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Showing posts from July 10, 2016

Review: Ted 2

Ted (voiced by Peter Griffin) has married his love Tammy Lynn (Jessica Barth), and when we pick things up, the fit has hit the shan and the situation looks like a domestic scene from a Martin Scorsese movie (I’m pretty sure the shaky cam style was meant to evoke “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” or “Raging Bull” ). Ted wants them to have a baby to save their marriage, despite not having the right anatomy for such a thing to be possible. So they try adoption, only for their application to raise red flags for the U.S. government, who for some reason only now decide that Ted is not, in fact, a person. Therefore he can’t adopt children, he can’t keep his job, and even his marriage to Tammy-Lynn is stripped of its legitimacy and annulled. That’s when Ted and his ‘Thunder Buddy’ John (Mark Wahlberg) decide to act on this and fight for Ted’s right to be considered a person (Never mind that not only is he a toy, but he’s also a bear…you’re not meant to think about that. Or think at all).

Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

A UFO lands in Washington D.C., and out of it emerges a tall humanoid alien named Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and a giant robot called Gort. The American military being what it is, shoots right on cue, resulting in Gort obliterating all military hardware present on the scene. Klaatu and Gort aren’t here to fuck around, folks. In fact, Klaatu says he has a message that he must deliver to all of the Earth’s political leaders. Obviously, the humans are reluctant to go along with this, so Klaatu decides to lay low by assuming a different name (Carpenter) and finding lodging with widow Helen (Patricia Neal) and her impressionable son Bobby (Billy Gray), who immediately takes a liking to the stranger. Klaatu decides to try a different tact in delivering his message, by seeking out renowned scientist Dr. Barnardt (Sam Jaffe) in getting powerful people to listen to his message. What is that message? You’ll have to find out for yourself, or keep reading the review I suppose (You’ve been warned)

Review: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Beginning in 1787, this is the story of the captain and crew of the HMS Bounty from Portsmouth to Tahiti. It’s particularly centred around the increasing frustration and displeasure of the crew towards hard taskmaster Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton), who is unbending and extremely harsh. Chief among the dissenters is first officer Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable), whom the majority of the crew look to for a more sensible, fair-minded leader. Eventually tensions reach to such a boil that Christian leads the title mutiny, with Franchot Tone’s idealistic, aristocratic midshipman Roger Byum (a composite character) disapproving of Christian’s taking action against the Captain, no matter how much of a tyrant Bligh is (and boy is he ever a giant prick). Dudley Digges plays the ship’s alcoholic doctor Bacchus, whilst Donald Crisp plays a disgruntled crew member, and Herbert Mundin the mess cook. A lot of what happens in this 1935 seafaring flick has since become seafaring flick cliché

Review: Knock Knock

Keanu Reeves plays a happily married architect and father, whose wife and kids are away for the weekend, whilst Reeves stays behind to finish some work. On the first night, he gets a knock at the door from two young ladies (Ana de Armas and Lorenza Izzo), soaking wet from the rain. Apparently they got lost on the way to a party, and being a good Samaritan, Reeves lets them in to dry off while he calls them an Uber to come pick them up. However, the girls start getting all flirty, and eventually wrangle Reeves into having a threesome with him. Being that he loves his wife, he’s extremely resistant (well, a bit more resistant than Michael Douglas in “Disclosure” at least), but being a dopey thriller, it’s not long before he’s powerless to stop these ladies from servicing his nether regions. They never do catch that Uber, either. The next morning, things take a nasty turn when after being asked to vacate the premises, the girls respond by knocking Reeves out, and he awakes to find he