movies with the interwebz.
Previews were actually pretty varied. We saw a few twice,
but we also saw many that were way out there. The Judge, The Equalizer,
Swearnet: The Movie, Dr. Cabbie, the Maze Runner, The Boxtrolls, Dracula Untold, Interstellar, The Interview, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water,
Big Hero 6 (and if your wondering why these kids movies are showing up as previews
for the movies we saw ... we are too).
So, here are a few paragraphs on each, hopefully with enough
funny to get you to stick around. Or not, whatever. Feel free to skip to the
movie you want to see me write about.
Guardians of the
Galaxy
A lot of people questioned why Marvel was making Guardians
of the Galaxy, considering its weird premise and limited readership. I'm not
quite sure why they questioned it,
though; it's Marvel. They have quality writers putting good material together,
and they pick underrated directors who always do good work. All of the MCU
movies have been big or massive hits.
The movie starts with Peter Quill as a young boy, who gets
abducted by aliens right after his mother passes away. From there, he grows
into a thief. A pretty good one, actually, who can think on his feet and get
himself (and his friends) out or jams repeatedly throughout the movie. Anyway, he
steals the wrong thing, which gets Gamora on his trail to steal the thing back.
Also, he has a bounty on his head, for which Rocket and his partner Groot track
him down. They all track him down at once, for which they are arrested and
tossed in jail, where they meet Drax, and the story goes from there.
It's from Marvel, so the writing's good, and it's far
funnier than I would have thought (mind you, the director is James Gunn, who
did Slither, a well-regarded horror/comedy that starred Nathan Fillion, which
is probably why he shows up in the credits of Guardians as "Monstrous
Convict"). The action's great, and the music is ... 80's. Let's just leave
it at that, and call it a theatre movie. Actually, let's call it up there with
The Avengers as one of the best Marvel Movies, and one of the best movies I've
seen.
The Expendables 3
Whooooooo! More old guys exploding things, punching things,
shooting things, kicking things, driving things through other things, and
pile-driving things. Also, for some reason, talking about things. Uh, not quite
what I bargained for, but alright.
The main plot of the movie is that Barney Ross (Stallone)
discovers his old partner (an original Expendable) Stonebanks (Gibson) is now
an arms dealer. Barney thought he'd killed him awhile ago, but nope, he's still
a live and now a rich dirtbag. The CIA hires Barney to get Stonebanks (but take
him to The Hague for war crimes, so
he can't just bomb Stonebanks from afar). He figures going after Stonebanks
personally is a suicide mission, and doesn't want to drag the rest of his team
down with him, so he fires them all and goes to his friend (Grammar) to hire a
bunch of skilled but slightly suicidal new kids for the mission. Anyway, things
go sideways, the old team shows up, and small country's army gets blown up at
the end, because we'd all wondered if they could actually take on an army or not (yes. the answer is yes).
The worst thing about this movie is that there's not enough
action, which would normally be a mortal sin in a movie like this. There's an
action scene for the cold open, and an action scene after the title screen
(which is unusual, since almost all movies have exposition after the title
screen), and then the climax is about half an hour of really good action. But
the middle of the movie is almost devoid of any action at all, which should be unforgivable.
However, about halfway through, Antonio Banderas joins the team and really brings the funny. He makes up for
the lack of action (Evan didn't think so), and so I'm grading this movie as a
theatre movie.
Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the story of a brave, hard-working,
ridiculously hot fluff-piece reporter who's fired for telling her producer that
there are Mutant Turtles fighting crime. They're only teenagers, but they're
ninjas. I'd fire her too. Okay, I wouldn't; she's Megan Fox.
This movie is often referred to as Michael
Bay Michael
Bay
Still, this could be a Michael
Bay
This is during the last half of the movie, which is pretty
much all action. The first half of the movie, not so much. Still, it’s not a
long movie, so there’s not huge swaths of movie where no action happens (looking
at you, Expendables). And then, of course, there’s the elevator scene, in which
brothers act like brothers. All in all, I rank this as a theatre movie.
Hercules
Hercules is a movie in which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays
Hercules. I feel like that’s all you need to know.
Just kidding (well, not really, but I’m going to write more
anyhow). The movie opens with Herc performing his labours. It cuts to a young
guy (Herc’s nephew), who’s narrating the labours while telling a group of
bandits not to mess with Herc, being the son of Zeus and all that. The bandits
don’t listen (as bandits are wont to do. I have this same problem in video
games. Do they not see the massive sword/axe/gun strapped to my back?) and so
Herc and his team (hidden from view) take out the bandits. They collect their
reward (turns out they’re mercenaries; nothing really supernatural going on)
and take a night to revel when a princess stops by to hire them to defend her
father’s land, Thrace .
The travel to Thrace
and discover that there are no soldiers, because they have already been sent
off to fight (and be red-shirted by) a nearby warlord. So Herc and his team
train up the remaining villagers. Anyway, there are fights, and training
montages, and a twist, and more fights, because this is a movie with The Rock
(stupid Faster).
I was a little more into this movie because the military
aspects are mirroring a book I’m reading, about a group of futuristic space
marines marooned on a death planet. As their equipment fails or runs out of
ammo, they have to rely on gear they can scrounge, and the associated tactics,
which usually means going Roman with shields, swords, and pikes. And of course,
also teaching the friendly natives these tactics. So it was interesting to see that
in a movie, even if they left out important details like where their supply
train was, or how the hell a giant tent showed up for them to camp in if it was
only soldiers marching with only their swords and shields. Still, theatre
movie, because I’m not going to rate a Hercules movie starring The Rock as any
lower.
As the previous movie hinted at, this time around, Schmidt
and Jenko go to college (Whooooo! College!) to party, and to investigate a new
drug that also causes death called WHYPHY, because kids these days mix up their
drugs and their internet connections, or something. Also, get off my lawn!
While at college, Schmidt meets a nice girl that knows one
of the victims of WHYPHY, and Jenko gets to be good friends with the
quarterback, which causes friction when he wants to spend more time with the QB
than with Schmidt. It’s treated like a relationship, because this is just one
of the many jokes in the Jump Street
arsenal.
They have many more jokes. I was chuckling through the
entire movie, and laughing uproariously at times. The best parts are another
drug tripping scene (these ones take place entirely within the subconscious)
and an incredibly uncomfortable meal between Schmidt and Ice Cube where Ice
Cube flies off the handle, which segues nicely into the next scene of Jenko
finding out why it was so
uncomfortable, then laughing like a maniac while running around the police
station and high-fiving everyone. Channing Tatum puts so much exuberance into
these performances it’s impossible not
to like them.
So I’m calling it a Theatre movie. There’s not a whole lot
of action, but the humour crammed into every corner makes up for it.
Sabotage
We saw sabotage on VoD. It's about a group of DEA agents led
by Ahnold who plan on stealing $10 million during a drug bust on a large cartel
mansion. They actually have a decent plan. The find the pallet of money
(because that's how cartels get money, right?), put it in baggies and tie it to
a thin rope, which they then flush down a toilet to retrieve later when they
exit via the sewers. Too bad the money's not there. Someone stole it! Oh noes!
Under a black cloud of suspicion (for what? They blew up the
money they didn't steal, leaving no evidence they were doing anything wrong except
for being financial pyromanics. Which I guess is evidence of doing wrong), the
team is investigated for 6 months, but nothing happens. They are eventually put
back in the field, but before they can do any ops, someone starts picking them
off one by one.
So the movie is essentially a whodunit, with a few action
scenes thrown in. It's like Contraband that way. There's not a whole lot,
unless your into unnecessary and brief nudity (some at the beginning, once in
the middle, because apparently people that own pools do laps in the buff, as neighbours
dropping by is unknown in this universe). I did like the tactics, though,
because I always give bonus points for military realism. Still, nothing to
elevate this film above a cheap DVD rating, and enough action and innovative
camera work to keep it from dropping down.
Blitz
We watched Blitz because it had Jason Statham on the cover,
playing a cowboy cop, and that's usually a great premise, but this movie is
about a serial killer targeting cops in London, and there's almost no action at
all, and what little of it is mainly just short burst of violence, and we got
about halfway through before we turned it off and watched Superhero movie instead.
Superhero Movie
Contrary to other "Movie" movies, this is not by
Seltzer and Friedberg; it's written by the other four writers of Scary Movie,
who decided that the former duo shouldn't be the only ones to hock shallow
parodies on an unsuspecting audience.
This movie parodies the original Sam Raimi Spider-man, right
down to the opening about chasing a bus and the narration (that's only used at
the beginning) about it all starting with a girl. Then we cut to our Peter
Parker substitute who inexplicably has a Harry Potter haircut. There's also his
black best friend, Kevin Hart, a Mary-Jane stand in (though this one is blond),
and the villain, who's played by the guy that did Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmour, and will thus forever more be known as Shooter McGavin (sorry). Brent
Spiner pops up as Shooter's right-hand ... scientist (I guess) and Leslie
Nielson gets the coveted Uncle Ben roll (he lives in this one. Oh, spoiler
alert).
Anyway, I give this movie a DVD quality rating. I mean, it's
probably at the top of the DVD-rating movies, but it doesn't have enough to
push it to a Blu-Ray. It's got enough humour, but the budget keeps it down (the
sets look a little cheap, and the special effects are slim to none, even if
they get a nice floating chair at the end). Still it's got enough laughs that
you may want to check it out at some point. Just keep in mind that like all
(well, most) parodies, there's going to be toilet and vulgar jokes made,
although there are enough minor jokes slipped in that made me giggle.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a star vehicle for Andy Samberg. He'd
left Saturday Night Live, he made some music, and a TV executive thought he'd
make a great leading role for a sitcom. And then they thought of a premise, so
we get a sitcom set in a precinct (quite a bit different than Castle, but what
can you do?)
Samberg plays Detective Jake Peralta, a manchild who's
nonetheless a great detective. His main character arc throughout the season is
to grow up (a little) as well as some later-developing feelings for ...
Detective Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), a fellow detective.
She's quite competitive with Jake, and ambitious to boot, which is normally a
bad thing (usually plays up the stereotype of a career woman), but this time
it's done quite well, because she's desperately looking for a mentor, and
thinks she's found it in the form of ...
Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher), an older, black, gay
captain who's only dream was to get his own squad. Of course, being gay and
black while joining the force in the 80's made this quite difficult, but he
overcame it. He also appears to have no emotions, but uses sarcasm quite
effectively to cut Jake down to size when he's getting a bit too arrogant or
childish. He's brought into the station as the new captain at the beginning of
the first episode to replace the "anything goes" old captain who let
Jake get away with way too much. Holt arc is to get Jake to gradually shape up,
as well as to loosen up (slightly).
Detective Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) is Jake's best
friend and occasional partner. He's competent in his own way, but earnest and
usually a bit of a buffoon. Truglio plays him to perfection. His arc involves a
romance to a fellow foodie, while also getting past his infatuation with ...
Detective Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), who also doesn't
have any feelings. In fact, she could easily be mistaken for an attractive man with breasts. No emotions, likes actions movies and fast foods, doesn't care
for romantic notions and will tell you about it. Gruff but friendly as well.
Her arc is about developing some occasional feelings, and she even enjoys
hanging out with Charles once he's over her.
There's also Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti), a civilian
secretary and one of Jake's oldest friends. She doesn't have much of an arc
(She's lazy and doesn't improve) and I didn't like her much because she's super
smug and has the annoying habit of also being right. There was one episode
later in the season where she and Jake go apartment hunting (he has a crippling
addiction to spending money on awesome-but-unnecessary things) and she gives
off awesome big-sister vibes, but then the next episode it's back to smug and
right.
They're all watched over by Sergeant Terry Jeffords (Terry
Crews) who's worked with Holt before and knows how great the Captain will be.
He's essentially Terry Crews as a cop, only he's got two small daughters and a
wife, and is this scared to go out into the fields for fear of what'll happen
to his family if he dies. His arc is him getting over that.
There are also a couple of minor characters, but those are
the main ones. The main plot for most episodes is not a crime, or catching
criminals, but the interaction of the characters in the station (or away from
it, for that matter). And they do that very, very well. If this were a movie, I would absolutely give it a
theatre rating. So go watch it.
Improv Sports
I have never had the chance to go see live improv, except
for that time I saw some high school improv teams when I was, like, 11. So I guess
I have never seen professional live
improv. On Thursday, Evan and I wandered down to Gainesville
Island
There were two shows there. The early show was called Trip Improviser (and sponsored by Trip Adviser) and the action was mostly short
skits with audience suggestions about where they had been. Quite funny, with a
break in the middle just as things were going on a bit too long.
The second show was later and called The Ultimate Improv Championship, because things were about to go down for mixed verbal arts, or
something. Two teams would each have 25 minutes to act out scenes, whether they
wanted to do one or several. The first team was called “Tapped Out”, and did a
variety of scenes essentially using Freeze to transition from one to another. A
lot of call-backs, wildly hilarious humour, all done by three very good professionals. Great fun.
The second team was called “Dan Goes to Camp” and was a 25
minute scene about Dan going to a Magic camp (audience suggestion). It wasn’t
quite as good as the first team, so Tapped Out won the night, and will
presumably defend their title the following week. I’d definitely do it again.
It’s not quite as funny as what you can see on TV, but those are edited down
from four hours of material, and this was live. Were it a movie, it’d get a
Theatre (sports) Rating from me.
All in all, a fun time was had by us. Many theatre quality
movies, which was certainly a step up from last time. Maybe by the time we do
it again next year, my brain will have recovered.
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