The Worst Library on the Internet
Horror often gets its balls cut off. Many of the entries in the genre are just this side of comedy, relegated even to jokes like the Chuckie scene in Ready Player One. True horror, the existential dread of life, seems to have been pushed aside in favor of jump scares and cheering when teenagers get hacked apart. Few movies contemplate a horror like the Autopsy of Jane Doe.
Read MoreOne night after a hurricane I had fled to the mountains. Deep in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains, I lay down in an old cabin tent my dad gave me. It leaks a little, but it's clear tonight. A few campsites away, a baby cries. The mother soothes the baby with a low humming rendition of "What A Wonderful World." And then a thing ate it. That's the Blair Witch.
Read MoreWhat do you do when a movie actively wants you to hate the main character? They cast a charming person then have him make a decidedly human yet wrong decision and then leave us to deal with it. I haven't been this conflicted since that Jude Law remake of Alfie. Damn you, Chris Pratt. You could have been a good villain.
Read MoreWhen you can't get Jack the Ripper, get this guy.
Read MoreThe movie business had a lot of shit going on
Read MoreWhen people sit down to make movies, they don't say "Let's stink up the joint." It doesn't matter if they don't say it, though, because more often than that they crap the toaster. Masterminds aims for middling humor and falls short.
The plan was simple: dumbass David Ghantt (Galifianakis) is to use his armoured car job to hijack millions of dollars. Then he runs to Mexico and hides out. Soon his lady love (Wiig) follows, and they live the big life after the man with the plan (Wilson) sends them their cut of the cash. Then it all goes to hell.
When the Berlin school began developing Gestalt theories of psychology, they did not reckon on so many right pieces creating such a wrong whole. The acting is solid with Galifianakis and Wiig pulling off convincing dumbass yet lovestruck roles. Even Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis come off as menacing evil doers. The plot meanders but is pretty straight forward. Moments come that are hilarious, I remember laughing, but none of them come to mind now.
In my capacity as a guy who watches movies and then pretends to give and honest opinion, I can't recommend you watch this. I can not say to log into Netflix, now $9.99, and find for "Masterminds" using their simplified search feature. Netflix, for when you want to watch something on your television through the internet.
Indie movies are fascinating to me. They can be god awful in every respect but if there's heart there, I give them a pass. If I hear they were a plucky youtube upstart, I'll watch with a lot more room on my plate than if they were studio backed. However, I often trust my fellow sheeple out there reviewing things to give me general consensus if movies are good or bad. The pack is often correct. This time not so much.
Here's the plot: a bunch of guys used to making five minute sketches for the internet strung together a bunch of those sketches into barely feature film length. The Harker brothers, heir to the Dracula-killing Harker dynasty, are trying to raise money to keep their family's house or something. I stopped caring. At some point vampires show up and people die.
The acting is vaudeville at best and Birdemic at worst. I say that because the only recognizable star is the lady from Birdemic whose name escapes me because she's the lady from Birdemic and I've got brain cancer. The slapstick starts in the front and continues to the end, each actor hamming it up louder than the previous. A straight man among the principle cast would have helped me figure out if these characters were wacky or if the world had melted around me into a looney goo of bloody fart jokes. They did get me a few times with surprise gags that jumped out like cats from dark corners.
Overall, I feel that the Amazon rating system is flawed. When have the mass of people made such a horrible decision? And in the year 2016, no less?
I'm referencing the 2016 presidential electoral election of 2016, by the way.
I don't have brain cancer.
Going home is hard. In this life, our new generations has decided that home is an expansive topic and we create our own families bereft of blood. So recreating those cobbled relationships after devastation is frightening as the people we choose choose different paths.
Will and his girlfriend attend a party given by his ex-wife Eden and her new husband as well as all their friends. The gang hasn't all been together since Will and Eden separated and find it awkward, especially when Eden starts talking crazy cult nonsense and shows a snuff film. Are Eden and her new husband in a murder cult or is Will just seeing an imagined spectral trail of insanity stemming from deep trama?
I'm not answering that fucking question because the truth is kinda amazing. Director Karyn Kusama has lacked some punch in her previous directorial efforts, especially the high profile and campy fun Jennifer's Body, but man… The suspense and tension in this movie as you wonder what the hell is going on builds and builds. Just a crazy good story.
Not sure how to end this. Wanna talk about the ending? Well, you see, after everything goes down and all the secrets are
Ever said something you wish you could take back and then a small town tries to get you to solve its problems by making you an indentured servant? That happens in this holiday shit show.
Lori Loughlin stars as Scrooget, an on air personality sorta like Ellen if Ellen was unlikable. One day, Scrooget lets it fly to the nation that she hates Christmas. Because ratings are king, she's forced to go with her producer to a small town to see how they get Christmas spirited.
Oh, you think it's as simple as "she gets some small town values and learns to love again?" Fuck you, you simpleton.
Scrooget has a bunch of problems, rivaled only by the town that calls her to its broken shores. First, her dad left her years back after her mom died (or something, I forget) and that's why she hates Christmas. Second, her producer (the likable Colin Ferguson who was awesome on Eureka) is also her ex-boyfriend who she dumped a long time ago and still holds a torch for. Finally, there's some weird thing about the tree in the center of town being missing. Mystery Time!
Here's how all those stories get wrapped up: Her dad shows up and she freaks out but forgives him. They get trapped in the snow and fall back in love because you saw that coming. And the tree is missing because (this will be a long sentence) the man whose family used to send the tree to the town is in a depressive spiral and no longer celebrating Christmas after his wife and child died in a car accident last Christmas which is why the town decided to call up Scrooget and get her to "learn about small town Christmas" AKA "show on the tv that our town loves Christmas and wants the depressive widower to come back to them."
Don't read that all out loud without taking a drink first. To say that this "movie" takes some weird ass turns that are way dark for a Christmas movie is to also say that drinking drain cleaner is a bad idea. It's bonkers with a scheme worthy of a crack addicted Batman villain.
HOLY SHIT. I just learned that the depressive guy is Willie Aames. I take it all back to get a Charles In Charge alum back here. Besides Scott Baio because, well, just no.