avcsmovies

[avcsmovies]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

I really liked this movie!!! It was good and fun and entertaining. And yes, I am a fan of the original Turtles movies, the original Turtles cartoon, and practically wore out my VHS copy of the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour which you should really watchif you want to be a true expert on the canon. And yes, I also know what movies are and have seen many of them. I still think this was a good movie!

This movie follows our four reptilian heroes as they take on Shredder AND his new pal Krang who is appropriately menacing but significantly less funny and wet sounding than in the cartoon. Beebop and Rocksteady get whole origin stories which is fun. They're funny.

Tyler Perry is there and does a good job of acting and getting dragged around and being disappointed and excited and all those emotions.

Megan Fox essentially drops the conceit that April O'Neil is a reporter and runs around gathering intel like a damn super spy using what else but her SEXUALITY. And I dunno, maybe it's because I'm 30 and more secure in myself as a person, but good for her, ya know? She's hot and she knows it and she's workin it. Go Megan!

The key other things that made this movie good for me: the pacing was good! There weren't any action sequences where I found myself tuning out, the dialogue was clever and funny, the plot made basic sense. Also Michaelangelo got real-life big-time laughs outta me which means they did him right. I still haven't fully gotten over how they took all the sex appeal out of Donatello but he's entertaining enough in this one.

The only thing that made this movie bad for me: Casey Jones.

I fucking hate Casey Jones, you guys. Always have. I get that if you are a human dude he was the guy you probably looked up to as like a SEXUAL hero within the Turtles world, on account of none of the Turtles having penises (and Splinter having but only a rat penis). But guys, he is a ridiculously boring character in most of his forms, especially this one. This character has always wished he was Han Solo but sorry, dude, your name is Casey and you don't have a space ship. Also his special ability is, ready for it? Hockey. Being good at hockey. In this movie Jones is a corrections officer who IS GOING TO TAKE THE DETECTIVES EXAM and he'll show you, he'll show all of you AS SOON AS IT'S TIME FOR THE DETECTIVES EXAM. Unfortunately the way he seems interested in preparing for this exam is by going off to track down Beebop and Rocksteady on his own whilst off duty using ONLY his hockey equipment as weapons. He also drives a cool Dodge which appears to handle well and is probably available at your nearest Dodge dealer.

Also FYI the stick Jones uses is not a goalie stick, but he does wear a goalie mask, so ok he's a hockey based character that assumes no one in the audience dated a semi-professional hockey player for 4 years ok movie sure psh nice try. At one point he makes rollerblades for himself. I won't spoil how, you wouldn't believe me. But trust me, fuck Casey Jones.

Ok but back to good things: Laura Linney is in this movie! Laura Linney (America's kind aunt who will give you sex advice over tea) is there playing a hard as nails police chief. And she does good! Though at the end she gets an inadvertant laugh when she insists to the Turtles that "you could live normal lives!" Oh Laura, you're so hopeful and warm and naive. Anyway, no dogs die and four turtles save the day. I give it 5/5 delicious slices of NY pizza! Cowabunga!!

[avcsmovies]

The Jungle Book

This is not at all a book, not even a little bit. Not even kind of. At the end they pretend they are closing a book, but there is no actually reading done at any point throughout what is definitely a movie and not a book.

If you can get past that, I have to warn you that a dog does die in this movie. It's killed by a very bad kitty. However, making up for this is the fact that this movie is full of wonderful puppies who come to no harm (physically, sometimes the puppies are sad and this was the hardest part of my year.)

For those of you unaware, this is a tale of a young boy fleeing a very bad kitty with a very good kitty who is his friend. Bill Murray shows up as a bear and says lots of Bill Murray things like "Man" and "Hey".

At one point, he has to flee a giant monkey king in a scene I am certain would've given me years of nightmares had I seen this as a child. So many poor children are going to live with an irrational fear of Christopher Walken for the rest of their lives.

That only kind of makes up for the fact that this book is a trick movie and also features a dog death, so I give it a medium.

[avcsmovies]

Batman Vs Superman

Ok, spoiler alert: Batman’s parents are dead. Sorry kid, that’s what happens when your dad’s first instinct is to PUNCH a man who has a GUN in his FACE. Get a smarter dad next time.

Also, you know how Batman’s whole thing is that he fights crime but doesn’t kill? Yeah fuck that this Batman murders everyone without blinking. Except for like, the sex traffickers. He just brands them and then they get killed by other inmates in jail because the mark is a “death sentence”. Which is weird because you’d think a criminal who got caught by Batman would be tougher than a criminal who was just brought in on trumped up drug charges but whatever. Oh also in this movie Batman eats a LOT of carbs apparently. So.

The opening of the movie is Superman fighting General Zod and laying waste to Metropolis as Bruce Wayne rushes to his office to presumably save his employees. He has to call them and tell them to leave the building. And, as all the other skyscrapers in the city crumble around them they shrug and go “well I guess if the boss insists, we should evacuate!” Except for Jack. Jack is I guess super worried that FedEx might need to deliver something and there’ll be no one to sign for it, so he stays behind in the office. He dies.

Bruce Wayne is very sad that so many of his employees are killed when the fighting destroys his company’s precious Metropolis branch, and his distrust of Superman begins!

Now, at this point in the review I have to tell you that this is a **two and a half hour long movie**. So I won’t take you through everything that happened because a good 60% of it didn’t even need to.

I WILL however tell you about the things I appreciated:

Laurence Fishburn is adamant about the price of apples. They don’t cost a nickle, not in HIS office, not anywhere.

Metropolis is Jersey City. Gotham is Manhattan. So we finally figure that out.

Lex Luthor’s assistant needs a sandwich or something. At least a smoothie. I DON'T MEAN TO BODY SHAME JUST EAT SOMETHING PLEASE.

Lex Luthor himself is actually very crazy and not in a fun, deliciously devious way. In a “I can’t follow most of your dialogue” kind of way. His last line of the movie is "ding ding ding ding ding ding."

The people who hate Superman in this movie are the most uncreative sign writers ever: “God Hates Aliens”? “SuperDEATH”? Maybe these people deserve to be enslaved.

The death of Batman’s employees convinces him that in the future, Superman is going to destroy Earth and rule the ashes with a gang of locust-people. It seemed like a lot of conclusions to jump to from where I was sitting but no one pays me to write anything so I can’t judge. The Flash (I think) then appears in a cloud of lightning to tell him that Superman’s weakness is Lois Lane. Which is a tidbit of knowledge Batman never uses at any point in the film at all and ends up basically discovering organically later on anyway so, sorry you made the trip, Barry.

Bruce Wayne trains for his big fight with Superman by hitting a tire over and over again with a hammer.

Wonder Woman spends most of the movie deciding if she wants to be in it. She’s mostly off to the side casting meaningful glances, sizing up whether or not the scene she’s in is any good. It usually isn’t so she leaves. But once Superman and Batman finish up their dick measuring contest she decides to jump in there with her huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge cock and fuck everyone’s shit up. This was the coolest part of the whole movie and the only part the audience reacted to. It was as though we'd all been spending years sitting through movies about Batman and Superman and were grateful to finally see someone new and cool and interesting. Like honestly she could’ve killed that Doomsday guy herself. But, ya know, sometimes you have to let your boyfriend win just so he can feel like a man.

Batman ultimately decides to forgive Superman for everything and be his friend because he realizes their moms have the same name. There’s no joke here, just facts. Honestly the biggest problem with this movie is that most of the characters' motivations seem to be "because it's in the script."

The end of the movie is about half an hour of letting the audience know they’ll be spending another $20 to see more of this soon.

I’m certain many dogs died in this film, they had to have, since many homes where dogs probably live were destroyed. But I didn’t see it and the movie kept me entertained enough to not imagine it. So this was an ok movie.

[avcsmovies]

10 Cloverfield Lane

John Goodman is a good actor. No dogs die.

[avcsmovies]

Gods of Egypt

So, you've seen The Lion King, right?

This movie is essentially The Lion King, but like instead of lions it's a buttload of (mostly) white people playing African gods. And when I say African gods I mean giants who are also animorphs and aren't immortal but they live for 1,000 years so as far as you're concerned shut up. (Oh you can also stab them with anything and they die heads up.)

Ok so at the beginning of the movie a woman behind me took two photos of herself with the flash on. TWO. Now that I know she exists, Donald Trump doesn't seem so bad.

The hero of the story is Bek, a human thief, and his girlfriend who I could only think of as Hot Boobs because oh my god you guys, her boobs were so hot. Like, I have boobs. I see boobs every day. Boobs do not mystify me. But man, she had some great boobs!

So Bek and Hot Boobs have to help Horace who is played by Jamie Lannister win the crown of Egypt back from Gerard Butler who rolled in with his general accent and killed Mufasa and ruined the pride lands.

Hot Boobs gets killed by getting shot right in her hot boobs but Bek convinces Horace to bring her back to life in exchange for his help which is thoughtful.

Then the photo-taking woman behind me proceeded to talk to her boyfriend in a normal speaking voice through the entire movie. I guess the dumpster she crawled out of was filled with water from the day's rain and she had to shell out $25 for a 3D movie ticket to have a place to chat with a visitor.

So anyway. The movie LOOKS very cool. It's mostly green screen with lots of cool Egypt stuff. It's like if someone tried to make 300 but didn't care QUITE as much. I was into it.

They visit the international space station where Geoffrey Rush has to fight a giant worm every night. So that's fun. We find out in this scene that the Earth is actually flat, so B.o.B was right, you fools!

Horace and Bek also have to flee lots of bad people like the two bad ladies who ride GIANT snakes and when they set one of the snakes on fire it exploded. Like a gas truck. It's a true adventure!

At the end they stop Gerard Butler from letting the worm drink the entire Nile and ending the world! (This movie takes place long before humans were aware of places outside Egypt. Like this was before everyone knew about Barcelona.)

Horace and Bek win the day with The Power of Friendship and also by Having Integrity, which is a good lesson for kids but I think a more useful lesson is DON'T TALK LOUDLY AND TAKE FLASH PHOTOS IN A MOVIE YOU FUCKING JAG! I hope that woman is dead today.

I enjoyed this film because there is a talking dog named Anubis who doesn't die and is actually a hero dog with a job who is a very good doggy!!

#godsofegypt

[avcsmovies]

Hail, Ceasar!

I liked it!

Like all Cohen bros stuff it's the kind of thing where for the first 40% of the movie you're like "oh man, will this all tie together? lots of set up here. this is starting to stress me out. oh yikes." But then, it does!

It's a delightful tale of a bunch of angry writers schemeing against a big Hollywood studio for money that ends up doing no one any good. There are a lot of goofy characters and silly gags that gave me the yuk yuks.

Tilda Swinton plays two different people!

This is probably the first time I've seen a depiction of Los Angeles in the 50's that didn't creep me the fuck out. At least since Who Framed Roger Rabbit. So there it is, this is the best movie since Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

I think my favorite part was when Channing Tatum did a gay dance. I really like him and I bet if we met, we'd be friends.

Josh Brolin gives a really great monologue at the end about sucking it up and just kind of doing your job even though it's all bullshit if you think too much. Then he gets to hit George Clooney which is everyone's dream, right? We all dream of causing George Clooney some kind of temporary pain, right? Not enough to really injure him, but just enough so that HE KNOWS.

A whole bunch of people watch a suitcase full of money sink to the bottom of the ocean in an effort to avoid letting a dog even get wet so this is probably the best movie I've seen all year.

#hail ceasar

[avcsmovies]

London Has Fallen

Boy did it! Man, London really got the shit kicked out of it. Like, YIKES. Like, WHOA. Like, hey maybe have one plan? Just one? Based on this movie it doesn't even appear that England has a standing army which is concerning in our current climate. Well, they do, but their army is like 8 dudes with no car and their leader looks like Simon Pegg but like a Simon Pegg you'd be slightly more afraid of in a fight.

So basically this is a movie about Gerard Butler (I'm sure they gave his character a name but sorry screenwriters I ignored it) pretending to be an American so he can have a job defending the president as an excuse to horribly murder people. I think. I mean the murdering is clearly his favorite part of the job. Which I guess is good if you're the president's only bodyguard and the president is constantly ON THE RUN.

The president is played by that guy from I, Frankenstein. (But I liked to picture him as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump depending on how fast he was having to run. That's how I get my kicks.)

Also ANGELA BASSET DIES FOR LIKE 20 MINUTES. I guess that's a spoiler. Sorry. But Jesus Christ she got a lot of last words. She got like a last paragraph. I mean good for her for hanging on even though she was impaled on a helicopter but also Jesus.

This movie was like playing Call of Duty but less fun. But I guess it doesn't take as long and gets you outta the house. I'd see it again if I had a laptop to goof around on during.

No dogs died THAT I SAW.

#londonhasfallen

[avcsmovies]

The Witch

Hardly. I mean, kind of. You see the witch like 3 times. She's pretty icky. But if like me you're really into The Craft and were hoping for more WITCH SHIT this is a real let down. Sure there's some dancing and chanting around a fire but they're naked and not wearing cool goth shit so like, meh.

Also? Not scary. And I get scared, y'all. Like if this was 1960 and we were doling out super-offensive Native American names mine would be Sleeps With Light On because I DO. But I was not scared by this movie. To be fair I covered my eyes at what might have been the one scary part, so I can't really KNOW, but if I even have enough warning to do that, it's telling.

So basically this is a story about a FAMILY (ugh) who are living in the woods having been kicked the fuck out of the Massachusettes Bay Colony for having even less chill than they do. So. They do not party.

They set up shop in the wilderness and have like a full house pretty quick which is impressive for a family with 1 dad and only 2 small child sons. Not to be sexist but that seems like it'd be hard, whatever. I think what I was supposed to be focusing on here was the forboding music (screaming) that tells us they're pretty fucked or about to be.

So they get all tormented by a witch who lives in the woods because I guess that's just what you do when you're a witch. And this was before people had cable so I bet if you lived alone in the woods fucking with people outside the woods would be your #1 hobby. Also they fucking refuse to stay out of the woods even though they know a witch is in there. If I were a witch that would piss me off. She did steal their baby though which is rude.

Also there's a goat behind a lot of stuff which makes sense because goats are satan and it's weird that they even have them. Like, have cows?

A dog dies horribly so ultimately fuck this movie? Yeah fuck this movie.