Movie Review: Unfriended (2015) - Social Commentary or Stupid Horror Movie? Spoiler Alert it's the second one.

Forgive the lack of posts lately, April has been kind of a hectic month for me both professionally and emotionally, plus the lack of any real stand out movies in the past little while have left me with not much to watch. I’ve been on a bit of a dvd binge plus I’ve been doing a little table top gaming and man I should really stop trying to avoid talking about today’s review Unfriended. Fuck it let’s get it over with.

Plot Summary - On the anniversary of the suicide of a student named Laura Barns, Six friends are connected together via Skype Call by an unknown person, who starts threatening to kill them if they do not reveal who posted an embarrassing video of Laura that ultimately led to her suicide. At first thinking it’s all a joke, the mystery person slowly reveals to them just how real it all actually is.

Pros - The only thing I can positively comment on (and I use the term loosely) is the acting and the dialogue. From what I’ve heard it’s mostly ad libbed so while at some points it just devolves into loud swearing it does feel realistic and the cast does do well convincing you that they are indeed terrified.

Cons (SPOILER ALERTS) - First: The elephant in the room of “But it’s social commentary it can’t be that bad right?” Yes it can. See the thing about social commentary is you can say whatever point you want with your story, but if you end up actually either undermining or lessening the impact of your message with the way you tell your story, you can end up rendering it altogether mute. At the end of the film the video poster is revealed and the killer says that they have to now live with what they have done forever, a very powerful and effective move and where the film should have ended…….but then they add in one more cheap jump scare that is basically the person getting killed. That is an ending the SCREAMS studio mandate and if the filmmakers really cared about their message they would’ve told the studio to fuck off and not have added that stupid ending.

Second: The way the film is seen, while interesting in theory, is really stupid. You basically are watching the desktop of one of the people (who if you look around enough on the screen will also tell you who posted the video) and while they try to keep it from going stale by changing what we see, you’re still watching someone fuck around on their computer.

Third: The movie is afraid to go all out with the carnage. If you’ve seen the trailer you’ve seen the goriest part of the film already. Most of the kills are off screen with a couple of quick flashes every few seconds. It’s fucking boring.

Fourth: The killer is hinted to be the ghost of Laura. And while I get that killing people through their computers if they tend to use them a lot would be an easy way of doing, it’s still really fucking stupid.

Fifth and Final: it takes 45 minutes for someone to die in a 90 minute movie, and you don’t even get to see how they die. Waste of fucking time.

Final Solution - 1/10

The two things it does well are so overshadowed by just how mind numbingly dumb and stupid the rest of it is.  Unless you’re a fan of lame jump scares avoid it.

I can actually tell you what the next review is going to be and when. The documentary film Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. I have the day off Monday and that’s when it happens to be playing.

So until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.

Movie Review: Home (2015) - Boy I couldn't wait to go home when this was done.

Okay, you ever find yourself with sometime to kill before you gotta go do something so you just go see whatever movie is playing? Yeah that’s why I saw home.

Plot Summary - The Boov, running from their enemy the Gorgs, decide to choose earth as their new home and after commencing a friendly invasion and moving all the humans to Australia, the Boov move in and take over the earth. Oh (Jim Parsons) is a Boov who tries to make friends but mostly drives other Boov away. Not far from him, a human girl named Tip (Rihanna) who was separated from her mother tries to find her. Circumstances arise, the two of them team up, and do you even really care?

Pros - The scene where Tip meets up with her mom is sweet, The music isn’t bad, and the reason why the Grogs are chasing the Boov is surprisingly well thought out.

Cons - Jim Parsons is basically alien Sheldon, Rihanna is trying but failing to emote, and IT’S A TEN MINUTE PLOT WITH EIGHTY MINUTES OF THE SAME DUMB JOKES OVER AND OVER AND FUCKING OVER AGAIN!

Final Score - 2/10

If it wasn’t for the ending, it would be the worst kids movie I’d ever seen. Let’s all just pray Inside Out can live up to the potential.

I have no idea what I’m seeing next so until…...sometime soon, I’ll see you folks at the movies.

Movie Review: Furious 7 (2015) - Man, that title accurately describes what most people are probably going to be with me after this one...........

Okay, before we begin, although I hadn’t seen him in many films, Paul Walker’s death was indeed unfortunate. While I never was a big fan of his I had nothing against the man and the death of anybody caused by unnatural causes is always tragic. That being said, at the end of the day, I still analyze and review movies and I will not let any outside force sway my opinions on the films I watch. That being said, on with the review.

I wanna preface this review by declaring one thing that people might call me out on in regards to this review. Before this film, the only other one of these films I have seen in it’s entirety was Fast Five. Even then, I don’t remember most of it. So, before seeing Furious 7, I read plot summaries and watched review videos on the other films in the series (except for Tokyo Drift because even the series itself rarely acknowledges Tokyo Drift.) So I know who these characters are and their relationships to each other. For the most part though, I still didn’t care.

Plot Summary - Some time after the events of Furious 6 and picking up where Tokyo Drift ended, we find one of the members of Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) gang being killed by a man named Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), whose brother was hospitalized in Furious 6. The team then teams up with the CIA, who exchange for helping them find Shaw, gets Dom and his team to help them rescue a hacker named Ramsey and her program named God’s Eye.

Pros - My three favorite people in this movie are in the following order and why: Jason Statham, because he’s fucking Jason Statham that’s why and I am actually a really big fan of his. The Rock: although he was barely in the movie due to conflicts with filming Hercules he certainly made the most of it. Kurt Russell: For how little he was in it, he was honestly awesome.  The rest of the cast is clearly having fun, the fight scenes are well done and even some of the action scenes are okay.

Cons - Tyrese Gibson might be the worst actor I have seen in the longest fucking time. Cinemasins has this running joke where whenever he speaks they say “Yeah earn that paycheck Tyrese.” Hell I think they even put that on a shirt, and until I saw this movie I didn’t even think he was that bad. But mother of god, a whole movie with this guy I wanted to fucking scream. There’s this scene where he distracts people at a party by taking the mic and trying to be funny, yet nobody laughs in the entire scene. I like to think that they were told to laugh, but nobody actually found him to be funny.

The other big problem I have with this movie, is possibly the same one I have with transformers.  This movie is improbable, illogical, inconsistent, and really fucking stupid. The action scenes, while perfectly serviceable, are completely and utterly devoid of any tension and suspense whatsoever. Why? because either they leave every fucking crash and whatever either completely fine, or they die to the most random shit! Three cars driven by the main get shot at by missiles in this movie and the two ones that had nobody in them get hit and completely blow up. What happens to the third car when it gets hit when it has main characters in it? The rear of the car gets damaged and yet they don’t even flip over. WHERE’S THE FUCKING CONSISTENCY?!?!?!?!

You know what makes a good action scene in a good movie? I’ll give you an example.

In Die Hard, there’s a scene where John McClane has to grab a rope, jump off of a roof, and swing back into the building. Just as illogical to pull off as anything in these fast and furious movies, and yet I think that’s a really intense scene. Why? Because at this point in the movie, we’ve seen him get hurt over and over again, and yet still plow through.

A good action movie, beats the shit out of the heroes and yet they still get up and win in the end.

The fast and the furious movies are basically watching superman have bullets bounce off of him until he reaches the guy shooting him and wins. It’s cool, once. Having to watch it over and over again, I’d probably start screaming “SHOOT HIM WITH A KRYPTONITE BULLET YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS!” Yes people have died, but not from any of the shit that should kill them, but from random other bullshit. One guy died because his car flipped over and blew up, and another girl died because she fell off of car. Jason Statham, has a fucking garage floor fall on him, he’s fine. Vin Diesel crashes his car, and only goes unconscious for a few minutes before he’s revived by the power of love (*barfs uncontrollably.*) I’m sorry, as decent as the action scenes can be, I know they are going to come out completely unscathed, so I don’t care.

Oh, and Kurt Russell, does one cool thing for a grand total of five seconds, then he gets shot and leaves the movie. They wasted mother fucking Snake Plisken.

Despite all of that…….I can admit, that while this movie is clearly not for me….I can see the appeal. I have my dumb action movies that I really like that throws logic out of the window. Hell Crank is probably my favorite Jason Statham movie and my god is that movie full of dumb action. Yet, for reasons I honestly cannot explain, I love the shit out of that movie, and I know plenty of people who hate that movie. What I’m basically saying is, I get it, I just don’t like it.

Final Score - 5/10

I would’ve ranked this lower, but after a careful amount of thought, I will simply acknowledge that while I don’t like them, I can see the appeal.

So Mr. Diesel, if you ever see this, I’m sorry to say it, but unless the oscars get changed to american idol type voting in time for next year, don’t hold your breath for that best picture oscar. However, as a tribute to the man you call your brother, I think Paul is smiling down on you proud as hell, and you should take that comfort with you until you can meet up with him once again.

So until next time, I’ll see you guys at the movies.

Movie Review: It Follows (2015) - You should really look over your shoulder for this one

Quite a few years ago, I saw a little horror film called Insidious. Now, for the first two thirds of this film, I was actually quite terrified. It wasn’t the greatest horror film I’d ever seen but it was doing it’s job fairly well…..then the last third of the movie happened, and it was the stupidest thing I had ever witnessed in my entire life. The film took such a left turn into what the fuckery that it makes the last third of Chappie look subtle. It was because of this film that I skipped paranormal activity, and basically most other horror movies because I got sick of the stupid modern gimmick of cheap jump scares.

I could go into a whole thing about this, but I’ll stick to the short version of why the jump scare sucks balls.

A good horror film builds up the tension, and then slowly but surely drags the fear throughout you and should leave you feeling genuinely terrified regardless of what happens after that.

A jump scare, basically doesn’t have to build up tension, because jump scares are designed for a quick boo rather than a sense of dread. Instead of filling you with dread, it fills you with relief that it was over quickly. Where’s the challenge in that?

It’s basically comparing an emotional beating to an emotional sucker punch.

I could go further into this, but I said I’d keep it short.

So why am I talking about this? Well, because I saw a trailer for a little indie horror flick called It Follows, and after following the rotten tomatoes score of the film for a little while I decided I wanted to take a chance and try to find that passion for horror films once again, and holy shit, this movie delivered.

Plot Summary - After the film begins by showing the last moments of a Girl named Annie, our main character Jay Height (Maika Monroe) is introduced as we see her relationship with a guy named Hugh (Jake Weary). Everything is going well for the two of them, even after one date where Hugh has a strange moment at a theatre, eventually ending up with them having sex. Hugh then suddenly drugs Jay, and when she wakes up he tells her that he was cursed and that he has now passed it on to her. The curse goes like this: An entity will follow Jay at a walking pace, and if it reaches her it will kill her and go after the previous person who had the curse. It can take on the form of any human being and the cursed are the only people who can see it. After showing Jay the creature, he drops her off at her house and leaves her and her friends to try and find a solution.

Pros: Honestly, I just loved everything about this film. It’s a great simple premise that works so well because they don’t try and make it too complicated. What else do you really need to know besides hey there’s a creature that only you can see and it wants to kill you and it will stop at nothing. That prospect alone is fucking terrifying and they pull it off so well. Even the fact that the only way to get rid of it is by having sex with people makes it even worse because not only are you passing on something terrible to someone else, if the thing comes back for you you then know you’re the person responsible for getting someone else killed. It’s the best kind of horror scenario because there’s really no way to win and it just adds on to the tension. The idea of you and you alone having to look out for this thing for the rest of your life.

I loved every single thing about this movie, and I can already guarantee you this will be in the top ten.

Cons: The bus ride getting there being over an hour, there and back.

Final Score: 10/10

All I can say is, go see this movie. Seriously. Go see it, stop reading this and go see it NOW!

For those of you still reading though, I will be seeing Furious 7 most likely Sunday, and because of a gap in my work schedule, expect a surprise review on Wednesday.

Until next time, I’ll see you folks at the movies.