The To Do List

So I walked into a movie theater the other day, with little to no concern about my near future.  I purchased the ticket with ease, sat down in my assigned seat with ease, even breathed a sigh of relief to the notion that for the next 100 or so minutes I would have nothing to worry about besides trying to keep myself dry during the hysterical laughter I fully expected to ensue from the films start to finish.  Peace.  Let me tell you something reader, when it came down to it, The To Do List turned out to be the exact opposite of my naive expectations; the antithesis. 


Let me paint a little picture for you here folks, for starters I will need you to:
1. Jump into your Deloreon time machines.
2. Blast some Huey Lewis & The News.
3. Punch that accelerator until your speed pushes 88 mph (140 something kph for those of you loyal readers living with the metric system).
4. Hope/pray your Mr. Fusion is fully supplied.
5. Hold on to your butts.

 6. Don't' sue me for copy-right infringement.

Now, when you arrive and open your eyes, you will find yourself in the wonderfully beautiful year of 1993...disappointed?  Shouldn't be.  This is the marvelous decade/era/year we find ourselves reliving throughout The To Do List.  I'm talking Trapper Keepers, scrunchies, clear see-through telephones, and pagers!  Ah...the good ole days.  For those of you who don't know, this film is all about a very straight arrow girl named Brandy Klark, played by comedian Aubrey Plaza.  We follow Brandy as she graduates high school, starts a new summer job as a lifeguard and is preparing for her first year at Georgetown. The premise behind this film, is that little miss goody two shoes Brandy has realized that she is not as "well rounded" as she once thought when she realizes that she has missed out big time in High School.  While Brandy was getting straight A's in everything, her peers were busy learning "extra-curricular" activities of sorts.  Brandy decides to make a before college "To Do List" determined to tackle these new experiences just as she did school subjects.  This turns out to be an aggressive full-frontal assault on all the bases, and by bases I mean the sexual bases.  She wants to go from kissing all the way to sex, stopping everywhere inbetween.  Since I am trying to maintain a "family-friendly...ish" readership, I will leave the details out.  Needless to say, some of these things are normal and some are downright freaky.  So we follow Brandy as she moves from guy to guy in a nonchalant manner, crossing her conquests off of her written list as she goes.  We, I hate to say, are privy to quite a lot of visuals and awkward scenes, not to mention extremely vulgar language regarding these acts as well as some unnecessary "special effects"; I may never be able to eat an eclair again.   

 Leave me be you devil pastry!

Now, as above mentioned, this film struck me as the type in which I would never recover from the laugh pains, however, much of this film was delivered awkwardly instead of comically, leaving me searching for the punchline.  The To Do List had a very flat/one-dimensional story line where the plot never really got going and the comedy revolved really around one gag from start to finish: sexually awkward inexperience.  There wasn't much delineation from that.  Sure, there were a hand full, at most, of times where I found myself chuckling and laughing, but mostly I noticed I was shaking my head and frowning.  I'm not sitting here saying I'm a prude by any means, however, much of this film was too much, and at the same time, not enough.  The gags and situations that ended up being funny, seemed short-lived; not given enough pacing.  The gags and situation which were gross and unnecessary, on the other hand, were too much and lasted far too long.  All in all, not a good production.

I blame some of this on the fact that The To Do List was written and directed by the same person, Maggie Carey.  Looking over Ms. Carey's IMDB page I notice a common theme for most of her projects: she does the combo write and direct quite often.  Sometimes this can be pulled off without a hitch, however, I notice that a lot of the times when you have the same person occupying two highly important and creative positions, you end up with an issue.  When you have one person in these positions, no one is challenging the other, instead what the Writer wants the Director gets.  So we the viewer find ourselves seeing scenes which should have never made it off the cutting room floor, or characters with inappropriate motivation.  Either way, it has the potential for being disastrous, and in this case did.

Final Words: zzzzzzzz.
The To Do List was one of those films where you either find yourself in hysterics or you find yourself dissatisfied.  Between the vulgarity in language and the scenes is a character you really can't get to far behind because she was so flat, same with the story-line.  This film offered up a romp of a comedy, but instead fizzled before it could get off the ground.  Sad day to have to relive the 90's in such an unflattering way.

Until next time, happy viewing!

Review Rating based on popcorn sizes: small, medium, large, extra-large; 

films worth skipping get snore...zzzzz

Town Red

I'd like to come out on record and say I don't review many independent films.  It's not that I have any adverse feelings towards these projects and I would be lying if I said I hadn't made my own zombie flick in the past.  It's just difficult to find a good Indy, one with the right mix of story and reason, one worth writing about and one that doesn't look like a college assignment.  So needless to say, when we here at the almighty Popcorn or Snore HQ were given the opportunity to watch and review Town Red, we were a little caught off guard but mostly honored!

Town Red was awarded with Best in Show at the Grand Rapids Film Festival and has recently been accepted into the very prestigious Cannes Film Festival.  When I watched Town Red (watched it a few times actually) I quickly discovered that the team behind this project meant business, and that they allowed their project to have huge potential for expansion of their idea.  Town Red was written and directed by Ryan Geiger, who also plays Patrick, the main protagonist.  This film revolves around a sleepy Kentucky town that undergoes a zombie outbreak in 1951. We follow Patrick over the course of a year as his life becomes less and less familiar and he becomes more and more oblivious to reality. What he used to hold so near and dear to his heart has quickly been replaced with blind emotionless complacency.  This newly discovered lack of drive lends itself to an almost psychotic behavior in our hero and consequently, near death experience.  As the world around him is crumbling down, he slowly becomes less and less human.  It is as though Patrick is simply going through life on cruise control with little awareness or care to most situations, which is evident in many of the scenes, as his emotions are absent or inappropriate.  PTSD anyone?

Patrick "suffers" from the best feature this short has to offer: flashbacks.  Multiple times we see Patrick's face go blank then a sudden scene change, and we realize that we are seeing Patrick from his own memory engaging in numerous day-to-day happenings.  This type of match on action really drives home Patrick's "paralyses" and gives the viewer more information into his past.  The visuals of these memories paired with the sounds blend beautifully back into the present day altercations.  One thing is for sure, Patrick is not okay.

Town Red brought together many aspects which helped beautify this experience.
1.  The cinematics and the locations were pretty damn good.  Many powerful sequences and images filling the one year gap between the opening scene and Patrick's downward spiral towards denial.
2.  As previously mentioned, the flashbacks were an ingenious essential story-telling tool utilized to near perfection.
3.  The locations were beautiful and appropriate for the characters and story.
4.  The score accompanying the montage-like cinematics for the missing year was hauntingly good.  Sad and scary song, but surprisingly up-lifting and spirited.
5.  The make-up and special effects were above par for most Indy films I've seen, took me back a little to the days of the Evil Dead...these guys did their homework.  Even their poster resembles the iconic Evil Dead Franchise.

 Me likey

Now....

As we all know, when creating any project odds are not every aspect will be golden.  Sometimes/many-times it's the little things which cause the most grief.  Things that easily get overlooked, whether it's from a lack of knowledge in that particular category, or it falls victim to a minimal budget.

1.  Some of the dialogue seemed forced, unnatural.  

2.  Some of the dialogue was a little cliche, i.e. Jeffrey saying he was cold as he bled out on the floor of the garage.

3.  I felt the adolescences in the first scene seemed a little too comfortable with the fact they were robbing a dead lady whom they both knew.  I would think they would be a little less at ease about that.  The only thing which could explain this is that more time had passed from the initial outbreak to this point in time, allowing these kids to become more familiar with the sight of friends and family dying; this was not specified.

4.  I wasn't on-board with how quickly and easily Patrick deduced Neil's master plan of killing both he and Jeffrey and stealing a car.  I think that was a little rushed, and with the expansion of this story could easily be explained.

5.  I did say how I liked the special effects, this is true.  I liked it all, I felt however, that the gunshots seemed muffled; again something easily fixable.  When a rifle or pistol is shot in the woods, or especially inside the garage, the echo would be horrible, unbearable.  All of the shots were softened and flat sounding.

6.  This last point is such a minor issue that most people will never catch it.  This issue is about the electrical receptacle's inside the garage by the bench vise.  I know a thing or two about hardware and this stuck out to me.  Such a minor detail, but since these type of outlets weren't around in the 50's, I thought I'd mention it.  It would be like having a 1964 Impala in the film...minor I know.

All in all I think Town Red is an exceptional film, one with loads of potential.  Town Red is a very interesting version of the "classic" zombie story.  It's rather refreshing to see this story taking place in the past and not modern time, like Cowboys & Aliens.  I would very much like to see this film expanded on and turned into a feature.  It would be interesting to know what caused this particular outbreak, and see a slower progression of the characters break-downs. 

Final Words: Large Popcorn 
This film was good, it has huge potential and for such a minuscule budget, it succeeded in impressive ways: flash-back sequences, make-up, cinematography, location.  The story would benefit from additional information, time and the expansion of the characters.  Do yourselves a favor reader and watch Town Red when you get the chance, who knows, maybe the world has been introduced to the next Sam Raimi and Evil Dead franchise.  If so...I'm in! 

Until next time, happy viewing!

Review Rating based on popcorn sizes: small, medium, large, extra-large; 

films worth skipping get snore...zzzzz

 

The Way, Way Back

The Way, Way Back is one of those films that takes you back in time.  The kind that releases all sorts of childhood memories: good, bad and indifferent.  Even though this film takes place in present day, you get a sense from certain elements throughout the film that the story and actions are timeless.  Details ranging from cars to clothing to locations seem to not be bound to any one particular decade or structure, but rather all decades and structures; this is the beauty behind The Way, Way Back.


This film follows the journey of 14 year old, Duncan (Liam James), who is on vacation with his mom (Toni Collette) and her capitol D-bag boyfriend (Steve Carell)!  It took place during the summer in a semi-quiet beach town, probably New York judging by the clam-bakes.  What ensues is a bunch of societal break-downs from the parents/adults: pot smoking, heavy drinking, and a lot of amorousness...if you catch my drift.  As of now this film sounds more like an episode of MTV's Spring Break than normal parenting behavior, but that's what happens when you vacation in this town.

Rules go out of the window and while the adults channel their youth, the youth need structure and aren't exactly amused by their parent's bad behavior.  Needless to say, if you are a 14 year old in a new place surrounded by new people being "parented" by this capitol D, you aren't going to be too happy.

This is the story of Duncan's summer, he is at that point in life when you don't have your niche or your place to fit in.  As a viewer or an outsider to this story, we follow Duncan's path to self discovery, as he goes from loner boy to the pop n' lock'n man of the party.  This element allows us to quickly and very easily fall in love with Duncan; we share in his pain and struggle to find himself and are happy for him when he does.

We aren't just viewing Duncan's adventure in this film, we are reliving our own, which is why the small details of the story are not important to We the Viewer.  The most powerful aspect to film making, the thing which makes or breaks the whole darn film, is the story.  I've said this so many times I may need to start a counter.

Now usually yes, specific locations, times, names, etc. are key to a great script/story, however in the case of The Way, Way Back we are unaware and fine without needing such specifics.  This film doesn't need the specifics because We The Viewer are meant to insert our own memories into the film thus making the story our own.  This allows us to connect deeper to this story than most others because Duncan isn't bound the structures and guidelines given in a normal film; bellissima!  This breakdown of the norms of film making has me speaking in different languages!  This movie is not telling you anything new, it instead takes you on a journey through your own memories. This is what makes this film special and one worth watching, it is precisely why the specifics are not important.  Duncan's beach house can easily be the childhood beach house you visited in Anywhereville, The World.

One thing is for certain about the particulars of this adventure, and that is the cast.  As previously mentioned, this film stars Toni Collette and Steve Carell.  It also stars Allison Janney as the wacky drunk neighbor mom, hmm sounds like another memory doesn't it?  Steve Carell's best friend and best friend's wife, played by Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet, a couple of booze hounds who get a little too touchy.  As the movie plays out and Duncan begins his self discovery, he gets a job.  His bosses are played by Sam Rockwell and Maya Rudolph, two co-workers who add a little extra flirt and playfulness to the story.  So what can we take from the above mentioned names?  Variety, talent and depth.  Each of these names bring a different element or X factor to the table allowing each character to play to their strengths letting the viewer effortlessly watch this feature.  We have a group of comedians, along with super versatile actors, mixed in with big and small names.  The outcome is nothing short of right on the money.  From this acting pool we get performances both memorable and forgettable, powerful and weak.  I truly feel that this story and the acting drive home the fact that everyone at one time or another struggled with self identity and forced themselves on their own heroes journey, emerging out the other side a beautiful butterfly.  Not all trips down memory lane are fun, and this film points them out, and reconciles them, take the trip.

Other than the powerful story and acting, there isn't really anything else to take away from this film.  Visually speaking, The Way, Way Back is almost one dimensional.  You aren't treated to a cinematic masterpiece, lavish settings, or stunning light, instead most of the days seem gloomy and the settings and locations are dull to say the least.  Although I enjoy "Hero Cams", cameras which show things normally not seen i.e. going down a water slide, this films utilization of said hero cams was sloppy and pointless.  The main problem you find with these types of cameras is that their quality, although hi-def, is distorted when the image is blown up to fit with the larger frames and images of standard film cameras.  This separation of quality really acts as a visual blow, somewhat of a jolt to the optic senses; in other words crappy.

Final Words: Large Popcorn 
This film was not perfect, it lacked in cinematics, but it gained so so much in story-telling and character development.  Not only will this powerful plot pull you along on your own emotional roller-coaster, it will also keep you rooting for Duncan and subsequently, yourself.  This film has one of the most powerful stories I've experienced in a long time.  Do yourselves a favor, see this film, see it again, and then see it one more time, you won't be disappointed, maybe a little teary.

Until next time, happy viewing!

Review Rating based on popcorn sizes: small, medium, large, extra-large; 

films worth skipping get snore...zzzzz

 

The Lone Ranger

Hi-ho silver away!!!.. and bring me back some popcorn!!!!  During a typical review I will rant and rant good or bad or both seemingly endlessly until just when your eyes and brain have had enough, I come out and say the magic "P" word.  In the case of this review's film, I couldn't help but blurt it out right from the get-go: this film is surprisingly good.

 Just a little tuneage to get you into the spirit

America needed a good, old fashioned western to grace its movie theaters.  A movie that channeled old America and old American film, The Lone Ranger did just that and was the film that America needed.  Only so many times can we see a Robot or Super hero movie.  The Lone Ranger went back to America's roots and was the perfect balance of an exaggerated old American "Cowboy vs. Indian" film.

Hey guys, take five!

We can say "thank you" to this film's producers, the same people who gave the world the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.  The Lone Ranger was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer; a spectacular producer is key to the success of a film/franchise and Bruckheimer is one of those producers whose projects are followed and known: Pearl Harbor, Blackhawk Down, Bad Boys, Pirates of the Caribbean, CSI, etc.  Randomly throughout the years, Hollywood will attach a big name like Brad Pitt or Steven Speilberg to film as its "Executive Producer".  Usually those names don't really hold much creative clout, and instead it's more of a honorary role;  many times producers are practically anonymous to We The Viewer.  In the case of Jerry Bruckheimer, his name is well known on film and television projects, and his name forms lines around the block.  As we have high expectations for anything associated with the name "Jerry Bruckheimer", creating a film is a process that sits on the shoulders of a team, not one person.  Here are the other reasons as to why The Lone Ranger is a summer blockbuster and worth your money at the box office:

1. The Lone Ranger was backed by Disney, need I say more? Okay... some more reasons below.

 Thanks, Uncle Walt!

2. This film was directed by Gore Verbinski.  He is a guy whose name people may have heard of, but most probably aren't sure why.  He directed the Pirates films and Rango, he even won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Rango.  What most people don't know is that he also created the Budweiser Beer Frogs, and his Pirates movies have grossed billions of dollars world-wide.  Needless to say, he has quite an impressive resume, even if it's on the light side.

3. The Lone Ranger is based around a classic, iconic television show utilizing familair theme music and beloved characters reminding people why America loved this show in the first place.

Now one thing you can count on from any film associated with Disney is that the Special Effects, Costumes, Make-up, Cast, Crew and Story are all going to be stellar!  Think about the grandiose look and feel of the Pirates films...now put that "energy" into the wild west.  What's that get you?  The Lone Ranger indeed.  No expense was spared for this film, every minor detail was thought out and executed with precision, leading this film to be entertaining from start to finish.

Before Disney                          After Disney

Who are those guys?                We'll take it from here.

As most can assume, or have already heard/read/seen anything relating to this film, you know that this is yet another Gore Verbinksi/Disney/Bruckheimer/Johnny Depp film.  Depp hangs up his sword and rum for a dead crow and some face paint.  In this film Johnny Depp plays the iconic Native American side-kick: Tanto.  Now, I personally have been a little overly-Depp'd of late, however, I felt that he did a rather impressive job as the Comanche pal to our masked hero: John Reid played by Armie Hammer.  These two unlikely men find themselves paired up against a common enemy: outlaw scum Butch Cavendish played by William Fichtner (he's going to play Shredder in the upcoming Ninja Turtles film). These actors work great together and have great comedic chemistry, leaving the audience laughing at  all the situations they encounter.  Another actor to grace the screen playing a rather "unlikely" character was Tom Wilkinson.  All four characters come into contact with one another throughout the storyline and... yes, (spoiler alert) the good guys win.

As for the plot, The Lone Ranger had a unique story-line.  At times it seemed as though all the cards were on the table and that the adventure was flat, but it inevitably found a way to flip itself around and extract a new card.  In the end we were left with a very entertaining character arc for The Lone Ranger, Tanto, and a baddie.  Much of the plot twists were related to the process in which we were given information.  This film was told from memory by a first party individual.  All of the action, danger, comedy and adventure was shown through the eyes of the "narrator" but not necessarily in order. 

Final Words: Large Popcorn 
Grab your kids, get your movie tickets (fandango anyone?) and go enjoy this film with a large popcorn at the theaters.  You will be happy you did.  Depending on your age and your love of individual law men, this movie may just make you feel like a kid again! The Lone Ranger is the newest film to treat the senses to an exhilarating, hilarious, action-packed story.  The plot was nothing short of perfect to be honest.  The character arcs and evolution seemed to toe the line of perfection; again thanks to Disney.  To put this film into one word: fun!

Until next time, happy viewing!

Review Rating based on popcorn sizes: small, medium, large, extra-large; 

films worth skipping get snore...zzzzz