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???

Batman duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh Batman

The Dark Knight Rises is fine. Too much CGI. Not as good as the other Batmen. But fine.

Savages

This movie is basically the drug dealer version of Twilight,complete with irritating, one-dimensional characters and dialogue written by someone who appears to be legally retarded. What happens is, there is this beautiful romance between two dudes who grow pot and a really fucking annoying blonde girl. It all works, see, because they're all so different! Sensitive hippie dude is sensitive! Crazy violent Iraq war vet is crazy and violent! Dumb pretty blond girl is dumb and pretty! Together, they have a really awkward threesome relationship where either one person is sleeping alone every night or else there is far more homoerotic stuff going on than most straight guys would be comfortable with. I'm all for gender equality in terms of polyamorous relationships, but logistically I'm not buying this. I can't wait for the sequel, wherein dumb pretty blond girl reproduces but doesn't know which one is the father. Oh wait, I've already seen that - it was called My Two Dads. Anyway, everything is awesome until the goddamn Mexicans try to horn in on their business and decapitation and gunfights ensue. I am sorry to report that far fewer people die in this movie than deserve to. Oh, and John Travolta does some stuff.

Magic Mike!

There are some pretty awful things in this movie (the lead actress, the stupid club drug subplot, and anything that takes place outside of the strip club). But the great things (Matthew McConaughey, hot dudes doing stupid dances, Matthew McConaughey) are REALLY GREAT. Plus Soderbergh does show-offy director stuff like long shots with no cuts--check out the continuous-shot "stripper practice" scene (P.S. THERE'S A "STRIPPER PRACTICE" SCENE. HEY GUYS, SEE YOU AT "STRIPPER PRACTICE" TOMORROW!)--so that's pretty rad.

You guys, Matthew McConaughey is just the best thing. He's like a puppy riding a goddamn goat, that's how happy he makes me. That guy needs to win the Best Human award. Someday when I win the lottery I'm going to start a production company that only makes movies starring Matthew McConaughey and Nicolas Cage.

MAGIC MIKE!

Prometheus

I normally hate movies with vague storylines and lots of plot holes, so you'd think I would have hated Prometheus, because it's basically a billion plot holes held together with nice visuals and good actors. I knew it was going to be trouble as soon as I saw it was written by that guy who wrote Lost. That fucking show. I hate when writers set up too many complicated storylines that you know are never going to get tied up in any kind of satisfying way, so I bailed on Lost after the first season. But even through Prometheus is totally a mess story-wise, somehow I still liked it--it really looks great, and the pacing is perfect, and the performances are good, so I was entertained the whole time and actually do recommend it. After you see it, do me a favor and watch the Red Letter Media review. It covers everything.

Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom is pretty good. I like all Wes Anderson movies and really love some of them, but they were getting a little too twee even for me ("Too Twee for Me" is the title of my future autobiography), so I was glad when this one decided to have little kids handle most of the dialogue. The preciousness was much easier to take coming from children, and then I could concentrate on the set design, which was amazing as always. I also liked that the kids didn't seem like professional actors, so they were kind of mumbly and awkward. Don't worry, there's still a super-slow-motion "people walking somewhere" scene like in all Anderson movies. I really love that conceit and I hope he never stops doing it.

Movies I Don't Want to See: What to Expect When You're Expecting

We were in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago to see tiny singer-songwriter Paul Williams perform his greatest Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas-related songs, and it was great. The casino had a theater and we're too cheap to gamble, so after being all dressed up for the concert, we put on our sweatpants and went to see What to Expect When You're Expecting. Nobody wants to see this movie. It was exactly what we expected, so I can't really even get mad about it. I definitely can't spend the time it would take to list every thing that was horrible about it. And it's not like you need my warning to avoid this movie. If you saw it, you clearly also wanted to be eating movie popcorn in your sweatpants. And that's okay. Just don't let it happen again.

The Revengers

So bored by this nonsense. Two and a half hours is too long, especially when most of it is just CGI stuff bonking into other CGI stuff. That time would have been much better spent on Hulk ripping people in half and everyone else taking off their shirts.

Here's a picture of me watching this movie.

The Avengers

Holy shit, this was the best thing ever.