Little Fockers (2010)

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A Toast

By: SG2 (3 Beers)

Synopsis: People who actually care to read this synopsis have likely seen one of the first two films of this trilogy. So let’s make it simple. It’s as if Meet the Parents had a baby with Meet the Fockers and they had a malformed inbred Siamese child called Little Fockers.

It’s a goddamn tragedy

I thoroughly enjoyed this film mainly in part that I was sitting next to people who were also enjoying it (people ages 50+). As you may very well know, we humans are social creatures. Even if at first it makes you uncomfortable to laugh at something that isn’t funny, if many people around you start laughing you eventually find yourself joining in this hearty and wonderful act.

With that said, I have to toast Little Fockers for hitting their market, the mentally challenged folk who prefer things never change. If you are the type of person who goes to a restaurant and asks for the same thing again and again, this film probably won’t disappoint you. The plot is the same, the attitudes the characters have towards one another are the same, and even the sneaking around to get some boning hasn’t changed. I’m in my 20s, surrounded by folks in their 50s busting up, and it was all in all a great experience.

In addition, there were a couple of social media references that I thought Little Fockers hit dead on. For example, Jessica Alba plays a flirtatious pharmaceuticals agent Andi Garcia whose personality you’re more likely to find on Myspace than Facebook. Also the reference about how Google had basically replaced Jack Byrnes (Robert Dinero) need to call the CIA for intelligence was great. In both cases, Little Fockers got it right. I also enjoyed the Harvey Keitel cameo as a construction worker and Dustin Hoffman’s flamenco dancing. These things, sadly… entertain me.

Just short of climbing through your windows.*

Beer Two: When Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) took his Godfather duties too seriously, things get ridiculous. In the film, Jack Byrnes realizes that Greg is the only worthy candidate to carry on the Byrnes’s emblem and inherit the history to be passed down. After being christened a GodFocker, he takes on the persona of Andy Garcia from the Godfather 2. The whole Italian greeting of kissing on two cheeks was a reach for his character.

Another goddamn tragedy

Beer Three: The scene where Greg stabbed his father-in-law’s dick with a hypodermic needle had me reaching for my junk and my third beer. This scene was not only painful, but also unnecessary. The bad joke is exacerbated when Greg’s child witnesses the entire event. The scene was pretty tame, though. There was no Judd Apatow shocker visual of Stiller holding De Niro’s penis. But, even the thought of a this happening to a human being warranted this beer to calm my nerves.

My thoughts exactly, Jason.

Verdict

If you watched the first two, go ahead and watch this one. Otherwise, don’t waste your time.

* From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/29/BUQLUAP8L.DTL (2008)

Gulliver's Travels (2010)

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By: Oberst von Berauscht (Six-pack)

A Toast

Jack Black is the sort of comedian whose natural improvisational humor is capable of bringing laughs to even the weakest scripts. Unfortunately, as Director Rob Letterman’s Gulliver’s Travels proves, there is an event horizon that can be reached in film. And once this is crossed, no amount of natural talent is going to save you from the exponential amount of suck this black hole of cinema is capable of producing.

Gulliver works for the mailroom at a newspaper and is madly in love with one of the editors. One day he lies about his credentials to get a job as a travel writer and sails for the Bermuda Triangle. Here he is caught in a maelstrom, shipwrecked, and winds up in the country of Lilliput, where people are tiny… and somewhere in there Jack Black gives Billy Connolly and Chris O’Dowd a golden shower.

I really tried to think of something positive to say about this movie. And I suppose there are two or three decent laughs to be had... but even a broken watch manages to be right twice a day. The concept seems interesting enough. Gulliver’s Travels was a classic of literature, and one that has yet to see a definitive screen adaptation. The last major attempt was this made-for-T.V. affair, starring Ted Danson as french actor Christopher Lambert:

Right?

Beer Two:

Take a swig for the acting. Even Jack Black seems to be struggling in this one. I can understand that the people of Lilliput were meant to be somewhat melodramatic. But nobody seems to care about the material here. The performances feel like that of a middle school drama class, and the actors appear disinterested in just about every scene. Amanda Peet especially seems to be taking the paycheck and running.

Beer Three:

Much of the acting may be excusable due to the god-awful dialog and screenplay. If the writers concentrated a bit more on character development and less time on pumping the script with forced pop culture references, maybe we’d have something novel here. Aspiring filmmakers take note; if you just reference other people’s work all day, you don’t have to write anything original.

Seth MacFarlane hasn’t written his own jokes in years

Beer Four:

The film’s biggest elephant in the room is the robot built to fight Jack Black. Lilliput is depicted as a culture whose technological knowhow is commensurate with the early 19th century. Based on the time frame approximated in the film, they had a little more than two weeks to build it. And the robot that they built is far too complex to be believably built in so little a time. Even considering this film as a flight of fancy, a dream world whose reality is unbound by physical law, it feels like a reach.

Beer Five:

Suspension of disbelief is an important factor in appreciation of fantasy cinema. Sometimes major flaws in characters and plot development may be forgiven if the effects artists offer something beautiful, immersive, or at least unique to look at. I wish I could say this was the case for Gulliver’s Travels, but the plain truth is that the CGI effects are average at best. The green screen effects remind me of the original King Kong, and while they may have been stunning for their time, here it feels archaic. Perhaps it would have worked better if the film was entirely animated. But then, Night at the Museum accomplished a similar task with style and is a perfect example of a weaker story made watchable by great effects.

Stylistic art

Bullshit

Beer Six:

What is the best way to end a movie when you are lazy and have no good ideas?

Dance Party!

Verdict:

A big film made by people with very small ideas, and even smaller brains.

I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)

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Henry J. Fromage (3 Beers)

A gay man who just came out of the closet turns to conning to finance his new lifestyle, and then to reunite him with the love of his life who he meets in prison.

When this movie first appeared at the Sundance Film Festival last year it was met both with critical acclaim and a whirlwind of controversy which slammed its distribution chances like a Missouri trailer park.

The physical manifestation of punditry

Well, it’s finally getting a U.S. release, which is good, because it’s a very funny movie.

Toast-

Raise your glass if you like old-school Jim Carrey. The manic craziness and spot-on comic timing from 90s classics like The Mask and Liar, Liar is back, but this time he develops the character behind the caricature and the result is one of the most well-rounded and funny performances of his career.

Alas, poor Yorick?

The story itself is insane when you start to process that it actually happened. Carrey’s conman makes the kid from Catch Me If You Can look like a 12 year old caught sneaking into a R-rated film.

For the boobies, of course

Mixed in with the capers are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, particularly during Carrey’s coming out period at the beginning of the film.

Beer Two-

This is where the film suffers a bit of an identity crisis. A lot of the controversy revolved around the “graphic” gay sex scenes. Those don’t really exist.

Thankfully?

This movie is certainly about gay characters, but to call it a gay movie would be selling it, and yourself, short. It’s just too bad that the filmmakers don’t accomplish this completely. Sometimes I Love You Phillip Morris slips from a conman movie that happens to have a gay protagonist to a broad and kind of stereotypical gay-joke farce, which saps away some of its momentum. Also, when this is your marketing…

… you don’t really expect anything else

Beer Three-

Drink a bit whenever Ewan MacGregor shows up. MacGregor himself described the man his character was based on as a manly, macho type and stated that he tried to play him that way.

Missed the mark a bit

Staying away from that wouldn’t have been such a big deal if he had made his character into something other than bland and completely forgettable. Next to Carrey’s performance he practically disappears.

Verdict

Watch it. Jim Carrey’s trademark wackiness and one of the best conman stories around make it well worth your while.

Machete (2010)

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By: Henry J. Fromage (2 Beers)

→ Here’s your synopsis.

A Toast

If you’ve seen the trailer, you pretty much know what you’re getting into, which is a heaping pile of awesome- unless you’re a wine coolers type of guy, that is (or gal- still inexcusable). If you are looking for violence, there is plenty, involving basically anything with a sharp edge or point, and several explosions to boot.

If what you wanted is hot chicks, Machete’s got ‘em, many of them nekked. I forgot how hot Jessica Alba is even though I still thought she was smokin’ before. This genre really brings out the best in her. I never was a big Michelle Rodriguez fan, but with an eyepatch, painted-on leather, and some big guns, now I am… a lot. Shoot, even Lindsey Lohan doesn’t look like a meth-skeleton, which might clinch a best makeup Oscar.

No Thanks…

That’s more like it…

There’s even some good humor. Henchman + weed-whacker turns out to be a nice comic team and Machete’s views on texting are pretty quality. So, I’ve got to toast one beer to all that goodness, but if you wanted to hoist a few more, I wouldn’t argue with you.

Beer 2

Well, it couldn’t be all good, especially when you cast Lindsay Lohan and Steven Seagal. I know that it seems too easy to beat up on Lohan these days, and she deserves some credit for poking fun at herself and showing some skin. Still, there’s a reason her career’s in the doldrums outside of the drama… she can’t act. We know that about Seagal, of course, and part of me applauds Rodriguez for saying screw it and putting him in there anyway. Unfortunately, his Mexican drug-lord’s accent sounds like the Taco Bell dog, but somehow with even less effort to get it right. No wonder Machete wants to kill him so badly.

I can see where he’s coming from.

Machete does everything it promised in the trailer, and does it big. If you wanted to make it into a drinking game where you toasted every explosion, decapitation, or topless chick, you’d get pretty hammered, but I wouldn’t discourage you. Still, I’m giving Machete two beers.

P.S.- Lapidus!

This is what a badass looks like.

Verdict

Watch it. Did you not see the pictures?

Catfish (2010)

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Henry J. Fromage (4 Beers)

A Toast

When I first saw the preview for Catfish, it hooked me immediately.

www.oldwhiskersbait.com 2010

Hah! Just punning…

It was intense, and established an intriguing mystery that reputable reviewers were calling it “a bizarre and completely unpredictable mystery” and “the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never directed.” All of this from a documentary that was “Not based on a true story, not inspired by true events, just true.” You win, marketing. I’m watching it!

Beer Two-

The film itself starts out well. It uses an imaginative and well-edited take on technology to document the growing internet relationship between a photographer in New York and a suspiciously artistic woman and her attractive and talented family. Warning signs develop fairly quickly and continue to mount until he decides to visit the family himself. Drink a beer to the look on his face when he finds out his online relationship isn’t everything that it seems. You should know by now that all of the hot single women on the internet are actually this guy:

Beer Three-

When he finds out, shakes alive!, that he’s being lied to, he suddenly convinces himself that he has the right to violate privacy faster than the Homeland Security Act.

Newtech.aurum3.com

Freedom isn’t free, cause you know, you have to pay some freedom to get, umm, more freedom… wait now

Beer Four-

All of this said, the movie does an excellent job building suspense as you wait to discover what exactly is going on. Leading up to the confrontation you might find yourself becoming physically nervous. This is in part due to expectations built up by the marketing and the reviewers who played along, but credit also needs to be given to excellent filmmaking.

Then you find out what the big secret is. I guess I’ll play along and not tell you. Just let me say that some reviewers have never left their penthouses and private clubs and taken a jaunt down to Walmart. This is what America looks like, people, and not nearly as surprising or rare as you think it is. Oh, and can we let poor Mr. Hitchcock rest in peace, already?

Sorry, sir. I don’t know why reviewers insist on shitting on your grave.

Verdict

Watch it. If you don’t expect to be blown off your feet, you just might get something out of it.