Euphoria the TV Series 2019-

I'm going to keep this short. And it's not because I'm feeling particularly lazy today, which I am, but it's because this show honestly sucks. 

One crazy fucked up thing after another, and not in a Breaking Bad kind of way either. It wasn't entertaining, it was absolutely depressing as fuck. There's a ton of drug use, abuse, sex, weird sexual situations, you name it. It's just a cluster fuck of someone's excuse for entertainment. 

Don't get me wrong, the actors were absolutely remarkable, and that is the only reason why even watched the first season. But after a while, I felt depressed just watching this show. I don't like feeling depressed. 

But if you do, like being depressed, that is, by all means watch this show. 

I'm going to give it a completely random, but wholeheartedly fitting 1.2 out of 10 because it just overall sucked. I'm giving the 1.2 for the actors and actresses that made the show at least somewhat interesting.

Road House, 1989 and 2024

 

 

 

"Nobody wins a fight." That's what Dalton says when the hot doctor asks "Do you ever win a fight." And that's just about the only real similarity between these two masterpieces (from James Dalton in the original and Elwood Dalton in the reboot).

Ok so that's not true. In both movies, Dalton is a cooler, a bouncer boss who keeps the fights out of the bar. And there's a bad guy who wants the bar for some mysterious reason for only about the first half of the movie.

Then there's the owner who is paying Dalton an outrageous amount of money to take care of their bar because of all the fights that keep breaking out. And they both killed a guy in their past. Oh, and no one tells them about the bad guy until he finds out about the bad guy, and then all of a sudden everyone wants to talk about the bad guy. And the bad guy seems to have another fighter show up to take care of Dalton. And they both have their Doctor like-love interests.

And wait, there's more! There's that pivotal moment when Dalton, on his way out of town, defeated, angry, and to the point where he has completely given up, occurs. That makes Dalton go a little nuts. Dalton loses all of his goodness and grace and just flips a shit until the bad guys are either dead or in an ER somewhere. In my opinion, in 1989, I thought Swayze really pulled that shit off. He went pretty nuts. But Gyllenhaal takes it to an entirely new level in the reboot. Also, I should mention that one of the original writers Lance Hill also co-wrote the reboot.

Now there are some pretty huge differences between the two movies, too. Let's start with the original. In the first movie, in 1989, Swayze was an actor I looked up to. He was the kind sensitive skinny guy who kicked everyone's ass and got the hot girl in the end. He danced, he did love scenes, he fought, he did it all. Patrick Swayze was in the movie no guy wants to admit they liked, Dirty Dancing, back in 1987, but I actually love that movie. Of course, everyone saw Swayze in The Outsiders, 1983, and that was a movie every guy could admit they liked back then.

Back to Road House, the first one. Dalton gets laid, obviously, with Kelly Lynch, who plays Dr. Elizabeth Clay, and he beats people up, smokes like a chimney, and seems to fix any problem that comes up without any hitch. What drives me nuts, is that this really smart hot doctor doesn't mention to Dalton that smoking could kill him? Maybe give him cancer? Couldn't the writers have just sort of mentioned that just for fuck's sake? I wish I were even being funny saying that. Maybe it was too late by then. Anyway.

There's a small but memorable amount of tits and ass in this movie, namely the doctor, which is on par for nearly every movie like this. And of course the bad guy, Brad Wesley played by Ben Gazzara has his fighter guy that no one really knows come in to take care of Dalton. And has his hot blonde girlfriend dance semi-nude at the bar for...literally no reason at all. It's right about now shit gets weird. Especially the completely awkward fight scene toward the end when the bad guy's bad guy says "I used to fuck guy's like you in prison." Yeah, it wasn't too weird up to this point, now shit just got kinda fuckin' weird. Not that Dalton ripping a guys trachea out of his neck wasn't weird, but I digress. He almost did it again at the end with the bad guy, but chooses to let him keep his trachea. Everyone else in town shows up out of the blue and takes shot gun shots at him and it somehow takes four shots to kill him at close range, and he's not even screaming like mad after the first one either. What's really fucked up, is if Dalton simply said "Hey guys, you wanna come kill the bad guy?" it would have made his life slightly easier taking out all the henchmen.

The biggest difference between this first movie and the second one, is that this one is so damn serious. There is literally nothing funny or even slightly chuckle-worthy in the first movie at all. I mean, Wade offers a mild almost smile at some things, but not much. Mostly he comes in, fights, hits on Dalton's girlfriend, ya know. Best friend shit. But Everyone is serious, the music is serious, all the situations are serious...it's just serious. Oh, and his best friend is Sam Elliott, who plays Wade Garrett. He comes in like he taught Dalton everything he knew about fighting and left out a few parts like dick-punching and knee breaking that he happens to enjoy very much. And he's fucking serious about it. And maybe the polar bear at the end was funny back in 1989 but today? Meh.

So there's a lot to love about the original, but the 2024 version could not have been a better reboot. Sure, it took twenty-five years, but it was worth the wait.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the new and improved Dalton; an ex-UFC Championship fighter who killed one of his friends in the ring. In this movie, other than the flashbacks to that fight, he seems to have some fun with fighting. I mean, he unapologetically enjoys the fight a lot. And he tries to keep things fair by letting people know, offhandedly, that whatever he's about to do is going to hurt pretty fucking bad. The first fight he's really in, which I'm sure is in every trailer out there, he steps outside and asks the guy if he has health insurance. Then he asks if there is a hospital nearby. And the guy and his three buddies all are glad they have it, because they all wind up in the ER with physical and emotional scars from getting embarrassed so badly while having their asses kicked. The absolute funny part is no one would loan him a car, so he drove them in his car to the ER. While they're driving he says "Bump", just before a bump, and they're all moaning from all the trauma he gave them. It's those little things throughout the movie that make it worth seeing. He has a lot of dialogue in fights, which is honestly pretty funny, like he's not treating his ADHD at all, and it seems even near death, he still has a decent sense of humor about everything. No roundhouse kicks or ripping tracheas out of people's necks, but he's got what he needs to fuck everyone up. Personally, the "this piano isn't in tune" was one of my favorites, as he was bashed up against the piano keys.

And then Conor McGregor, who actually was a legitimate MMA fighter in real life, plays this absolutely insane "Knox" fighter who loves to steal shit, blow shit up, walk around mostly naked and literally does not have an off button at all. Nothing is putting this crazy fuck down. Now I wanna say that, other than doing some voice acting in Call of Duty and a couple other games, this is his first time on screen as an actor. And it better than I expected. He is just the bad guy's bad guy we need here. He's insane, he's angry, while being happy about being angry, and wherever he goes and whatever he does in the movie, he fucking owns it. All of it. It's honestly a great character made for the perfect actor.

Anyway, that's about it as far as the review goes, so I'm going to do a point system for both movies together. Because, seriously, you can't NOT watch the original. I mean, technically you can do whatever the hell you want, but I'm just gonna suggest seeing the first one at some point, even after the reboot. It's always fun to see the roots of a great film. You'll certainly see a huge difference between the two, and hopefully you'll appreciate these movies as much as I do.

Tits and ass: 5. Not much, but it was pleasant.
Music/score: 8 Great music that you'd find in a road house.
Fight Scenes: 8 Both movies had pretty memorable fight scenes, I mean, I should fucking hope so!
Blowing shit up: 8. A lot more at the end of the first, but the second wasn't too shabby.
Humor? : 5. I gotta say, the seriousness of the first kinda canceled out the humor in the second.

Which brings the grand total for both movies to a whopping 6.8, which means absolutely nothing. They were two really fun movies to watch and I would recommend both of them.

Beau is Afraid 2023

After watching the film, I decided to describe who is in it, and what parts they play, because honestly I have no idea what else to write (except what I wrote down below).

Joaquin Phoenix is Beau Wassermann. He just recently played a magnificent Napolean in 2023, and confused most fans with his brilliant role in Joker in 2019. One of my favorite movies was Gladiator in 2000 where he played opposite Russel Crowe as Commodus. Say what you will, he's a brilliant actor can make you absolutely love or hate a character with ease.

Patti Lupone is Mona Wassermann and she is most famous on broadway, with two tony awards, for Evita in 1979 and most recently Gypsy. It's for this reason many people might not recognize her, but she's a remarkable actress and this movie was written for her part.

Amy Ryan as Grace I think her most acclaimed role was as Helene McCready, in not exactly the best of movies, Gone baby Gone (Directed by Ben Afleck in 2007) where she received nominations for Academy Award, Golden Globe and Sag Award for best supporting actress. Most recently, she played Jan Bellows in one of my favorite series in the past few years Only Murders in the Building.

Nathan Lane as Roger. One of my all-time favorite actors, was in one of my favorite recent shows Only Murders in the Building. He was in Modern Family for a few episodes as Pepper Saltzman, but his most memorable role in my mind, and my favorite, was in the role of Albert opposite Robin Williams in The Birdcage 1996.

Kylie Rogers as Toni very recently was in Landscape with Invisible Hand 2023 opposite Asante Blackk.

Denis Menochet as Jeeves. You might remember him in Inglourious Basterds 2009 as the french dairy farmer interrogated by the Nazis. You might not, it wasn't a huge role, but certainly worth mentioning.

Parker Posey as Elaine Bray. You probably forgot this, but she spent about 5 minutes of screen time in Dazed and Confused as high school Queen Bee Darla.

Zoe Lister-Jones as young Mona, who's most known for writing, producing and starring in Lola Versus in 2012.

Armen Nahapetian as Teen Beau, he played Jason in aTypical Wednesday in 2020.

Julia Antonelli as Teen Elaine and she played Grace in Alex & Me in 2018.

Stephen McKinley Henderson as the Therapist Dr. Jeremy Friel. He was, most recently in Dune Part 1, 2021, Thufir Hawat.

Richard Kind as Dr. Cohen, whose most famous role was probably Andy in Curb Your Enthusiasm (2002-2021) but has been in a plethora of films and television shows.

The cast is a complete mixed bag, from Award winning to virtually unknown, so that just incentivized me to see it, to be honest. And after watching the entire three hour film with only breaks to pee and grab a snack, I have no idea what I watched.

This is what I would consider an "awkward" film. I see a lot of movies like this, mostly independent films like Focus Films etc, and they're all fun to watch at least once. This wasn't fun. It was awkward. I felt like I was in second grade and peed my pants in front of my class just watching this movie. 

But all that aside, let's do a rundown of what I could kinda understand about the film. And before you go off arguing that there's all sorts of morals and societal issues built into the film, I would probably agree with all of it. If I had a single clue what I just watched.

Joaquin Phoenix plays a middle-aged balding man who is basically agoraphobic with a therapist who sounds awfully manipulative. Not sure if the therapist is legitimately trying to make Beau crazy or not, but it appears to be working rather well. I mean, not like there isn't a reason he doesn't want to go outside. His neighborhood is a fucking nuthouse. People jumping off buildings, gun shots, whack jobs, someone slipping notes under his door that miraculously make it all the way across his apartment to his bed telling him to shut off his music (which doesn't exist in his apartment). I think he's hallucinating almost everything, to be honest, but I can't tell).

So the story is, so far, that he's about to head out to visit his mother, when his keys and bag are stolen. He left his door open to run back and grab something and boom, gone. When he tries to explain this to his mother over the phone, who is extremely excited to talk to him at first, then turns into a manipulative bitch. He reverts into some child-like personality. Maybe I'm being sensitive, but that's what it sounds like.

Anyway, he takes new meds and has no water, and it specifically states to take meds with water, so, in a near-psychotic frenzy (which basically describes him throughout the entire film) he runs frantically, jumping over rapists and avoiding what can only be described as mental institution rejects, to get to the bodega across the street just to get some water because, for no reason whatsoever, there is no running water in his apartment. Then everyone on the street just wanders into his building like zombies while he tries to fish change for the water out of his pockets to pay. And by the time he gets to his apartment door, which he propped open and has now been rather un-propped, everyone is gone. With the exception of a mostly dead looking body in the middle of the intersection, there is no one on what was just a busy crazy street. He has to sleep outside his apartment on construction scaffolding while everyone in the neighborhood destroys his place. He wakes up to a construction worker drilling something and completely ignoring the fact he exists. Eventually he gets into his apartment, which is pretty much destroyed.

He finally calls his mom on the phone and the call is answered by a UPS guy who apparently found his mother dead without a head or face. The UPS guy is freaking out because he found her dead body smashed by a chandelier. And then the UPS guy said maybe he dialed the wrong number and to call back. Beau calls back but then the UPS guy is totally serious and asks him for permission to check for ID. He does and Beau learns that it's his mother.

So just to recap, we're 30 minutes into a 3 hour long movie about an agoraphobe who is quite possibly hallucinating most of the time, who's therapist is testing out a new drug on him while being super sketchy, and he finds out that his mother is probably dead after his apartment is ransacked by lunatics from his neighborhood.

Then he finds some guy in his apartment while he's trying to take a bath, up in his ceiling, like Spider Man without a costume. The guy falls on him in the bath. They try to both drown each other and escape the bathtub at the same time, which was weird. He runs out into the streets completely naked. And that's not the weird part. He encounters a cop who thinks he's the naked murderer guy (it'll make sense when you watch it) who scares him off with his gun out. As he runs back to his apartment, he gets hit with, what I can only assume, is a bread truck.

The folks that run him over take him to their house and say he was stabbed repeatedly, so they saved him. This is a couple days or so later. Roger (played by Nathan Lane) is apparently a surgeon who fixed Beau up and gave him a place to stay (along with what looks like an ankle monitor for good measure). He calls his mother's attorney and is given an even worse guilt trip because his mother's body is being watched (Jewish tradition of Shiva) and she wouldn't be put in the ground without Beau there. And he's apparently been out of it for about 3 days, but no matter what he explains (getting run over, stabbed, etc) the attorney just tells him in the most asinine way possible to get home.

The daughter of Roger, and her best friend, are druggies and psychopaths, another person living in the house is a homicidal maniac suffering from severe PTSD...

Ok, hold on a sec.

Do we really need to hear more about the plot at this point? I'm going to watch the whole thing because I want to see where this goes, but I don't need to describe anything else right now. He's going home to see his mother, apparently. I guess we'll see how things pan out.

* * *

Two hours and twenty four minutes later:

I have no idea what I just watched. I literally haven't the slightest clue as to what happened, or why, or if it was all in his head, or someone else's.

At this point, you are just going to have to see this just to get it out of your own system. Or not. Was it brilliant? I have no clue. Was there some moral? No idea. Was there really a plot or was it just a bunch of random shit that happened to happen while someone was randomly filming? Most likely.

Having absolutely no clue: 2
Incredible acting: 6
Watching Beau kill his childhood love by ejaculating in her, and thus killing her, because of some genetically screwed up massive testicle problem: 4
Tits and ass: 1

Which brings the totally awkward and useless rating to a 3.25, much like this movie. I cannot believe I sat through the entire thing.

Poor Things 2024

From the get go, this movie is absolutely fucked up. The cinematography is migraine inducing with all the wide angle lens shots and the oddball camera angles. The musical "score", if you can call it that, sounds like what fifty monkeys eventually came up with when handed random badly tuned instruments. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

We have dog heads on chickens, pig heads on chickens, duck heads on goats, an animal I can't even conceptually grasp at all, and a black and white movie that is just slightly less than black and white; more like almost kinda black and sorta close to white. Like someone fucked with the contrast just enough so you'd notice it wasn't black and white. And maybe the black shadows are black and the white highlights are white, but I am having a hard time seeing it. I think the contrast changes randomly just to fuck with you.

Nevertheless, Emma Stone, playing the role of Bella Baxter, is absolutely remarkable in this role. Willem Defoe looks like his face was patched together by a kindergartner and some duct tape, but that doesn't diminish his role as the crazy physician Godwin Baxter at all. Rami Youssef plays the role of one of Dr. Baxter's students Max McCandles, and he is brought into the home to "gather data" but Godwin is trying to get him to marry her. 

He's a little awkward at best around her. And then he asks Godwin "hey, aren't you fucking your daughter?" I suppose that's reasonable considering the incredible absurdity of it all so far. Godwin explains in rather unnecessarily graphic detail that he's a eunuch and it would take same power to run London as it would to give him any sort of sexual function.

Mark Ruffalo appears as Duncan Wedderburn, the family attorney? I'm guessing as he's drawing up a contract of marriage and all. His character is also fucking weird and looks like he's on opium.

To cut an extremely convoluted story, which about 10 minutes into the movie doesn't really matter at all, Bella committed suicide while pregnant prior to the beginning of the movie. Godwin Baxter finds her, and her unborn baby still in her womb. Through some mysterious and weird medical process, he's able to take the unborn baby's brain and put it in Bella's head. And somehow this works to the extent that Bella is able to somewhat function in society. Ish.

Bella and Duncan, who as I mentioned, was actually setting up a contract for Max to marry Bella, instead run off to Lisbon. At some point he stuffs her in a crate and takes her to Athens, and they wind up penniless in Paris. Over the course of the movie, Duncan becomes more and more jealous and insane because Bella can't seem to keep her vagina to herself; including being a prostitute to live. 

Just before the end of the movie, we finally meet Bella's actual husband Alfie, who turns out to be a psychopathic murderous maniac. At some point, Bella drugs him, drags him back to Godwin's home to Max, and they put a goat brain in his body. And everyone lives happily ever after.

There's a lot of weird fucking going on in the movie, which Bella usually enjoys for the most part. The cinematography is absolutely brutal, as I might have mentioned earlier. From pin-hole cameras, to wide-angle shots which may cause you to vomit if you aren't careful, this movie was designed to give you brain damage.

The movie switches randomly from black-ish and white-ish to color. At first, I thought it was just depending on whether you were in the past or present, but at some point that doesn't even make sense. I thought the oddball camera angles and lens changes meant something too, but I'm afraid I couldn't figue it out at all.
I'm not really doing this movie justice with this review, but I can't watch it twice. I really can't.

So if you are in the mood for a watch-once-and-possibly-vomit movie, please, by all means, watch Poor Things.

Migraine inducing cinematography: 1.
Puking in my mouth a little bit from the "music": 1
Weirdly not sure if I enjoyed Duncan and Bella "jumping furiously": 5
The way Godwin describes the atrocities his father put him through with such creepy nonchalance: 3
Tits and ass: 7
Mixing heads and bodies of different animals for fun: 5
Figuring out the significance between the black and white and color scenes: 3
Figuring out the significance between normal, crazy angle, and wide-angle lens shots: 3
The absolute marvelous cast and their talented acting skills that pulled off an otherwise insane movie: 8
Actually seriously debating whether Emma Stone is my new celebrity hall-pass: 6

Which brings this movie's rating to a completely insignificant 4.2.

Take whatever headache, nausea, anti-vertigo or motion sicknes medication you use before watching the movie, turn the volume down, and make sure the closed caption is on in the language of your preference before watching, and you might get through this movie unscathed.

Fargo, 1996

 

I am going to assume if you are reading past the first sentence here, that you have seen Fargo and are purely curious what I am going to write about it, or you have lived under a rock for the past 30 years and have never gotten around to see this beautiful movie. 

That's not to say living under a rock has certain advantages. For instance, there are a lot of movies that you should be happy you have missed. This is certainly not one of them. This is one of those must-see movies for anyone who considers themselves a movie buff. 

This movie was released in 1996, during the last few years where renting movies at Blockbuster was still a thing. And unlike a lot of movies you would rather wait for to rent, Fargo actually did pretty well in theaters and garnered a lot of positive accolades as well as awards. 

It was written and directed by the Coen brothers, which, if you don't know, created some of the most masterful movies of their generation. Fargo takes place in Minnesota, which is odd, because the actual city of Fargo is in North Dakota. That tidbit of trivia is completely meaningless to the story, but I thought I'd mention it. Not only that, but they filmed a lot of this movie in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, nowhere near Fargo, ND. But that's neither her nor there, just some random trivia I thought I'd share.

William H. Macy plays Jerry Lundegaard, a car salesman that has made some rather shitty and dubious financial decisions with regard to the dealership owned by his father in law. When I say "decisions", I am really saying "he embezzled money" and cheated a lot of customers out of money. In addition to that, he's been using the lot to embezzle money by using invalid VIN numbers with the IRS to evade taxes. Apparently quite a lot of taxes.

When he realizes that everything is going to go to shit due to a government audit (which will completely out his shady tax scheme, and possibly uncover all the other schemes he is involved with), he asks his father in law Wade (played by Harvey Presnell) for a loan. Although the specific reason for the loan is somewhat unclear, it seems that he wants to invest in a parking lot business. 

The scheme is so believable that the father in law invites an investor to join them in a meeting and they decide to just outright buy the business Jerry wanted in on and leave Jerry with nothing more than a finder's fee, if that. This is Wade's way of not only letting Jerry know how little he respects him, but outright insulting him. Now Jerry realizes he's completely screwed. 

With me so far?

So now that he basically has been fucked over by his father in law, he devises a plan to have his wife Jean (played by Kristin Rudrud) kidnapped so he could collect a ransom from Wade, his father in law. Did I mention Wade is pretty wealthy? Even though he is, he has made it very clear to Jerry that any inheritances or money that might be distributed would only be done to his wife and son, but not him directly. Another slight that Jerry is upset about. 

For the rest of the movie, we just watch helplessly as Jerry makes mistake after mistake, trying to get this ransom from Wade. This includes hiring two thugs Carl Showalter, played by Steve Buscemi, and Gaear Grimsrud, played by Peter Stormare, who are at complete odds with each other the entire movie.

Jerry tries to make this entire ransom scheme as simple as possible, but Wade steps in and completely fucks up his plans. Now his father in law is dead, his wife is in danger because Gaear is a complete nutjob, and he still doesn't have the money he needs for his schemes. 

Marge Gunderson, the pregnant Minnesota state trooper who is rather unfazed as only a true mid-westerner could be by this entire investigation, is the calm against Jerry's storm. She is investigating the murder of a state trooper and two other victims who happen to have been driving a vehicle from Jerry's dealership, that, unbeknownst to her, was perpetrated by the very same thugs that Jerry hired in the first place. Now Jerry is completely spooked, the two thugs are spooked, and the movie goes to hell. Oh, and a wood chipper comes into play, which is always nice. And that is about it as far as the plot of the movie. 

The thing about Coen brother movies that I love so much, and find to be so remarkable, is that what you see from beginning to end is merely a snapshot of a situation in one or more character's lives. You aren't arriving in the beginning, nor is the end all perfectly wrapped in a nice little bow tie like most other films. You are simply an observer in a very small yet important window of a situation. You know that there was more to the store beforehand, and you know the story continues on after the movie is over, but it has no bearing on the movie itself. And this goes for nearly every Coen Brother film out there. 

However, this particular movie is one of the exceptions that actually does tie things up rather well. The viewer is left with some questions, there are still some mysteries to be solved, but there is some sense of certainty that the movie is over as far as Jerry's story. 

Fargo is not a fast-paced thriller or action flick, it's not an overly done drama or crime film. It's simply a movie about a guy who has no idea what he's doing, who makes some pretty fucked up decisions, and loses everything in the end. 

Unlike most of my previous reviews, I'm going to simply rate this a 9 out of 10. And this is because I firmly believe everyone should see this movie at least once; twice because you probably missed something the first time. If your repertoire of films does not include Fargo, it is immeasurably incomplete.

Fatman 2020

So what do we have here, exactly?

Mel Gibson was one of my favorite actors growing up (with the Lethal Weapon series, Mad Max, etc) and I was pleasantly surprised that he played this role so well. A mediocre role in a somewhat mediocre film with so-so actors, director, writer, etc...

After his career somehow survived his various career killing situations (google is your friend) that came up over the past decade and a half, he has given us this rather fun-to-watch-once-and-forget movie. 

I should also mention the not particularly well-known director/writer brothers Eshom and Ian Nelms. They are not famous, they've had some interesting kudos at various film festivals, and yet they still kinda pulled off a somewhat courteous chuckle-worthy and goofy Santa Claus movie.

In a nutshell, it's an action comedy flick about Santa Claus having to seek out funds from the Federal Government in order to keep his factory working and keep his elves fed. Apparently they'v'e been living off the government dole for some time, and this year the check is only half of what they usually get. 

Apparently Santa's excuse for the slowdown is that "kids don't believe in Santa" or "aren't very well behaved" et al and has come up a few times to suggest why Santa's elves haven't been as busy as usual, thus the pared check situation. These excuses are basically ignored by the military folks that show up with a proposal: to build weapon parts for a couple months. 

You get right away that the federal government stiffed Santa just to get him to get the elves to build weapon parts, right? 

Well, as it turns out, the government stiffed Santa to get him to get his elves to build weapons parts. Is this a reflection of the U.S. Government and an insight to how our government really works? Could one walk away from this movie with a different point of view about the global insanity that our government leaders create from a need for power and greed?

Probably not.

In the meantime, this extremely spoiled rich kid Billy Wenan (played by Chance Hurstfield) decides he doesn't appreciate the idea of getting coal in his stocking. So he hires "Skinny Man" played by Walton Goggins to kill Santa. He'd already hired him to kidnap and force his school mate into admitting she cheated so he'd win first place in a school project, so what's so hard about killing Santa? Can't be that much of a big step...

So.  

The trailer might suggest that it's just a straightforward action flick, and it's not that far from the truth. There are lots of little plot twists and it's dark comedy is actually close to interesting enough to finish watching the entirety of the film. 

You would expect this to be a rather nutty film, and it is. I mean, the plot is certainly oddball, but that's okay. And the actors aren't exactly a-list, but that's fine. The writer/director brothers are sort of unknown, but that's cool. I had a hard time watching Mel Gibson in anything, to be honest, but it was tolerable. 

I suppose what I'm saying is: I'm okay with this movie. I came in expecting an all out action flick and I saw something rather fun to watch as well. Not as fun as the Gibson classics, but still fun nonetheless. 

As everyone has been pretty much in lock-down on and off over the past 8 or 9 months, and things have gotten pretty desperate with what to watch online, this movie somehow leaked through the cracks and caught my attention. I watch a lot of movies and shows, so I figured, what the fuck. Might as well say something mediocre about a mediocre film. 

Mel Gibson playing Santa and getting shot several times: 5

Overall plot: 3

The scene when the elves explain their diet to the military guy: 7

A movie with barely memorable cast members still doing a decent job at pulling off a mediocre film with a couple kinda funny situations:5

For a perfectly mediocre total of 5 out of 10.

Greenland, 2020

 

You've seen it before. Pretty often, actually. Big thing falls from the sky, gonna wipe out the entire human race, cause Armageddon, the usual. And then there's a person, family, group of some kind who is racing to get to save the planet, or just to get to a safe place, etc. 

Yes, you've seen this movie over and over again since 1916 (yep, you read that right, not 2016) in The End of the World, which, by the way, was about a comet passes by the earth. 

As it turns out, this movie is about a comet passing WAY too close to the earth and what happens when all those thousands of pieces hit. 

However, you haven't seen it with Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin as leads in this film directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Well, maybe you have seen it, so that's good. 

I say "that's good" because this is just a refreshing movie with nearly no hints of humor whatsoever in it. It's a straight on legit drama between John and Allison Garrity (Butler, Baccarin) and how they have to deal with their marriage falling apart. 

Nathan, their son, played by Roger Dale Floyd, is really the center of the entire film, not the comet that comes down and wipes out 75% of humanity. 

The film basically introduces you to the Garrity family, and the fact that their marriage is completely on the rocks. Nathan, their son, has diabetes and he needs insulin on a regular basis. 

So there's your little "oh, yeah, that's gonna suck if a comet breaks apart in the sky and starts wiping out the planet" plot point. 

The Garritys get picked to go to a secret government facility (location unknown) through a huge loud message on their television and phones, while their neighbors question why they didn't get similar messages themselves. 

They then have to fight their way into the airbase to jump on a series of planes to some unknown location for safety. 

As they travel, they get separated, kidnapped, and miraculously brought back together at the last moment to somehow mysteriously wind up not even a mile from a special bunker in Greenland designed to withstand the apocalypse. 

Although you've seen this movie hundreds of times over the past century, it was still fun to see an interesting dramatic twist here and there, some interesting actors you might never get to see in a film, and Gerard Butler. 

I'm going to give some ridiculous algebraic equation to determine a completely random rating. 

Another apocalypse movie: 7

Getting to see Gerard Butler's six pack: 1

Having Morena Baccarin in a movie after seeing her in Deadpool 1 and 2: 6

Somehow believing yet again most of the planet could explode except for one tiny little bunker in some remote part of the world: 6

General sense of everyone is going to die!: 8

 

Which brings us to a noteworthy 5.6 out of 10. 

 

Not the greatest apocalyptic film of all time, but certainly not the worst.

Chef, 2014

If you want to see a very cool feel good exciting drama with and awesome cast of actors and actresses, with an edge of comedy (not too funny, though), that hits you right in the Little Cubans, than this movie is for you!

John Favreau (known for his role in Iron Man, Avengers, Cowboys and Aliens) steps out of the action movie genre into this dramatic happiness as a chef on a quest. The gist of this film is pretty simple. He is trying to be the best he can possibly be and his entire career is being held back from his boss (played by Noteworthy Mr. Dustin Hoffman) when he finds "twitter."  He tweets his way into a series of life changing events, eventually leading him to purchasing a dump of a taco truck from his ex-wife's ex-boyfriend (played by Robert Downey Jr.).

Turns out he always wanted to drive a food truck but felt being a chef was the better option in life. Along the way he gets to know his son, who's been feeling though his dad is ignoring him and not caring about him, and they wind up building a much stronger relationship together. The father son relationship building part of this whole movie was by far the best part of the film, the underlying plot which actually is the best part of the movie, to me.

I have to say it was a refreshing movie that I actually have recommended to quite a few people, including personal friends, which is saying a lot. I don't typically recommend any movies to anyone, but this was just fantastic. To watch the cooking alone was worth the time to watch the movie. I do recommend this film to anyone, regardless if you like to cook or not.

Without getting into detail, I'm just going to throw out a random 8.37 rating out of 10 for this film because it was just fantastic.