The Master

This movie, I don't know. It didn't have much of a story, and I prefer stories over "atmosphere". But on the other hand, it was fairly compelling, so I didn't get bored or annoyed until the last half hour. Then I got bored AND annoyed. What do you guys think Philip Seymour Hoffman smells like? I bet he smells weird.

Oh also don't go to the Hillcrest movie theater in San Diego unless you want to get in a fight with a weird jerk girl at the popcorn counter. Even if you win, WHICH I DID, you will be irritated with your moviegoing experience. Don't get me started on the La Jolla Arclight. What a pile of shit.

Twilight: THE END

The Twilight films always make me squirm awkwardly in my seat, and the final chapter was no exception.  I was less squirmy than with the first Breaking Dawn movie (seriuosly, the end of that one...yikes), but this one had its share of awkward moments and horrible acting. 

I have to give credit where its due though, and admit that I was TOTALLY HAD by the ending, and am deeply shamed about it.

Favorite friend quote during the film goes to Margo, who commented as Bella and Edward entered their fairy tale cottage: "I think they need more lamps."  (Seriously, someone go count the lamps/light fixtures in that place.  IT IS CRAZY.)

All in all, this film actually wasn't terrible, though I suspect that my indifference to it has more to do with the fun I had seeing it with my friends than anything having to do with the movie itself.

Brave (DVD review)

I was a total slacker pants and didn't see Brave in the theater (even though I really, really wanted to), so I had to wait until it came out on DVD.

People--what was I thinking?  This was HILARIOUS.  God, I love Pixar.  Seriously--they have a way of writing not only a good story, but rounding it out with scary, funny, and poignant moments.  PAY ATTENTION FILMMAKERS.

Anyway, I rented this to watch it, and now I have to go buy it.  The characters are great, and our cocky heroine grows throughout the story through her mistakes.  There's also not a sappy prince/princess love story to deal with (though one could argue there's still a love story of a different sort).  Ah, I adored it.  Pixar continues to please me. 

Wreck It Ralph

It will come as a surprise to NO ONE that I liked this, seeing as its a Disney cartoon about video games. 

Wreck It Ralph is both cute and funny.  Yes, the character voiced by Jane Lynch is essentially her character from Glee, but it works as part of the video game world.  The movie makes fun of itself and video games without coming off as cheesy or hokey.  Excellent voice acting by John C. Reilly (who I love anyway), and Sarah Silverman, and I was pleasantly surprised by Jack McBrayer (Kenneth from 30 Rock) and Alan Tudyk.  Good work, team!

Hotel Transylvania

As I love both Halloween AND cartoons, I had high expectations for this movie.  I left feeling a little disappointed.

I'd only seen a couple of previews, and hadn't looked up the cast, but pretty early on I realized that the voice of Dracula was totally Adam Sandler, and then I couldn't stop HEARING/SEEING Adam Sandler.  It ended up being distracting, and sometimes obnoxious.

That being said, this movie had cute moments, and several laugh-out-loud funny ones, but it still relied far too much on fart jokes (seriously, within the first 5 minutes!)  Apparently kids these days aren't savvy and still love fart jokes.  I put this cartoon solidly in the middle of the pack.  I was mostly entertained and didn't hate it, but it had the potential to be so much better.

OH SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT THE EXPENDABLES 2!

Remember that part in the first Expendables where Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis meet in a church and proceed to create the most amazingly bad scene in the history of cinema? The Expendables 2 is that scene drawn out for 90 minutes. It's not pretty. Most of this movie is a terrible, lazy pastiche of awkward moments where old men--OSTENSIBLY ACTORS--struggle to deliver simple lines without looking right at the camera, forgetting half the words, or peeing their pants. The explosions aren't as good as in the first movie, and Terry Crews doesn't get to do enough awesome stuff. Jean-Claude Van Damme is a little piece of heaven, though, since he can actually act and seems to be making an effort. He's also still in awesome shape, so the scene where Sylvester Stallone is supposed to "win" a fight with him is very silly indeed. Oh, and Bruce Willis is acceptable.

LOOPER BLOOPERS

You guys, Looper is really good. Normally I leave futuristic time travel movies at least a little bit angry at plot holes and inconsistencies, but I bought everything about this movie. It's really well done, with good pacing. JGL's Bruce Willis makeup wasn't even as distracting as I thought it was going to be, and the face he made the whole movie was VERY entertaining.

Don't bother sticking around after the credits to see the Looper bloopers. There aren't any. Which hasn't prevented me from yelling LOOPER BLOOPERS every 10 minutes ever since I saw this movie three days ago.

Samsara

Samsara is a movie shot in 70mm, with no dialogue, just atmospheric music and a bunch of great shots of people and places. It's neato and well worth watching. What I want to talk about, though, is the audience that was at this goddamn thing--I've never seen so much gentle bafflement at the very simple goings-on of the Hollywood Arclight. Basically, when you buy your ticket you pick which seats you want, then you look at the seat numbers on your ticket, and then you walk to those seats. It's pretty straightforward. Unless you're a very stoned, or possibly just very stupid, person with tickets to Samsara, and then what you do is sit in the wrong seat and get really confused when other people ask you to move out of their seats. The situation is exacerbated by the equally stoned or stupid nature of the people asking you to move, as everyone involved compares their tickets and stares really hard at the seat numbers and hunches around from row to row. It is a very entertaining thing to watch as a non-stoned member of the audience. Also, we didn't have to yell at anyone for texting, so I guess what I'm saying is this was the best audience that's ever been in a movie theater.

Searching for Sugarman

Oh boy is this a good movie. Maybe I'll only watch documentaries from now on. So it's about this guy Rodriguez, a folk singer from Detroit who made two amazing albums in the early 70s but disappeared because no one bought them. No one bought them in AMERICA ("The Place That Matters!") but apparently everyone in South Africa did, and he got huge there but never knew it. Hijinx ensue, courtesy of some awesome and very sweet South African music nerds, and the rest of the story is more compelling and wonderful than the last 18 CGI mess blockbusters I've seen all put together.

Searching for Sugarman!

Killer Joe

My brother and his girlfriend and I walked out of Killer Joe after literally two minutes, so I can't really review the whole movie. I can tell you the first two minutes are FUCKING TERRIBLE.

We scooted over to the next theater and watched Searching for Sugarman instead.

TO BE CONTINUED???