Three Quick Reviews: Less Than Zero, Youth in Revolt, Limitless

As most of you have seen, I’ve been taking it easy with the whole posting world.  One reason is that its hit me that I’ve been really tired so I’m trying to find a balance between everything I post to kind of not slack off on the quality of the context but slow down the frequency of posting, especially now that I’ve start up a second blog.  However, I do want this one to keep one of its main focus on movies so no worries, I will get back to it. Plus, I have a few theatre visits planned so because of slowing down, I had a few movies hanging out in my drafts and I realize the best way to approach this is to do quick reviews 🙂 I promise to not do this frequently but sometimes, its quite refreshing 😉

Lets get it going…

LESS THAN ZERO (1987)

Director: Marek Kanievska

Cast: Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, Robert Downey Jr., James Spader

Clay(Andrew McCarthy) heads off to college leaving his two best friends behind as they both carry on with their lives.  His ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) decides to stay behind and pursue her career as a model while Julian asks his dad to open his own business.  When Clay comes back home for the holiday as his ex-girlfriend’s request, he realizes that things aren’t as smooth as he had expected for his friends.  Julian is now a drug addict who has lost all his father’s money and owes even another rich kid drug dealer money. Putting his own troubles aside, he tries to help with Julian’s situation before its too late.

After watching Pretty in Pink, I have gained a fondness for Andrew McCarthy.  He has a weird vibe in his movies but the boyfriend told me that he heard that this one was good so I gave this one a shot.  I didn’t know that Robert Downey Jr. was in this.  Let me just clarify that I’m only a fan of his newer movies so that gave me a little bit of doubt.  Surprisingly, I thought this was a well-made movie that had a strong message about the danger of drug addiction with youth. The most notable performance goes out to Robert Downey Jr.  I never thought I’d say this about his earlier works but he did a very convincing role.

As I was reading, this is supposed to be loosely based on a book with the same title but I’ve never read it so I can’t compare.

Have you read the novel? Have you seen Less Than Zero? What do you think about it? Are you a Robert Downey Jr. fan?  

YOUTH IN REVOLT (2006)

Director: Miguel Arteta

Cast: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis, Steve Buscemi, Ari Graynor, Justin Long, Ray Liotta

When Nick Twisp’s mother, Estelle (Jean Smart) moves out to the country to live in a trailer while her boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) hides away from sailors that he cons money from. There he meets a girl, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) that he falls in love with completely.  Any hideaway comes to an end and when he has to leave, he promises Sheeni that he will find a way to get back to her.  With Sheeni’s smartness and his absolute desire to get back to her, Nick tries to find a balance between himself and a slowly develop completely bad alter personality called Francois to give himself courage to be a rebel.

As I sat through Youth in Revolt, the only thing that ran through my mind was that it was weird.  Its a good weird though because it made me curious about what else would happen.  Honestly, the more fun parts of this was when Nick channeled Francois into his life.  It turned into his own journey to be more courageous and figure out how to be who he had to be.

Although, I wasn’t sure about Sheeni’s intentions, Nick’s desires to be with her had some pretty cute elements to it along with some pretty funny dorky ones as well. Plus, there are many stars before they did some bigger movies in their career here.

What do you think about Youth in Revolt? Have you seen it?

LIMITLESS (2011)

Director: Neil Burger

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro

Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), a uninspired writer whose girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) just left him, tries this experimental drug called NZT which unlocks 100% of the brain’s capacity.  This allows him to not only finish his book but also learn things at quick pace which he uses in financial investments.  Thats when Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro), a powerful  and cunning energy business man uses him to settle a deal that he is trying to land.  As the drugs unknown effects start taking a toll on him, there are also others who have learnt about this drug and want to have their hands on its limited supply putting Eddie in danger on multiple fronts.

The premise for this was a good one.  I think it had a really decent idea but the execution fell short.  The script could have been stronger but what it does have is one of the better roles that I’ve seen of Bradley Cooper.  I personally have mixed feelings about him but so far, aside from my hatred for The Hangover, he’s been involved in decent movies. I haven’t seen Silver Linings Playbook so that doesn’t count.  As ridiculous and predictable as some of the events are, it has a pretty intriguing beginning to set up how the movie was heading and right away, it wasn’t a movie that you needed to really over think the details too much if you intend to enjoy it.  And I didn’t, so I actually found it alright.  It could have been better but lets not be too picky sometimes 😉

What do you think about Bradley Cooper? What are your thoughts on Limitless?

Three Quick Reviews: Accepted, Chronicle & How To Deal

This past week, I’ve been taking a break from reviews.  Before I dive into 3 short reviews, that prove I haven’t been NOT watching movies, I’d like to tell you why.

Aside from the reason of work totally burning me out, its mostly because I’ve been prepping myself for March’s recommendation month.  I’ve gotten the material watched so that I just need to worry about writing the reviews and I have some time to give it more thought.  Its something I’m working on actually.  To not watching everything last minute and then play catch up with my posts.  I’m hoping it’ll work out, but I don’t know…

Anyways, enough of that! I’m excited about recommendations month but first things first, I need to exercise those reviewing muscles.  I watched 2 of those this past week and the other one, maybe two weeks ago.  The reason I do these, its really because I’ve piled up too many movies or there’s just not enough to review in a single post.

Lets start with…

ACCEPTED (2006)

Director: Steve Pink

Cast: Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Blake Lively

Bartleby (Justin Long) and a few friends didn’t end up getting accepted into any colleges but to please their parents, they come out with a fake school and stage the whole going to college event. That is until, the word goes out and actual acceptances were done through a fluke on their website.  Bartleby ends up running the college while creating something a lot more than he expected.

Accepted is a pretty stupid comedy and it revolves around a lot of dumb(ish) humor.  A lot of times (actually, more often than not), it doesn’t work for me.  It just doesn’t so I usually run the other way.  Somehow, I remember hearing before that this wasn’t bad so one late night, while I was feeling sick and couldn’t sleep, I turned it on to make me feel better. Its a comedy so its supposed to do that.  To be honest, I can’t pinpoint the reasons, but I ended up enjoying it.  I acknowledged the stupid parts but for the most part, I liked it.  Plus, I really like Justin Long doing that nerdy/geeky sarcastic humor thing and I have no idea why…

I do realize that aside from Blake Lively in Gossip Girl and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (which I should review), she’s never been very enjoyable in movies.  Its not that she’s bad but nothing quite beats her performances especially in Gossip Girl.  Either way, average humor and its a good one to sit around, leave your brain at the door and laugh a little.

Do you like Blake Lively? How about Justin Long? Any roles you particularly enjoyed of either of them?

CHRONICLE (2012)

Director: Josh Trank

Cast: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Ashley Hinshaw

Andrew (Dane DeHaan), Matt (Alex Russell) and Steve (Michael B. Jordan) discover a hole in the middle of the woods in the outskirts and go inside to find that they have absorbed some sort of energy that allows them to have all sorts of superpowers from telekinesis to even flying.  As their power develops, they are now torn as to how to use the powers in a rightful way and not be  lead into the darker side of things.

I’m not an expert at found footage. In fact, the only found footage I’ve seen was for last year’s Halloween fest opener, Area 407 (review HERE).  Oh yeah, I hated it! Its one of the reasons I’ve been hesitant to watch Chronicle but since it was going to expire (or has as this goes up), I figured I would.  To my surprise, Chronicle turned out to be pretty good.  I’m not saying I loved it but I liked it.  They used the found footage camerawork really well and even incorporated it with not only their camera but also whoever has filming devices like someone else’s camera (using a second point of view) and phones, etc.  I seriously think for found footage, that aspect is very important.

Plus, they used decent young actors. They portrayed their roles very well.  It helped that the script was done pretty good also.  It had a very intense parts, especially once their bond grows and then starts to fade near the end with disagreeing with how their powers should be dealt with.  Plus, the ending was pretty fulfilling 🙂

Do you like found footage films? Which ones are your favorites?

HOW TO DEAL (2003)

Director: Clare Kilner

Cast: Mandy Moore, Trent Ford, Allison Janney, Alexandra Holden

Halley (Mandy Moore)has seen so many love disasters that she doesn’t believe in true love.  When her sister and then her father both announce to get married and her best friend falls madly in love, she tries to stay supportive.  However, as she starts to know Macon (Trent Ford), the best friend of her best friend’s boyfriend, she starts to like him a lot but also tries to control her feelings.  Except, is it so easy?

Ever since I rewatched A Walk to Remember for the Valentine’s Marathon HERE, I’ve been trying to find more Mandy Moore flicks.  How To Deal is a romantic comedy and although I don’t think its a really great one, its good enough to deal with.  Let me make it clear though, I liked it because of the characters in the story. I always feel that Mandy Moore is a very crush-worthy girl because she gives off this simple vibe.  Plus, Trent Ford reminds me of the more recent Tyler Blackburn from Pretty Little Liars. He has this dark, mysterious but sexy-ish appearance. Plus, they have strong supporting role from Allison Janney.

Of course, the dialogue and story itself isn’t all that great, even though it is supposedly an adaptation of two novels that I’ve never heard of. There’s something missing and the main character is really not good.  I didn’t connect with that one as well but having Mandy Moore there makes this rom-com a lot more tolerable 🙂

OVERALL…the three movies I watched were pretty much average.  I never recommend comedy as its so personal to your tastes.  Even me, I’m not quite sure if its because I was feeling sick when I saw it.  I would recommend Chronicle though.  It was definitely the best out of the three here.  It was also a surprise.  How to Deal isn’t a great romantice comedy but it does have a decent cast who helps it to be better.

Have you seen any of these? What did you think?

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Voila! In case you missed my review for Die Hard, Die Hard 2 and Die Hard with a Vengeance, its respectively HERE, HERE and HERE! After the guilt of not putting this up, I had to get around to it even if my boyfriend didn’t want to see it! I really didn’t enjoy this movie when I saw it this for the first time a few years ago. It is the marathon so I’m going to finish this marathon in style (even if its delayed) and give this flick another chance.

Director: Len Wiseman

Cast: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q, Cliff Curtis

Due to an FBI technical breach/hack, Director Bowman (Cliff Curtis) sent out senior detectives on a urgent call and this directed John McClane (Bruce Willis) to pick up a professional hacker Matthew Farrell (Justin Long) to be delivered to the FBI.  During this pickup, Matthew is attacked.  With McClane’s help, they both escape but end up getting stuck in downtown Washington in the crisis of a shutdown of the city performed by a team of organized terrorists lead by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) and his team including his girlfriend Mai (Maggie Q) who is in the process of doing a fire sale (meaning transportation, financial and all utilities down) to cripple the nation. McClane has to team up with Matthew and use his knowledge to track down where Thomas and his team will attack next before the complete whatever they are trying to accomplish.

Just to clarify, I don’t really hate this movie.  Its not like its really bad.  Its extremely crazy action-packed and intense for most of it.  There’s a lot of over the top explosions, shooting and its loud and destructive in most of the time.  Its pretty much what you would expect in a Die Hard movie.  Just look at THE MOST awesome scene in the whole movie: the helicopter being “killed” by a car.

Bruce Willis’s John McClane is amazing to watch on screen as always.  We can tell that its not his time anymore.  The technology and virtual terrorism is way past what he understands and thats why we have Justin Long’s Matthew Farrell.  This is where we get McClane and Matt throwing comments about age and being old.  There is a lot of sarcastic humor (at least I call it that) and I love that stuff.  This is probably the first movie (when I saw it the first time) that I saw Justin Long.  Honestly, I was pretty impressed.  He’s a decent actor and he’s done some alright movies. I enjoy watching these types of roles on screen.  It always makes me laugh.  Plus, they had a good dynamic going on.  It made for a lot of entertaining dialogue throughout this action flick.

Next up, I always talk about the terrorist.  Timothy Olyphant plays Thomas Gabriel and to tell you the truth, he’s pretty convincing.  I’ve never seen him do a downright bad-ass guy.  This time, he may not be emoting a lot with his face for a majority of the movie but his eyes are crazy full of hatred.  He’s convincing enough in my book.  Maybe its because my computer knowledge is definitely far from hacker knowledge so I have no idea what was going to happen next.  This guy is the best part of the bad guys…Its good he is the leader of them, right?

Next I go to the annoying part of this movie.  The lady right up there! Maggie Q pisses me off in this one because there is no one that can survive the amount of crap she goes through.  Okay, we see McClane stand up to a lot of damage but he’s lucky all the time.  This girl is throwing McClane around (but thats okay, some chicks are strong and I secretly imagine that I can kick my 6 foot 3 boyfriend’s ass if needed with my 5 foot 3 physique and I strength train and do weights, etc).  BUT, what I don’t get is how she can get flopped around, beat up repeatedly and then have a huge shelf fall on her and still be alive.  *MINOR SPOILER*Say, she has a crazy tough bone structure, but how can she even survive an SUV hitting her at a crazy speed and still climb up a hanging vehicle*END*.  I’m sorry, its just my rant on seemingly impossible to kill villains.  The other bad guys were a bit on the weird side because they have assembled a team of French and Italian and they all don’t communicate in English when calling back to the central enemy base.  It just doesn’t correlate.

Don’t get me wrong! I actually ended up enjoying this movie a whole lot.  I actually have it playing in the background as I type this up.  Its intense and fun!  The cast is pretty awesome (except for Maggie Q).  Its just a bigger and more modern Die Hard than the previous few. Of course, its still not the first Die Hard but I wouldn’t skip it if I had to do the marathon.  I’d say its worth your time if you can just shut off your mind and just love the intensity and McClane’s crazy encounter with being at the wrong place at the wrong time 😉

Valentine’s Marathon: He’s Just Not That Into You (2009)

It seems that these multiple story movies are becoming a thing.  They usually don’t get a lot of praise except for Love Actually, which was possibly the first of its kind.  This one doesn’t seem to have a lot of good ratings on it either on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes but when it first came out, I had no expectations from it at first and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Now I’m going back to see it again for this marathon, lets see how that went…

Director: Ken Kwapis

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly, Scarlett Johansson, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck, Justin Long, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Drew Barrymore

Based on the self-help book by the author of Sex and the City, He’s Just Not That Into You looks at different types of relationships amongst a group of people that are linked together through friends, coworkers, acquaintances or simply coincidence and how a lot of people will misread and misunderstand the signals that other people send off.  We start with Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) who is on the search for a relationship.  She always wonders and waits to see if a guy will call her back after a first date or after a first meeting at the bar.  That is until she meets the friend of one of the dates that she decides to try and “accidentally” see.  Alex (Justin Long) is the manager of the City Supper Club and he is the exact opposite of Gigi because he can read the signals of others very well and because of this, he starts helping Gigi in her future pursuits.  At the same time, the guy who Gigi saw at the beginning of the movie, Conor (Kevin Connolly) who is obsessed with Anna (Scarlett Johansson) who had slept with him before but now only finds him in times of need for comfort and affection.  Anna is trying to build a career as a singer and at the supermarket one night, she meets Ben (Bradley Cooper) who is a married man and is in a business that can help her with her career.  They are attracted with each other and despite Ben trying to resist, he eventually has an affair with her while his wife Janine (Jennifer Connelly) is putting all her focus into their new house’s renovations.  At work, Janine’s coworker Beth (Jennifer Aniston) has been in a relationship with Neil (Ben Affleck) for 7 years and she wants to get married however, Neil does not want to.  A string of stories that looks into a guy’s signals and the rules and exceptions of whether a guy is into you or not.

“If a guy’s into you, he will make it happen no matter what”

Let me just say that I originally didn’t really think I would like this movie at all.  The first time I saw this and realized that it was based on the Sex and the City author.  I don’t really have too much love for those series. Never really caught on to it maybe or its just not my type of series. Either way, this flick was definitely good.  It definitely sticks to its boundaries of being a romantic comedy and especially with a relatively strong cast.  It was witty and fun.  They put in interviews of other people to make it a bit more original with certain issues they were dealing with for example, “if a man doesn’t want to marry you…” then it flips over to people talking about it and some of them are funny.

If you can brush off the whole trying to be a self-help and teaching us the signs of when things aren’t working out which from the things I’ve read are usually based on stereotypes because we all know that every relationship is different.  If you just solely focus on the stories and think about it in one basic way: Each girl is the exception to the rule when in the eyes of the guy that loves us for who we are.  Its as simple as that.  So take that and just go for the ride and you might enjoy this movie.  One warning though, even if you fellow men out there are okay with rom-coms, I really don’t recommend this one to any guys.  You might want to either fall asleep or yell at the stereotypes (unless you like any of the actresses for their good looks).  I mean, even I wanted to yell at the stereotypes, especially those that Gigi had where she just sits by the phone and waits for the guy to call.  Are all girls supposed to be portrayed as being that desperate?  That part really bothered me because I guess its an extreme to bring Gigi to portray the desperate need to find a guy and how she doesn’t know how to read the signals that the guy is sending out each time so she just hopes all the time. Its the concept of never losing hope that is the theme of her story, so I guess you can’t really blame her.

As much as all the side stories were cool, the main story is of Gigi’s search for romance and how she learns that its better to have tried to fall in love than to just block out the feeling of being able to love someone.  This is miles and miles away from as being as epic as Love Actually (which I reviewed HERE!), but it does have some witty and fun moments and as always in these flicks, some sweet and touching moments as well.  No tears will be shed but there is enough smiles and laughs to be had.  I state once more that guys should avoid this…it can’t be more targeted towards girls than teaching girls how to know when guys aren’t into them.  This may not be an epic movie but as generic as it may seem, it is really helped a lot by the chemistry that the talented cast brings.

Oh right, one more thing, if you do end up seeing this, you should definitely wait for the ending credits because they still have a few scenes there and those are actually pretty good and wraps up the movie in a pretty good way.

Have you seen this? Did you like it? Do you enjoy these multi-story setup for movies or are they confusing and hard to perfect?

Christmas Marathon: Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS

Directed by: Tim Hill

Cast: Jason Lee, David Cross, Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney

Based on the tv show, this is a movie version of Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Dave Seville (Jason Lee) is a struggling songwriter who meets 3 talking chipmunks and by some chance, ends up bringing them to his house.  When he first discovers them, he tries to make them leave his house.  He then discovers that these chipmunks, Alvin “the awesomest one” (Justin Long), Simon “the smart one”(Matthew Gray Gubler) and Theodore (Jesse McCartney) can also sing.  He asks them to sing his songs in exchange for giving them a place to live.  Its then he brings them to his song producer, Ian Hawke (David Cross) who tries to separate them from Dave and use them as moneymaking machines.  However, the question is: can Dave and the chipmunks bond like a family?

This movie is also one thats set during the holiday season and we have Alvin and the Chipmunks “The Christmas song, (Christmas Is Here) is the name I believe.  Here is the video in case you don’t know it.

This is one that I have mixed feelings about.  It has some nice little singing that I like to listen to but as for the acting, it was not too good.  I realized that I winch at Jason Lee’s acting in this one.  He just has such exaggerated expressions.  It makes it all feel so fake.  However, I have this thing with hearing chipmunks singing.  They do a few songs like Bad Day and Only You.  Its a fun movie as Alvin just like a bunch of mischievous and clueless and know-it-all and these embodies the attitudes of certain kids when they want to experience and learn more about their surroundings.  Also, as much as the voices don’t sound like the actors voicing them, I was drawn to the fact that Matthew Gray Gubler does Simon.  He sure has the image especially since the plays the young and gifted Dr. Reid in Criminal Minds, one of my absolute favorite shows on TV.  Also, Theodore is just the most adorable little chipmunk ever!

This movie is good for children.  Its fun and musical and it has the theme of family: being committed and sticking together as a family.  That definitely is something we want in a Christmas movie. However, this shouldn’t be pegged as a Christmas movie to some as it just is set in the first half during Christmas and we hit Christmas day.

Anyone watch this during Christmas? How about the song, does it bring back some memories? Any Alvin and the chipmunk fans out there? Which one is your favorite?