Monday, January 31, 2011

No Strings Attached

Natalie Portman has been doing a lot of movies lately, and with quite a range in variety. The raw, dark indie comedy Hesher with Joe Gordon-Levitt (yeah, he likes to go by Joe), Black Swan where she imagines making out with Milla Kunis, and soon coming out in Thor and Your Highness. Even more unique from those is the romantic comedy No Strings Attached where she ACTUALLY makes out with Ashton Kutcher.

Ashton Kutcher has not been in much lately, and nothing very far out of his comfort zone. Valentines Day with so many big name actors that it ruined the whole thing, and Killers with movie killer Katherine Heigl, and in that same comfort zone, No Strings Attached. So why pair the award-winning actress with the goofball from Dude, Where’s My Car?


Chad: Who cares, Natalie Portman is hot! That’s the only reason I wanted to see it.

Gina: You got to see Ashton’s bare ass!

Kevin: OK… Looks like I’m taking this review solo!


This movie is make or break for Portman much more than Kutcher. If it fails, Kutcher could care less. He still gets paid and it can’t be any worse than any other roles he has done, however, it reflects badly on Portman who is coming off her ground breaking performance in Black Swan. If it does well, Kutcher could care less. He still gets paid and it can’t be worse than any other roles he has done, however, it is one more genre that Portman can notch in her belt.

Fortunately, it wasn’t bad. It was pretty funny for the most part and showed a lighter, humorous side for Natalie, kind of on the lines of her SNL Digital Short “Natalie Raps” (look it up if you haven’t seen it, very good). Obviously no one is winning any awards, not even Kevin Kline for playing Kutcher’s immoral dad, or Cary Elwes as the head doctor at Portman’s hospital. But it looked like everyone had fun, and that comes out in every ones performance.

The Green Hornet

Fun fact: The original casting for the poor mans Batman (that’s the Green Hornet by the way) was Nick Cage. Thank god that was changed! He has a large repertoire of fine films, but lately everything he has done, save Kick Ass, has been terrible. The problem was the cast change was to writer, producer, and almost director, Seth Rogen.


Chad: The problem with Seth Rogen is that he tries to bring the bromance shit to every movie!

Kevin: And his voice gets annoying. He did all right though, and I’m glad he got to play a superhero cause he has wanted to be one for a long time.

Chad: Too bad he had to write his own movie to do it.


The only thing you really need from a movie like this is entertainment. It’s not going to win any awards or even gain a record attendance or anything on those lines. If people aren’t bored throughout the entire thing, it’s a win.

Like so many films of this nature, however, it had its period of repetitive, boring content. About fifteen minutes could have been removed and it wouldn’t have bothered anyone. It wasn’t really the drab characters or the actors portrayals necessarily, just the content. The actors actually did a decent job; again, you don’t need too much. Though, Cameron Diaz did a fine job of making her part feel obsolete, a great James Franco cameo made up for it!


Chad: The guy from Inglourious Basterds (Christoph Waltz) was a good bad guy.

Gina: His accent was really bad, though.

Kevin: Uh… I think that is his real accent.

Gina: Are you sure?

Monday, January 24, 2011

True Grit

It is always interesting how movie etiquette differs between people and how it is perceived though different generations. Our viewing of True Grit was a perfect experiment in movie viewing psychology… and the movie was pretty interesting too. Did the most recent western “masterpiece” live up to the surrounding hype?

First off, the average age in the theatre was 75, which isn’t a problem as much as it was interesting to see the difference between this afternoon show time and seeing something like Transformers at a midnight showing. Also, with the entire two rows behind us completely open, we still had one guy come in and sit one seat away from us in the same row! Really?!?


Chad: Yeah, I made sure to comment on it loud enough for him to hear it.

Kevin: Didn’t faze him though.


Anyway, True Grit was a good western film with real heart and soul put into its creation. Which is beneficial because a poorly made western really sucks. The dialogue alone carried you thoroughly through the entire run time without a real lull at all.


Kevin: The back and forth between Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon was great.

Chad: Yeah… Jeff Bridges will always be The Dude in anything he’s in, though. It always comes out.

Kevin: That’s a good thing.

Chad: And you can’t go wrong with a main character that has an eye patch!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

TRON: Legacy

Everyone knows how classically terrible (in the best way possible) the original Tron movie was, so kudos to Tron: Legacy for not referencing its cult classic predecessor too much when promoting the release. It was ridiculously hard to find a copy of the original to re-watch; there was no Blu Ray or special edition DVD release even right before Christmas. Really though, how embarrassing is it that the movie’s video game has grossed more money since their release.

Anyway, 28 years of nerdly anticipation has finally come to realization and this time around in 3D and DBOX, the newest movie gimmick. This completing a trio of movies we’ve seen in DBOX, it is easily the best so far.


Chad: The light flyers, yes there are flying versions of the light bikes, is easily the best DBOX scene ever.

Kevin: The light bikes were great too. And thank you for filming in 3D, enough with the post-production crap!

Chad: You could tell it was really good 3D but it was so dark that it was lost most of the time.

Kevin: Yeah, you didn’t get a lot of the depth. But when it was bright it was great.


Now I know there will be a lot of people criticizing the plot line, but you really don’t need much to put together what is important to the movie as a whole. What everyone really wants from Legacy is crazy awesome effects, revamped game sequences, and a graphically updated computer world. Done. You get all of it. Do we really care why Kevin Flynn disappeared, or why Clu (his computer world created clone) wants to invade the real world? Yes, but we don’t need forty-five minutes of it…