When Good a Trailer Makes a Terrible Movie: Our Review of "Movie 43" (2013)

Andrew: Hello readers! Sorry we've been away for a bit again, still been a bit busy with the day jobs, but we WERE able to catch a showing of this past weekend's unheralded new sketch comedy movie, Movie 43, and we're here to give you our review of it! (Duh.) Movie 43 stars a TON of big-name actors and there were about ten different directors involved all taking a different sketch. But due to the low-brow humor of the film, and apparently general distaste the studio has for it, almost everyone involved is trying to distance themselves from the movie (check out this humorous New York Post story about it to see what we mean). 

Now, because of the structure of the film, we're going to be doing our review just a touch differently than normal. Instead of doing a free-flowing conversation, we're going to break up the review by talking about each individual sketch on its own - starting with a brief description of the sketch and what we liked about it, what we didn't like about it, etc. With that said, in order of how they appeared in the film, here are our thoughts on Movie 43.

THE CATCH 

Stars: Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman

Premise: Winslet plays a woman going on a blind date with a man who by all accounts is handsome, wealthy and incredibly popular, so it comes as a shock to her when they get to the restaurant and he takes off his scarf, that he has a pair of testicles hanging from his chin and no one else seems to find it unusual.

Sarah: Yea, this one actually made me very uncomfortable. Besides being slightly disgusting, this little sketch was hilarious! Having such a beautiful man like Hugh Jackman with a pair hanging from his neck was disturbing on so many levels. What bothered me the most was the fact that NOONE seemed to know!!! It's ridiculous! 

A: There are plenty of sketches in the movie that are over-the-top ridiculous, but I felt that this was a good one to kick things off. The sight gag of the male genitalia dangling from Jackman's face and the complete obliviousness by everyone other than Winslet was pretty funny. And they use the sight gag to its full effect, with the part where an air duct blowing cold air on their table taking the cake. But the sketch wouldn't have been anything if it weren't for Winslet's reactions.

Warner Bros. New Gangster Flick Is Just a Wannabe: Our Review of "Gangster Squad" (2013)

Directed By: Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) 

Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone

Rating: R for strong violence and language

Run Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

Synopsis: Sergeant John O'Mara (Brolin) has returned to the LAPD after fighting in WWII and he doesn't recognize the city he once loved now that a gangster named Mickey Cohen (Penn) has started to take control. After impressing the police chief with his brazen style and disregard for Cohen's reign, O'Mara is charged with putting together a top-secret squadron of LAPD officers to taken down Cohen's empire.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Earlier this week Sarah and I were able to catch a screening of the new, star-studded action film GangsterSquad – starring Josh Brolin (Men in Black III), Ryan Gosling (Drive), Emma Stone (The Amazing Spider-Man), Sean Penn (The Tree of Life) and more. This was a movie we’ve been waiting a while for because it was originally slated to be released in 2012, but after the tragic theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado, the film was pushed back to reshoot a climactic scene that involved a shoot-out in a movie theatre. So the film was pushed back, they reshot it, and it comes out today. So Sarah, now that we’ve seen Gangster Squad, what did you think of it?

Sarah: I love my gangster movies. I think there’s something romantic about the gangster genre, ESPECIALLY vintage gangster movies. So I was looking forward to Gangster Squad, but it ended up being a bit of stretch for me. It had its moments, I’ll give it that. It had a great cast, a phenomenal cast…but it just missed the mark for me.

What Would Two Tickets For... Do?: Casting "The Amazing Spider-Man 2"

Andrew: Hello readers! Earlier this year we saw the release of The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of the Spider-Man franchise that was directed by Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer) and starred Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) as Peter Parker and Emma Stone (The Help) as Gwen Stacy. We didn't get a chance to post about this just yet, but it was confirmed earlier this year that Garfield and Stone will definitely reprise their roles in the sequel and it was recently announced that Webb will indeed return as director despite the first film's disappointing box-office performance.

That said, another story about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has hit the web this week and it really piqued my interest. Variety reported earlier this week that The Secret Life of The American Teenager star Shailene Woodley is in negotiations to join the franchise as Peter Parker's famous red-headed love interest Mary Jane Watson. It's a choice that, at first glance, I was a fan of because I really liked Woodley in The Descendants and I feel like she fits the role of Mary Jane perfectly (especially in contrast to Kirsten Dunst's MJ in the Sam Raimi versions). But Sarah, you had a different reaction to the news when I told you, didn't you?

Sarah: I did! I wasn't impressed. I will give Woodley this, she was awesome in The Descendants but her other works have been less than awesome. I guess I am little concerned that she will play the same character that she plays in The Secret Life of The American Teenager.  I don't think that Mary Jane is supposed to be this sullen teenager. She's not who I would have cast. Especially if they have to turn her hair red to put her in the part.

Shailene Woodley is in talks to play Mary Jane Watson in
Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but is
she who we think would be the best fit?

Did It Need to Be Made? No, But We're Glad They Did!: Our Review of "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012)

Directed By: Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer)

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Denis Leary, Rhys Ifans

Rating: PG-13 for sequences of action and violence

Synopsis: Raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May after his parents die in a plane crash, Peter Parker (Garfield) grows up to be a bit of an outsider but is also very bright. Finding his father’s old briefcase leads him to Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans) at Oscorp, where Peter is bitten by a spider that gives him incredible superhuman abilities. When an experiment Connors performs on himself turns him into The Lizard, Peter must balance stopping Connors and his fledgling romance with the beautiful Gwen Stacy (Stone).

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Sarah and I just got out of seeing Marc Webb’s reboot of Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) as Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

Sarah, this is another film we haven’t had a chance to preview since it came out on a Tuesday (thanks to the Fourth of July being on a Wednesday), but it’s certainly a film we’ve been looking forward to. That said, it’s only been 10 years since Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man starring Tobey Maguire. What did you think of this reboot of a film franchise that’s really not that old?

Sarah: I liked it! I thought it did a really good job of being a good origin story. It stuck pretty true to the comic-book version of Spider-Man’s origin, whereas Raimi’s took a couple of liberties. It was obviously a lot grander in terms of scenery because of the 3D, which were pretty good for the most part.

But I liked it. It was a fun movie, like all the other recent Marvel movies we’ve come to know and love. So this one fits well with the rest of the Marvel film family that is out right now. What did you think?

A: I don’t want to compare it to the original too much, so based on its own merits I thoroughly enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man primarily because of Andrew Garfield. I thought he was an inspired casting choice to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Garfield is actually 28 years old but he looks, sounds and acts just like a teenager should.

We think Andrew Garfield was the perfect choice to play the high-school version of Peter Parker. Even at 28 he looks more like a teenager than Tobey Maguire ever did.

And yes, this is very similar to Raimi’s original because they’re both telling the origin story, but other than adding in Peter’s parents…I liked that they kept him as a teenager in high school, because he is in the comics a lot, too. He’s always been a wise-cracker and they nailed that aspect.

S: He’s also a bit of a misfit in this one.

A: Yeah, he’s a social misfit. On the same token as Garfield, I thought Emma Stone (The Help) was perfect casting as Gwen Stacy. The two of them have a chemistry that you can only HOPE your two love interests will have.

S: Oh absolutely!

A: So that brought a lot to this film. I’m glad Webb focused a lot of the film on their relationship and on parts where Peter isn’t in costume, where he’s piecing together the mystery of his father and BECOMING Spider-Man. It was very similar, to me, to Batman Begins because in that film it takes a while before Bruce Wayne actually gets into his full costume. There’s even a point where Bruce goes out with a rough draft of his costume and sort of has a soft open, and there’s stuff like that here, too. Where Peter has the beginnings of his costume but not much else.

S: Yeah I liked the costume. I liked this film’s Spider-Man costume WAY more than the original. It doesn’t look so cartoony up close. I hate to compare them but with things like that you kinda have to compare. I thought it looked sleek and I thought it was funny that Peter makes fun of how he’s in spandex.

A: Also, I like that he creates his web-shooters in this one. In Raimi’s they made Peter’s webbing come right out of his body organically, which bothered me. Webb’s stays true to the comic books.

S: I liked the 3D. There were times it looked a little too computer generated, which is expected sometimes. You can’t have a stunt guy do ALL those stunts without some CGI.

A: It was particularly cool when Spidey is swinging through the city and they show his point-of-view. The 3D as a whole wasn’t as good as in Prometheus, but it’s still worth it to see it in 3D. I’m sure it looks just fine in 2D, though.

What did you think of the villain, Dr. Connors a.k.a. The Lizard?

The Lizard looks pretty sweet and is a formidable foe for Peter, but his character arc left Andrew wanting more.

S: I thought the makeup done by Ve Neill was excellent. We like Neill because she’s a judge on one of our favorite shows, the SyFy reality show Face Off, and her work on Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) was fantastic. The CGI used when The Lizard is fully changed was really cool. I think it would have looked ridiculous if it would have always been Ifans in make-up, but when he’s the full-blown Lizard the CGI was a good example of the motion-capture they use today.

When it was Ifans and they had prosthetics on him it looked great, too, but I didn’t mind the CGI either. I liked that The Lizard spoke. It caught me off guard…

A: Well he speaks in the comics.

S: Yeah, so I appreciated that. Did you like the villain?

A: I was left wanting more.

S: I think that says more to the character than it does to the physical bad guy.

A: Physically he looked great and he was finally an imposing to fight against Spidey. He was teased at in Raimi’s trilogy, so it was nice to finally get him in a film. But they worked him into Peter’s backstory and…I don’t know, it just left me wanting more.

S: I would say that wasn’t fully fleshed out, yeah. In fact they hint at the end that there’s going to be more to that story in the sequel. The Lizard didn’t have a malicious side, truly. He was just this crippled guy who wanted to get his arm back. And then he’s forced by Oscorp to rush the experiment and test it on humans, so he does it to himself and he snaps, so he’s more of a sympathetic character.

A: I didn’t hate him. He’s a much better villain than all the other Spider-Man film villains other than Doctor Octopus. So he was fine, I just think I would have been ok if the film focused more on Peter and Gwen’s relationship. I thought that was the stronger part of the movie.

A couple other quick points: there weren’t a boatload of action scenes, so when they hit they had more impact; Martin Sheen and Sally Field were perfect as Uncle Ben and Aunt May, as was Denis Leary as Captain Stacy; and I wasn’t enamored with James Horner’s score.

Rose and Jack, or Gwen and Peter? Seriously, there are times you wonder if the theatre swapped out the score for Titanic's

S: Yeah, it reflected a LOT of his Titanic score. There were times when he blatantly cribbed from Titanic. Then there were other times the music didn’t necessarily fit what was going on.

A: It wasn’t as good as Danny Elfman’s score in Raimi’s trilogy. And I suppose I have to compare it to John Williams’ Superman score and the scores Elfman and Hans Zimmer have done for their Batman films. It wasn’t nearly as good as those. You want a superhero score to be iconic like the above examples, and this one wasn’t.

S: You want it to be able to hear just a snippet of it and be able to instantly recognize what it belongs to.

A: And if you heard this one you would’ve thought it was Titanic.

S: The movie was a little slow at times, but you get that with an origin story sometimes because it has to build. I definitely think it’s one you have to see on the big screen.

A: I think this is one we’ll own someday.

S: And probably more from the standpoint that we like all the Marvel movies they’ve been making lately…

A: Well I also really liked Garfield and Stone’s performances. If anything, I’d say see this one in theatres because of those two.

(Out of Five Clapboards)

Photo Courtesies: Shockya, Flicks and Bits,  The Sun

Playing Oscar Catch-Up: Andrew's Review of "The Help"

Directed By: Tate Taylor

Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain

Rating: PG-13 for Thematic Material

Synopsis: In the early 1960s, Southern socialite Skeeter Phelan (Stone) graduates from college determined to become an writer. Inspired by how her friends treat their black maids, Skeeter tries to get the black women who spend their lives working for white families to tell her their experiences for a book. After finding initial resistance, she is able to get maids Aibileen (Davis) and Minny (Spencer) to tell their stories, leading to both good and bad consequences.

REVIEW

Sarah: Hello readers Many of you, including myself, have seen Tate Taylor’s “The Help.” Andrew, however, had not seen it. So, in regards to this being the week before the Oscars, we are catching up on the Best Picture nominees we missed. I have read the book and seen the movie, and like most books-to-movies, I thought the book was better, but I do think it’s a very good movie with great acting.

But I am interested to hear what you thought, Andrew, coming both from someone who didn’t read the book or is from the South.

Andrew: Well I think those are two separate things, so I’ll tackle them individually. First, coming from someone who has not read the book, I really enjoyed the film. I felt that I got the real gist of the book and the story without missing anything. You’ve told me you thought all of the actors were casted very well, and I’ll have to take your word for it – but I do agree in that I thought Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard were all exceptional.

Now, as someone who wasn’t raised in the South like you were (Sarah was born in Virginia and lived in Alabama for another 5 years, dear readers), I was totally disgusted with Howard’s character, Hilly Holbrook. I feel that the depiction of blatant racism is eye opening because of how genuine the performances felt. I think the film presented that era in American history quite well. And heck, I’ll go so far as the say that Howard’s character is one of the best villain’s in film history. I hated her.

S: Yes, I would have to say that Holbrook is one of the worst characters ever written. She’s just wicked. Now, Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis are all up for Oscars this year. While I think you will agree with me that they all deserve the praise and if they could give out two different Best Supporting Actress awards, Chastain and Spencer both deserve the praise. What did you think about the other actors that didn’t receive any acknowledge, like Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone?

A: Well as I just mentioned, I think Howard was perfect as Hilly Holbrook. She was just despicable; and while not on the same plane as Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader, I think her realistic performance deserved more accolades.

Emma Stone is quickly becoming one of our favorite actresses (side note: if you haven’t seen “Easy A” yet, readers, you should – it’s hilarious) and I thought she was great in “The Help.” In regards to her performance, I really don’t understand why she hasn’t garnered award talk because I see almost no difference between her job in this film and Julia Roberts’ in “Erin Brokovich.”

There’s a particular scene toward the last quarter of the film that Emma’s character, Skeeter, has with her mother (played by Alison Janney) that really got to me. For that scene alone she should have gotten more award chatter. I guess in summation, the cast of “The Help” deserved their SAG Award for Best Ensemble.

S: I agree with your thoughts on the actresses, and I think they should have gotten more recognition. Now, with the Oscars coming up, what do you think are the chances of this one?

A: How about we save that conversation for later this week when we delve into our analysis and predictions of Sunday’s Academy Awards, shall we? I think our plan for right now is to touch on the Supporting roles categories on Thursday, the Lead roles categories on Friday and then do Best Pictures and Best Director on Saturday. Then Sunday we’ll have our complete Oscar predictions and we’re going to try to do a running blog of the award show. Sound good?

S: Works for me! And your final grading for “The Help” is?

A: Now that it’s out on DVD, I do think this is a must-see film for all the performances alone.

(Out of Five)