Review: The Hangover Part II

Weeeeeeeeee

Whatever.

That was my initial reaction to seeing The Hangover: Part II, the highly anticipated sequel to one of the better comedy flicks in recent memory. Whatever. Thanks to the vast success of the first Hangover movie, the sequel was pretty much immediately announced by noted raunchy filmmaker, Todd Phillips. Soon the trailers and posters and other hype machines began coming around. The Wolfpack was returning to the big screen, and soon enough every bro and ho was updating their Facebook status with eager anticipation of the new movie.

I give most of the blame for this ridiculous over-hype machine to the young people of Generation Y, AKA the Bros Icing Bros Generation (we deserve it. We’re the worst). The common motif with the Bros Icing Bros Generation is to embrace only a choice few pieces of entertainment and run with the damn things for as long as they exist, no matter how obviously stupid they eventually boil down to. The short list of prime Bros Icing Bros entertainment is relatively short, but it more than answers everything you need to know about how truly committed people can be once the general population decides something deserves to be called the best thing since sliced bread.

• Twilight
• The Hangover
• Glee
• Jersey Shore

That’s just the few things that I can come up with off the top of my head, but the pattern is already well-defined. Granted, the first Hangover movie was very funny, but most of that praise came from the fact that it took some relatively unknown actors, threw them into an inappropriate movie, and then kept on giving the audience new lewd shit to gasp and laugh about. It was fresh, but the freshness pretty much died as soon as the sequel was announced. It was only a matter of time before that became clear to a lot of snooty film critics.

2011 Oscars Liveblog: Toy Story 3 vs. the World

Franco only loves his anime pillow pal

So apparently tonight is the Oscars, and for whatever reason I see fit, I guess I will liveblog the damn thing. After watching two best picture nominees yesterday (Winter’s Bone and The King’s Speech), all I’ve able to think about is the Christopher Guest movie For Your Consideration (great movie, by the way). Why? Because so many Oscar films just have this air of snottiness and self-importance that just makes me sick sometimes. It just feels like people will only make movies to try to rake in awards based on merits such as “dysfunction, crying, over-the-top emotions” and so on. Maybe I just hate seeing other people succeed, but then again, Transformers 2 is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, so I guess it’s not just the awards show films. The point is, I see movies as something to entertain first, and then inspire second, and not the other way around. I’d be totally fine if a movie about Gandhi fudged things and made him a bodybuilder with a Gatling gun.

Anyways, here are the Best Picture films I have seen: Toy Story 3, Winter’s Bone, Inception, The King’s Speech, and True Grit. Here’s how I’d rank them and why…

5. Winter’s Bone: The intrigue of the story kept me interested for the majority of the movie, but damn, the ending was about as uneventful and unexciting as one could possibly expect. Weeee, they all do meth! Weeee, they’re ignorant hicks with anger issues! Weeeee, the lead lady is stuck in a horrible life at the beginning of the film and the end of it too! Jennifer Lawrence did a fine acting job, but if this wins Best Picture, I’m not going to be pleased.

4. Inception: Everyone wants to talk about “how overrated” Inception is, simply because of all the hype that came with Chris Nolan and the fact that it was a high-grossing summer movie. That said, it still had an interesting story and some really cool visuals that made me enjoy it overall. Let’s be honest here: not many people outside of Nolan could make something like dream inception seem plausible. This shouldn’t win BP, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad movie. Also, let’s not forget a certain blue alien film that was nominated for Best Picture last year…..

3. Toy Story 3: It is near impossible to not like this movie, but it’s in the minority simply because it’s a kid’s film. I would totally get behind this winning Best Picture though.

2. The King’s Speech: The two lead actors stole the show on this one, and made this movie go from 2 stars to 3.5 stars for me. Geoffry Rush was simply fantastic as the speech therapist; if he doesn’t win Best Supporting Actor, I will never look at this already “whatever” award again.

1. True Grit: That’s right, I’m a Coen Bros. homer, so sue me. Even with this movie, a movie that breaks a lot of artsy guy code (it’s a remake of an adaptation of a book, for one thing), but True Grit was the best Oscar movie I saw all year (my favorite movie overall of last year is still Kick Ass). The presentation, the acting (everybody was great in their respective roles), the feel; it felt like I was living in a snarky, slightly humorous Western world. This movie won’t win Best Picture, but it deserves to get at least Best Actor, and I’d root for Best Actress too.

And yes, I know my opinions are skewed since I didn’t see the likes of the other five movies, although you won’t get me to ever see The Kids Are Alright.

Anyways, catch up with me after the jump when the awards show starts. There’ll plenty of making fun of snooty celebrities after the jump, when the Oscars actually start. See you then!

Video Vriday: NFL Silliness and the Trailer for ‘Rubber’

Short and sweet, it’s Friday and I’m about ready to pass out from exhaustion.

I’m sure there are plenty of good videos from this week that I’m either forgetting about or just neglecting to post, but here are three of the funniest videos I saw this week. I highly recommend that you guys that don’t care about football still click the jump and catch the trailer for Rubber if you haven’t already. People don’t make that many movies about psychic tires named Robert too often.

Anyways, the top video is a Youtube video that lampoons Brett Favre and Lebron James simultaneously. First off, that guy playing Brett Favre is ridiculously good. Secondly, I have to admit that those penis jokes at the end of the video really made my day (especially Peyton Man-thing), but how the heck could they not include “Purple Peniseater”? Is that too obscure of a football reference, or is it just too raunchy for an R-rated internet video?

After the jump we have videos that compare Bart Scott of the New York Jets to Ollie the Weatherman and preview what should be the Blake Griffin of new movies.

Media Man Crush: Barry Pepper

 

PUT THE F*CKING PUPPY DOWN

With all of the guy-love I’ve been showing Scott Sigler of late, I thought it might be a good idea to make a monthly (or every other month, whatever) feature of all of the men in show biz that deserve a little bit of recognition every now and then. In a world where guys like Channing Tatum are getting all of the street cred in Hollywood, it’s nice to let the world know about actors that have way more talent, but are just fine with taking backseat roles. This month, that guy is Barry Pepper, a man that may be a recognizable face, but certainly not a household name. He just so happens to have played some pretty memorable characters, including one of my favorite supporting characters in a movie. So without further adieu, a look into the interesting life and career of Barry Pepper.

5 Great Narrators in Movies and Television

Not pictured: The narrator. Why? Because he's the f*cking narrator, that's why.

Of all the types of characters in the world of entertainment, the narrator is usually the most boring. Unless the topic at hand is being presented in documentary form, the narrator usually shows up in the beginning of the story, maybe shows up a time or two in the middle, and then wraps everything up at the end. All of this is usually done a droll, normal tone. In short, the narrator gives you the background info in a no-nonsense matter and then gets out of the way so you can enjoy the real action.

But that doesn’t mean the narrator can’t be an interesting, and sometimes even exciting part of a TV show or movie. Click the jump to see some examples of narrators that do a little bit more than what is required.

The Week Ahead: Nov 29 – Dec 5

[Thanksgiving is over, and I’ve already been over-stimulated with Christmas music/ The Chanukah Song. Call me crazy, but push the holiday songs back one week, and maybe my skin won’t turn green with Grinch Syndrome/ excessive vomiting. You know… Anyways, yet another big week in entertainment lies ahead, including Black Swan, Epic Mickey, lots of sports match-ups. Figure out what you’ll be watching this week after the jump.]

The Week Ahead: Nov 15-21 (College Basketball!)

[This week is all about the newest Harry Potter movie, which comes out Friday. Why are people getting so pumped when it isn’t even the last movie? Other than the fact that it’s Harry Potter, of course. I guess I’m just tired. Anyways click the jump to read about HP, Assassin’s Creed, The Next Three Days, and Patriots v. Colts. Oh, and the greatest sport of all time kicks off this week… COLLEGE BASKETBALL! Let’s go!]

Kimmie English is ready to play ball

 

The 5 Best-Worst Nicolas Cage Movies

[Happy Veteran’s Day everybody! While I originally planned to do a list of good war films to watch, my mind diverted to writing about one of my favorite veterans in Hollywood, Mr. Nicolas Cage.]

Nicolas Cage’s acting career has got to be one of the biggest enigmas in Hollywood. The man has obvious acting chops, which can be seen in movies such as Leaving Las Vegas (For which he won an Oscar), Adaptation, Face/Off, and Raising Arizona. Yet, for all the talent he appears to posses, Nic is still on good course to be one of the most mocked actors ever.

I don’t know whether to describe him as incredibly silly or incredibly shameless, but the man seems to believe there is no such thing as a bad script (Then again, any script with a 10+ million dollar paycheck attached can’t be that bad, right? Hey, why’s there a pile of dollar signs right where my dog was lying?), as can be noted with the number of increasingly bad movie roles he has accepted in the last decade. That said, for all of the awfulness Cage has been a part of, most of it has managed to at least be thrown in the “Bad films that make us laugh” pile. In fact, Cage has steadily become more famous thanks to some of his absolute worst roles. So put on your bear suit, put the bunny back in the box, and grab some cake; Here are the five Nicolas Cage movies that are certifiably awful, but in the best possible way.

The Week Ahead: Nov 8-14

[That’s right people, we have one of the biggest video-game franchises of the 21st Century returning to rake in more cash  this Tuesday in Call of Duty: Black Ops. Along with that big piece of news, we have Conan’s new show, Humans vs aliens, Brady vs Big Ben, and Denzel vs Train. Read up after the jump!]

My Top 10 Favorite Pieces of Zombie Media

From vampires to werewolves, hellish demons to Frank N. Furters Frankensteins, Halloween is chocked full of memorable creatures that always make a few appearances every year in entertainment, be it through books, TV, video games, or movies. Nowadays, though, a lot of Halloween time monsters that used to scare the Holy Water out of me have turned into things that wouldn’t even scare my mother, and that’s saying a lot.

Vampires now sparkle, wear fancy scarves and preach the joys of queefing abstinence. Werewolves have been either delegated to remakes of classics, or to the previously stated Twi-Hard movies as muscular Native American teens. Frankenstein has been MIA for years now (Van Helsing doesn’t count) and that essentially has left one ghoul to take over as top terror. The Zombie.

Personally, I’m just fine with that. While I would love to see some real vampires take the spotlight away from Twilight, and would equally love to see a new serial killer take control away from Jigsaw, at least I’ve had good ol’ zombies to entertain me for the last decade or so. Read after the jump to see my top ten pieces of zombie media after the jump!