#48 Entourage
Entourage was at its best when it took risks. When Billy Walsh showed up in maybe the 3rd season, the whole dynamic changed and they stepped out of their comfort zone, and it worked. The penultimate season, which showed Vincent Chase's fall as he gets addicted to drugs and hooks up with Sasha Grey was possibly its best, and a lot of that was because Adrian Grenier's whiny movie star finally showed a little bit of depth. By series end, though, the show reverted back to its usual dick jokes, objectifying and utter excess.
There are some television shows you watch simply because they're there on, and they're mindless, and they present a sense of escape. Entourage was one of those shows. By the end of the run, the gang looked physically exhausted, well-aware that they were marching out the same tired plotlines and broisms for yet another year. It's less cute when you're this old.
Entourage was at its best when it took risks. When Billy Walsh showed up in maybe the 3rd season, the whole dynamic changed and they stepped out of their comfort zone, and it worked. The penultimate season, which showed Vincent Chase's fall as he gets addicted to drugs and hooks up with Sasha Grey was possibly its best, and a lot of that was because Adrian Grenier's whiny movie star finally showed a little bit of depth. By series end, though, the show reverted back to its usual dick jokes, objectifying and utter excess.
The last time we saw E, Vince, Drama, Turtle and Ari on screen, Eric had tried to get back Sloane through a convertible ride and a little light trickery, and Vince and the boys were aboard a flight to Paris so that Vince could marry Sophia the journalist (Alice Eve), who relents even though she "doesn't date actors". A million-dollar engagement ring will do that to a lady, I guess.
It wasn't met to be. The Entourage movie picks up not long after the series left off and they're still unmarried assh*les. Now that his nine-day marriage has come to an end, he is free to host a party on a yacht. Phew-we were so worried. Ari, now the studio mogul, has offered Vince Hyde, a techno-DJ reboot (!) of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. "On one condition," he tells the temperamental Mr. Gold, "I have to direct it."
PSHKKEW! (my mind blowing right there in that Roseville, Minnesota movie theater)
8 months later, the project is bloated and over-budget, Sloane is bloated and about to deliver a baby, ex-bloated Turtle begins trying to court Rhonda Rousey, and Drama's bloated ego has him as delusional as ever. Vince somehow requires more than the $100 million dollars already allotted to him to finish his--I'll say it again, techno DJ Jekyll and Hyde reboot--masterpiece, in which Drama believes he will earn a best supporting actor nod. Ari can't give him any more money, but he has a Texas financier who will (Billy Bob Thornton). He agrees to pay up, as long as his son can travel to Hollywood and oversee the spending.
Enter: Chubby Haley Joel Osment!
PSHKKEW! (my mind blowing right there in that Roseville, Minnesota movie theater)
8 months later, the project is bloated and over-budget, Sloane is bloated and about to deliver a baby, ex-bloated Turtle begins trying to court Rhonda Rousey, and Drama's bloated ego has him as delusional as ever. Vince somehow requires more than the $100 million dollars already allotted to him to finish his--I'll say it again, techno DJ Jekyll and Hyde reboot--masterpiece, in which Drama believes he will earn a best supporting actor nod. Ari can't give him any more money, but he has a Texas financier who will (Billy Bob Thornton). He agrees to pay up, as long as his son can travel to Hollywood and oversee the spending.
Enter: Chubby Haley Joel Osment!
Yes the former child actor, he of "I see dead people" and "Walker: I have A.I.D.S." fame, is back and is somehow even creepier than when he crawled under flashlight tents and leered at Bruce Willis. His character is meant to be creepy; when he comes into the picture, both Vince's movie and the movie we're watching, get derailed. The rest of the movie involves them trying, like usual, to do a lot of convincing: Convincing Ari to have their back, Ari convincing the Alan Dale character not to fire him ,convincing people that Drama is somehow relevant, convincing Haley Joel Osment and Billy Bob not to pull their funding.
Despite myself, I had fun at this movie. Entourage will always be fun to watch. It doesn't mean that it was any good.
#47 Pitch Perfect 2
There's a moment toward the beginning of Pitch Perfect 2 that is almost, well, pitch-perfect. The Anna Kendrick-led Barden Bella female singing group is performing at the Kennedy Center. In the crowd are Barack and Michelle, enjoying themselves until Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), paying homage to Miley's finest hour, has a clothing mishap and is forced to slowly hang there, much to the chagrin of the Leader of the Free World. The close up on Obama's face and his reaction caused me to guffaw in the theater.
And it was all a 45-degree sleigh ride from there.
Yes, the enjoyable acapella movie Pitch Perfect is followed up this year by the much less enjoyable Pitch Perfect 2, in which the same tropes apply, except now they're being done for the second time.
Two other major problems:
1) The Hailee Steinfeld plot. She plays freshman Emily, who's mom (Katey Sagal) was a Barden Bella and wants her to follow in her footsteps. So she'll go through all of the hazing and rigamarole required to be a part of the gang. She is even--get this--writing her own songs, which will come into play later in the film when they are in the international a capella competition Steinfeld is by no means a bad actress, but every time she opened her mouth in PP2, I wanted to cry a little bit.
2) Das Sound Machine. They are the main competition for the Bellas in the international competition, and they are every bit the serious, robotic stereotype that you'd expect. It reminded me of when the Mighty Ducks have to go up against the stoic Icelanders in D2, except that they actually felt like villains. They provide a smorgasbord of stupid, poorly-written one liners throughout the 90 minutes.
If there was one saving grace, it was the musical numbers, which looked and sounded just about as good as the first movie. For a movie that's all about hitting the right pitches, the majority of the characters (the slutty one, the lesbian one, the quiet Asian one) are one-note as hell.
#46 Terminator: Genisys
Hey Arnold, did you hear you are going to star in a movie with not one, but two versions of yourself??
This movie review, full disclosure, will probably be less of a movie review than it is an excuse to use two Arnold Schwarzenegger gifs in the same post.
A certain someone I know hadn't seen any of the Terminator films, save the one with Christian Bale in which he infamously had a complete meltdown on set. Not the best impression of the Terminator series. This injustice would not stand. Over the course of 12 hours, both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day were taken in, to largely positive results. I was reminded that at the time of release, The Terminator was a hard "R". Pretty wild...these days, there's more disturbing violence showcased in a single episode of Scandal than in the entirety of Terminator.
Those of us who are familiar with the Terminator lexicon can tell you that the main story unwraps like this: In the not-so-distant future, a resistance against the evil Skynet corporation is being led with good success by a revolutionary named John Connor. Skynet counterpunches by sending a killing machine back to the eighties (Schwarzenegger) to wipe out Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to John. In a counterpunch to that counterpunch, the resistance sends back Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) to stop this from happening. In T2, John Connor is now an adolescent (Edward Furlong) and SkyNet tries again, this time with liquid metal shapeshifting badassery in the form of T-1000 (Robert Patrick). Meanwhile, future John Connor is ready, and sends back a reprogrammed model of the original Terminator (Schwarzenegger again) to protect his younger self. Cue excellent chase through L.A. "river" to the sounds of Guns-n-Roses "You Could Be Mine". Cue also: iconic biker-gloved thumbs-up whilst being lowered into molten metal.
The plots of the following three installments have unfortunately left a bit to be desired. T3 is John Connor as an adult, trying to stay off the grid by posing as a drifter and outrunning a female cyborg with assistance again from the big Austrian; Salvation takes place in the future features Sam Worthington as a half-human, half-cyborg who comes to help Connor (Bale) fight the machines, and Genisys...well...
It's essentially the same plot as The Terminator. In that sense, it was kind of fun to see the day after seeing the first original again. Here, though, Reese (Jai Courtney) encounters a different version of the 1984 events when he's sent to save Sarah (GoT's Emilia Clarke). Schwarzenegger is now "The Guardian". In the somehow endless amount of time and resources at both future John Connor and SkyNet's disposal, they've actually already tried to kill Sarah back in 1973, when original Terminator is thwarted by "The Guardian", programmed of course by John from the future. So now when Reese comes back, she already knows about him and has been expecting his arrival, leaving Reese, "Guardian" and Connor herself to fight against a new T-1000 and try to fix the broken timeline.
Whaaaa...?
Action sequences: pretty solid. CGI: pretty solid. Dialogue: bad. Plot: confusing. Plot twists: Too many (everyone meets and talks to different versions of themselves throughout time). Reese watching Sarah Connor's sexy shadow as she changes in a locker room: Unnecessary. Schwarzeneggers together on screen: not enough.
I was on a 10 day healthy eating cleanse at the time, and I tried to eat a grapefruit in the dark movie theater, with mixed, mostly negative results. I said to the grapefruit:
...and finished it off with my bare hands.
Back tomorrow!
Despite myself, I had fun at this movie. Entourage will always be fun to watch. It doesn't mean that it was any good.
#47 Pitch Perfect 2
There's a moment toward the beginning of Pitch Perfect 2 that is almost, well, pitch-perfect. The Anna Kendrick-led Barden Bella female singing group is performing at the Kennedy Center. In the crowd are Barack and Michelle, enjoying themselves until Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), paying homage to Miley's finest hour, has a clothing mishap and is forced to slowly hang there, much to the chagrin of the Leader of the Free World. The close up on Obama's face and his reaction caused me to guffaw in the theater.
And it was all a 45-degree sleigh ride from there.
Yes, the enjoyable acapella movie Pitch Perfect is followed up this year by the much less enjoyable Pitch Perfect 2, in which the same tropes apply, except now they're being done for the second time.
Rebel Wilson is best when she is a bit player, which is why her new movie with 50 shades of Dakota Johnson will probably not be that great. Pitch Perfect 2 relied far too heavily-no pun intended-on Rebel Wilson to carry the comedic load. It felt like it was workshopped to some sort of focus group and they said "We want more Fat Amy!"...And then they overdid it to death. Some of her moments were funny and she had a few good lines here and there but it felt like they made it more her movie than Anna Kendrick's.
Two other major problems:
1) The Hailee Steinfeld plot. She plays freshman Emily, who's mom (Katey Sagal) was a Barden Bella and wants her to follow in her footsteps. So she'll go through all of the hazing and rigamarole required to be a part of the gang. She is even--get this--writing her own songs, which will come into play later in the film when they are in the international a capella competition Steinfeld is by no means a bad actress, but every time she opened her mouth in PP2, I wanted to cry a little bit.
2) Das Sound Machine. They are the main competition for the Bellas in the international competition, and they are every bit the serious, robotic stereotype that you'd expect. It reminded me of when the Mighty Ducks have to go up against the stoic Icelanders in D2, except that they actually felt like villains. They provide a smorgasbord of stupid, poorly-written one liners throughout the 90 minutes.
If there was one saving grace, it was the musical numbers, which looked and sounded just about as good as the first movie. For a movie that's all about hitting the right pitches, the majority of the characters (the slutty one, the lesbian one, the quiet Asian one) are one-note as hell.
#46 Terminator: Genisys
Hey Arnold, did you hear you are going to star in a movie with not one, but two versions of yourself??
This movie review, full disclosure, will probably be less of a movie review than it is an excuse to use two Arnold Schwarzenegger gifs in the same post.
A certain someone I know hadn't seen any of the Terminator films, save the one with Christian Bale in which he infamously had a complete meltdown on set. Not the best impression of the Terminator series. This injustice would not stand. Over the course of 12 hours, both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day were taken in, to largely positive results. I was reminded that at the time of release, The Terminator was a hard "R". Pretty wild...these days, there's more disturbing violence showcased in a single episode of Scandal than in the entirety of Terminator.
Those of us who are familiar with the Terminator lexicon can tell you that the main story unwraps like this: In the not-so-distant future, a resistance against the evil Skynet corporation is being led with good success by a revolutionary named John Connor. Skynet counterpunches by sending a killing machine back to the eighties (Schwarzenegger) to wipe out Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to John. In a counterpunch to that counterpunch, the resistance sends back Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) to stop this from happening. In T2, John Connor is now an adolescent (Edward Furlong) and SkyNet tries again, this time with liquid metal shapeshifting badassery in the form of T-1000 (Robert Patrick). Meanwhile, future John Connor is ready, and sends back a reprogrammed model of the original Terminator (Schwarzenegger again) to protect his younger self. Cue excellent chase through L.A. "river" to the sounds of Guns-n-Roses "You Could Be Mine". Cue also: iconic biker-gloved thumbs-up whilst being lowered into molten metal.
The plots of the following three installments have unfortunately left a bit to be desired. T3 is John Connor as an adult, trying to stay off the grid by posing as a drifter and outrunning a female cyborg with assistance again from the big Austrian; Salvation takes place in the future features Sam Worthington as a half-human, half-cyborg who comes to help Connor (Bale) fight the machines, and Genisys...well...
It's essentially the same plot as The Terminator. In that sense, it was kind of fun to see the day after seeing the first original again. Here, though, Reese (Jai Courtney) encounters a different version of the 1984 events when he's sent to save Sarah (GoT's Emilia Clarke). Schwarzenegger is now "The Guardian". In the somehow endless amount of time and resources at both future John Connor and SkyNet's disposal, they've actually already tried to kill Sarah back in 1973, when original Terminator is thwarted by "The Guardian", programmed of course by John from the future. So now when Reese comes back, she already knows about him and has been expecting his arrival, leaving Reese, "Guardian" and Connor herself to fight against a new T-1000 and try to fix the broken timeline.
Whaaaa...?
Action sequences: pretty solid. CGI: pretty solid. Dialogue: bad. Plot: confusing. Plot twists: Too many (everyone meets and talks to different versions of themselves throughout time). Reese watching Sarah Connor's sexy shadow as she changes in a locker room: Unnecessary. Schwarzeneggers together on screen: not enough.
I was on a 10 day healthy eating cleanse at the time, and I tried to eat a grapefruit in the dark movie theater, with mixed, mostly negative results. I said to the grapefruit:
...and finished it off with my bare hands.
Back tomorrow!
In none of the infinite universes out there is the Entourage movie better than Jurassic World.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny...when I was writing about Entourage, I was thinking that same thing. I'll have to adjust accordingly.
ReplyDeleteAfter T3, I felt like I could never bring myself to watch a new installment of Terminator. However, multiplicity Arnie might be too much to pass on.....
ReplyDeleteAlso, none of these movies sound better than Jurrasic World. Just because Jake doesn't like something doesn't mean we all have to hate it:) I am very interested to see the 45 other movies that were better than JW. Also, because you are an insufferable movie snob, I am looking forward to seeing the 40 movies you are probably going to rank above EVII......;)
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that a) I am insufferable and b) I admit I was too hasty in saying Jurassic World was the second worst thing I saw this year. I was pretty disappointed, but it was probably more like the 7 or 8th worst this year. As for E VII, it'll finish pretty damn high on the list, don't you worry.
Delete