Infographic About How Netflix Is Killing Blockbuster

Cool infographic I came across on Slashfilm. Which is my favorite movie blog.


Via: Online MBA Programs

Due Date

The new comedy from The Hangover director Todd Phillips, Due Date may not be to the level of that movie but is very funny for most of its run. Robert Downey Jr and Zack Galifinakis are both well cast as the films leads and have a chemistry that really pushes the film forward. Watching Due Date I kept thinking of two previous movies.

First off, Zack Galifinakis is not technically playing the same character he portrayed in The Hangover but the only difference I can see is his name. He essentially has all the same character traits that made us laugh last time. I don’t know how long he can get by playing the same dude every time but he doesn’t seem to have worn out his welcome yet. Just watching him walk is hilarious.

The second movie I kept thinking about was the amazing 1980’s John Hughes film Planes Trains and Automobiles. The plot is almost exactly the same. Two guys are stuck on a trip across country with one another. One is a jerk (Steve Martin, Robert Downey Jr) and the other is a heavyset nightmare who has a good heart in the end (John Candy, Zack Galifinakis). They hit many of the same notes but since this was made in 2010 everything is amped up to even more unbelievable extremes.

Due Date clearly takes the character from The Hangover and throws him through a loose remix of Planes Trains and Automobiles, but for the most part it works. I was laughing really hard for almost the whole time. However in the last 30 minutes the movie does contain an escape from authorities that diminished the rest of the film. I just couldn’t stop thinking there is no way they could get away with this.

Overall if you are a fan of Galifinakis or Todd Phillips this is worth checking out.

I Am Comic

Director Jordan Brady’s I Am Comic is a funny behind the scenes look at the world of standup comedy. It mostly consists of a combination of interviews with comics from the last 3 decades and footage of them performing. While it may not be the most illuminating look at the development of comedy, the interviews and standup provide consistent laughs for the entire runtime.

                It covers a lot of information already provided in other films. Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedian devoted an entire movie to cover an artist’s developing and honing a new act to perfection. The Aristocrats gave us a look behind the scenes of the comedy world by way of showing a multitude of comics working the same bit. Judd Apatow’s severely underrated Funny People showed us the life of people whose job it is,  is to make people laugh and the neurosis and dysfunction that comes along with the profession. So while I Am Comic might not be bringing a lot new to the conversation it is entertaining due mostly to the laugh per minute ratio it maintains.

                There are some standout moments. Sarah Silverman and Roseanne discussing being offensive and the limits of good or bad taste is perfect. I mean who else could talk about this. (George Carlin is dead, so he was not able to appear.) It was also great to see Carlos Mencia confronted about his stealing of material. I would rather see him confronted about not being funny, but that’s just me. Surprisingly he seems very very proud of his joke theft.

                The narrator of the film is Ritch Shydner. He was a popular comedian in the 80s who walked away from comedy in the early 90s. Throughout the film we watch him try to restart his career taking small timeslots in small comedy clubs in an attempt to work out his act. It is endearing to watch but also a little awkward. The awkwardness stems from the simple fact that he is not very funny. It certainly is not like watching Seinfeld in the aforementioned Comedian.

                It may not be revelatory but it is an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.

Movies I Love: Three Great Horror Movies

It's been a slow week in terms of movie watching. I have not actually seen anything new. With the exception of a movie I watched with my kids about a dog and boy running from a gang of crooks that was not worth writing about. So I thought I would throw out a list of some of my favorite horror flicks since I dig horror movies and never talk about them on account of them scaring the crap out of my wife. There are many more I would have liked to mention and probably will in time. But as a starter here you go:

The Descent

A crazy claustrophobic nightmare of a movie. The two best things about the movie are that the "monsters" that come into the film are actually kind of plausible and the movie is actually horrifying way before they show up. The sense of dread that sets in moments after the group of female adventurers are trapped by a cave in never lets up. It is the last really great horror film I have seen lately. Movie studios are more into pumping out bad sequel after bad sequel. Actually, this movie got one of those too but I didn't waste my time with it. If you watch it, make sure you see the original directors version of the film with the better ending. It was changed for it's American theatrical run.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The low budget and faux based on a true story premise make this one hell of scary movie. I remember the first time I saw it being blow away and how real it seemed. The events are insane, yes but it looked like a movie that a psychotic person made with a home video and some inmates at an asylum. None of the sequels or remakes came close to the brutal intensity of this one.  The cast is filled with non professionals and it is obvious at points but they do their jobs well. The insane family in this film truly feels insane and in 1970's rural Texas plausible.

Pet Semetary

Out of the movies on this list, this one is the one that actually scared me the most. I remember lying in bed as a child and being scared out of my mind just thinking about Pet Semetary. I knew any minute Zelda was going to come running out of the corner screaming, "I'll twist your back like mine." This is hands down one of the most faithful adaptations of a Stephen King novel. The novel itself is a great read I suggest to anyone. It works on a lot of levels a two hour horror film can't. It is a very scary, movie, but it is a terrifying and moving book. The story is simple, a family moves into a small town and their young son is killed by a truck. Racked with grief the father takes him to an old burial site that is told to have the powers to bring back the dead. The father, family and neighbors soon find out that sometimes dead is better.

Movies I Love: Raising Arizona

                Ok, so in addition to writing reviews of movies I have already seen, I have decided to also write about some of my favorite films. The first one I want to comment on is the Coen Brother’s film, Raising Arizona. Who knew kidnapping a baby could be so funny?

                I have a feeling that throughout this series I am going to come back to the Coen Brothers again and again. I figure what better place to start than the 1987 comedic masterpiece Raising Arizona. This is one of those movies I watched over and over growing up. I loved it. Luckily, Raising Arizona is different than a lot of movies I loved as a kid, it holds up 100%. It’s no Red Dawn. Man I remember thinking that movie was so cool. Too bad, that didn’t hold up. Raising Arizona on the other hand has changed in another way. It was a movie that I laughed at and enjoyed as a kid. Now as an adult I am happy to say, it makes me laugh even harder. So much I didn’t pick up on as a kid is apparent now.

                I am trying to completely avoid hyperbole here so take this to be an honest opinion; every single shot of this film is perfect. Every performance is spot on, and the plot is extremely fast paced and hilarious. I am watching it at this vary minute and honestly can’t see a single wasted shot or bad choice.

                I love the Coen Brothers and will admit to being biased towards them, but in regards to this movie I really feel it is pretty much flawless. Allright maybe there was a bit of hyperbole. There are two tiny mistakes, Nathan Arizona says Nathan Junior slept in jammies when we saw him in a diaper and when H.I. flies through a windshield there is no glass. But other than those two small quibbles, I have no other problem with this film.

                Nicholas Cage has made probably more bad movies than good, but you can always count on him to bring everything to his performance. This is no exception. He is hilarious as the high strung criminal who is completely unable to turn his life around.  On top of that, his narration is perfect and serves to raise the film to an almost poetic level comedy never reaches.  Holly Hunter is perfect as his partner in life and crime.

                The rest of the cast is just as good. John Goodman and William Forsyth are hilarious and way over the top as H.I.’s prison friends.  Francis McDormand has a hysterical cameo as a jealous mother who wants the baby for her own.

                Kill Bill Volume 2 has an incredible fight in a trailer that is great at showing a fight in a small space. As good as it was it was only borrowing from the fight between Cage, Forsyth, and Goodman here. It is an exciting and hilarious battle.

                I love a movie that gets better and better upon repeat viewings and like most Coen Brothers films this is one of them. If for some reason you have not seen this, rent it now.

Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook’

Unforgotten is a very powerful and very sad account of a terrible part of our nation’s history. It is the story of a handful of families that lived through a family member’s life at Willowbrook. The story of Willowbrook is one that his been told many times. The horrors that occurred in the facility have been well documented. The filmmakers make the wise decision of just focusing on these few accounts of how families dealt with before, during and after having siblings and children spending years locked away in this facility that was supposed to care for their disabled relatives.

                Going into the documentary I knew it was going to be rough, but the film effected me more than I originally prepared for. It is sad but amazing to see how these people have dealt with the repercussions of living with not only the repercussions of their family members ailments but the way they were treated for years.

                Watching Unforgotten makes you very grateful for what you have and the abilities we all take for granted. I couldn’t help but think about what I would have done if in the position of some of these families at the time. Would I have sent my child to live with others in the hopes that they could care for them better than I could have?

                 I don’t know, I am lucky enough to have never been faced with these decisions. The one thing that comes through is that these families loved their children and made the best decision they saw available to them at the time. I am just grateful that the choices for these people have been made easier as the establishments we have to care for the disabled have improved.

                The film acts as a snapshot of our national history. One that we have hopefully evolved past.  It is amazing to see that these kids who were at one point deemed helpless have gone on to live instead of rot in an unforgiving landscape like Willowbrook. Unforgotten is now available to view on Netflix Instant Viewing and deserves to be seen.

Bridesmaids Trailer

I am looking forward to this one. Kristen Wigg cracks me up in everything I have seen her in, even movies that were not very good. It will be nice to see her as a lead. Plus the movie is produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Paul Feig (the dudes behind Freaks and Geeks). It will be interesting to see what this genre of movie is like when led by a female cast since we usually just see it through the male perspective. The cast is made up of a lot of other funny actresses like Maya Rudolph, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper.  Jon Hamm also has a small role.

Check out the trailer below.