Tag: movies

MasterChugs Theater: So very speedy and angry

Trilogy is the current theme du jour of Hollywood these past 10 years or so. Understandable: by keeping a movie series in three, you can insure that an interested audience will come back to see the sequel, you can allow sequels to be open enough for new patrons and a skilled director can usually pare down the bad from the good, thus preventing the series from needing to run over and over into obscurity.

Hit the jump and allow me to educate you on the movie series that is both fast and furious. And yes, I can sum up all four movies in one review. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: So very speedy and angry

The McBournie Minute: Still churning out crap, just a different shade

I’m not really sure what kind of a world we live in, anymore–at least as far as movies are concerned. Judd Apatow makes a serious (and disappointing) movie, Johnny Depp and Michael Mann somehow manage to flop at the box office, and some alien-Guantanamo thing is #1. What the hell?

The country right now is all about sequels or related spin-offs. Just take a gander at Transformers 2: Revenge of the Volume Dial and G.I. Joe. Hasbro is trying to get their nostalgia products formed into a movie genre aimed at the 25 and under crowd, plus toy sales. I get that movie makers want to stick with franchises that work, but do we really need a G.I. Joe 2?

Instead, let’s go with another Hasbro toy: Play-Doh. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Still churning out crap, just a different shade

You Missed It: Introspective Monologue edition

Hey, guess what? I’m about to head out for week-long vacation. It’s so close I can taste it. You know how that is, right? I’m just counting the minutes until I’m out of here.

Sound familiar? That’s probably because it’s true yet again. Like Bryan McBournie from last week, I’ll be off next week. But let’s be honest, that’s neither here nor there. If you were feeling absolutely dejected because you couldn’t tweet that Facebook was down, odds are you missed it.

It was a sad day for film fans, but a golden age for boom-box salesmen
Legendary director John Hughes has passed away. The man behind many classic movies of the 80’s, like National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Hughes seemingly dropped off the radar during the the following decades. No hyperbole intended, but the man truly shaped the sensibilities, style, humor, and outlook of an entire generation of Americans. While it’s regretful that the style of many of those Americans involved jean jackets and legwarmers, what’s even more regretful is that we’re still stuck with people like Brett Ratner.

Superman. The Sentry. Supreme. Marvelman. William Jefferson Clinton.
Yes, the same former President Clinton that, during his time in office, was brought up in an impeachment trial, negotiated with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Ill in North Korea for the release of two American journalists that were held in the country for 5 months. Clinton came back to the United States with two journalists in tow, and has become the latest modern day superhero. While we don’t exactly know what was said during the negotiations, we do know one thing: he did not have sexual relations with that country’s leader.

What, you really thought we were done with the virus?
Beef Packers Inc. has recalled approximately 826, 000 pounds of ground beef products due to a possible outbreak of salmonella in said products. The theory being posited is that recent outbreaks among 11 states can be linked to the same company, though whether the fault lies with the packing company or the distribution company remains to be seen. Seeing as how salmonella has now made its way through a minimum of 75% of the food that I put into my body on a regular basis, it’s a miracle that I’m still alive.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Funny People’

Comedy is always serious business, whether the joke is on the funnyman with the pie in the kisser or the woman trying, really trying, to fall for the schnook who didn’t use the condom. Funny People, the latest from Judd Apatow, the director of the hit comedies Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and a prolific producer, is being pitched as a bid at gravity, earnestness, adulthood, whatever. It’s an angle that sounds as if it had been cooked up by a studio flack to explain how words like divorce and death got tangled in with all the penis (and thereabouts) jokes. But the only difference is that now, Judd Apatow also seems almost lethally serious about being Judd Apatow.

Which is kind of ironic, considering the Judd Apatow name has essentially become synonymous with a new style of comedy. While Apatow has only directed 3 films including Funny People, he has written and produced countless films such as Anchorman, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express-each movie carrying a distinct comedic style known as Apatow comedy. The stories all have similar themes, man children trying to grow up, hot chicks liking geeky guys, hard-core bromance; essentially coming of age stories for adults.

So the question is does Funny People live up to the Apatow legacy? Honestly, like this movie, the answer is a conundrum. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Funny People’

You Missed It: What about white guys? edition

If you are reading this, odds are you are not on vacation right now. That’s a good thing, because I am not either, yet it seems that half the world has decided to take their vacation now. If I have to suffer, I’m glad you’re here to suffer with me. If you were busy getting psyched up for the anniversary of the moon landing this week, odds are you missed it.

Next up on C-SPAN theater
Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor faced several days of senators trying to get in the best sound bite while wrapping it up somehow in the form of a question. In response, Sotomayor responded in an honest, totally not-coached way. But through it all, the most important issue emerged: Sotomayor, pinned by questions, was forced to admit that she is in fact a “Latina woman.”

Oh yeah? Well ‘The Dark Knight’ still holds the top spot!
The latest Harry Potter movie, which we believe has something to do with Harry Potter and a prince of half-blood–or something along those lines, brought in $58 million in a single day, making it the best opening for any of the series, and fourth of any movie ever released. This just goes to show, if you make a movie about a kid’s book exciting enough for children, but dark enough and sexy enough for adults, both demographics will meet in a creepy, creepy middle.

If I have to watch that “Roosevelts” Taco Bell commercial one more time …
Major League Baseball, for the most part, was on a break earlier this week, but fortunately, your baseball viewing was in overtime. The Home Run Derby lasted nearly a fortnight, which resulted in Chris Berman running out of “Back back back back”s (followed by the celebrity softball game, which you know you stuck around for), while the All-Star Game itself clocked in at under three hours. Say, did you know that Albert Pujols plays for the St. Louis Cardinals, where the All-Star Game was being played? Did you know that Fox announcer Joe “Slamalama Ding-Dong” Buck’s father was a famous announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, where the All-Star Game was being played? In case you didn’t, ESPN and FOX saw to it to remind you once or twice.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Transformers’

Hey there readers. Chugs has had a ridiculously heavy week at work, and frankly, is frazzled at a creative standpoint. Truth told, that sentence may not have actually made any sense, or at least, the last part of it didn’t seem to. It doesn’t help that he’s still got stuff on his plate for the rest of the week. In the meantime, why don’t you enjoy a classic review of his? At least you can see what a good Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay is-as opposed to a more recent one.

Let the review for Transformers, the 2007 Bay-centric version, begin! By the way, there will probably be a few spoilers here and there, so heed that as the warning.

Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Transformers’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Born on the Fourth of July’

Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July is not an adaptation of the memoir by Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, though that’s what the credits indicate. It’s most certainly based on it, but it’s not necessarily an adaptation of the memoir. It’s an indulgent style showcase for Stone, who, with his longtime cinematographer Robert Richardson, employs every act of film trickery imaginable that doesn’t involve CGI effects. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Born on the Fourth of July’

MasterChugs Theater: What was that?

I’m gonna go ahead and precede this week’s article with an all general possibility for being Not Safe For Work (NSFW). I have no idea what your employer’s views are on employee bandwidth usage. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

In a world, ravaged by the shards of time, thought long ago, with the future hanging in the balance, one man set out to enjoy a movie trailer without seeing cliche after cliche and cliche.

He was unsuccessful. Click the jump to find out why. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: What was that?

MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Hangover’

If you’re reading this and haven’t seen The Hangover yet, then I am very disappointed in you. And not in the good way, but in the “Dad’s not mad, just disappointed in you” kind of way.

Go. Leave now. Stop reading this and head to the nearest theater now.

You’re still here, aren’t you. Sigh. Okay, well, if you’re going to persist in this, you might as well read on to find out exactly why you should seeing this movie. Hit the jump for knowledge!  Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Hangover’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Terminator Salvation’

25 years.

That’s how long we’ve been hearing about humanity’s war against the machines, a battle James Cameron first initiated in 1984 when he sent Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to terminate an unsuspecting Linda Hamilton. Armageddon was averted—and then triggered—in subsequent sequels before arriving at this movie. But our predestined, apocalyptic future looks a lot like products from Hollywood’s past. Specifically, imagine the love child of Mad Max and The Matrix as delivered by Michael Bay, and you’re beginning to get the picture.

McG is a director with an above-average eye and an original instinct for camera placement. To his credit, he’s not one of those lazy types who think they can generate excitement in an action sequence by shaking the camera or kicking it. But he has a major weakness as a filmmaker, and that weakness is all over Terminator Salvation: His grand, elaborate visual sense is completely detached from his brain.

So what we end up with is a filmmaker who gets it right in all the small ways, meticulously crafting bits of action – showing what it might be like, for example, to be inside a crashing helicopter. But in all the big ways, he’s so lost that the movie becomes comical. He piles action blowout on top of blowout. When in doubt, he increases the scale. Explosions get larger, fireballs bigger. The machines become increasingly resilient, as the soundtrack goes right up to your ears and keeps pounding.

Yet nothing he does can distract us from the fact that he barely has a story to tell. The only question is, was he covering for the absence of story, or did he actually not notice the lack of one? Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Terminator Salvation’