Parental Guidance

Movie: Parental Guidance
Drink: Whatever was still in my system from New Year party



Never in my right mind would I see a movie like this in a theater, so you can imagine how awesome I felt as I lay on the carpet of my brother's house, slowly dripping 7UP into my mouth while dreaming of the #1 Extra Value meal at McDonald's, which cures everything. 
     As many of you know, the winter sun makes me want to pour acid on my eyes and then scribble the scabs black with a Sharpie before blindfolding myself while sitting in the basement, so when my brother suggested we go see a movie, all I heard was "popcorn and darkness".
     We were bringing the kids, so the only appropriate movie, yes I said appropriate ( I'm talking to you, dude who brought his 4 year old daughter to Terminator Salvation, disturbing me not with her crying at the blood and dismembering, but her giggling at them) was Parental Guidance.  And this is why we should all embrace our hangovers.  Normally I would've scoffed at the idea of paying money for what surely was a crap show, but in my mentally weakened state, I agreed to go. 
     Kids are great. I think we can all agree that babies totally suck, but once they pupate into a kid, they are like having a really funny, dweeby friend that thinks everything is cool.  I when I saw the pure joy in my niece's eyes as she pressed the red button that sprayed butter all over our popcorn I could relate.  What a fantastic invention!  When the movie got lame, it was no trouble at all to find a willing participant to go out to the lobby with me to get more pop and play the toy grabber machine.  People that usually glance warily at a grown man dumping quarters into a slot in an attempt to snag a greasy, star spangled dog/bear thing now came up to me and my nieces and smiled and cheered us on. When the movie got even more boring, I sat back and watched the secondary show of my brother trying to catch his daughter who just up and ran off.
      So all you parents, stop being so stressed and lame and take your kids to the movies. It doesn't even have to be animated.  Just make sure you drink heavily the night before.
     As for the movie itself, all I can say is not since "The Bride of Chucky" have I so badly wanted to see an ugly red headed brat get his ass kicked.

This is 40

The movie: This Is 40

The Drink: Agavales 100% agave tequila. In a flask I got for free from a giant gift pack of vodka

This is a great movie to see if you are single. It was not really that great, but it was highly informative. It was like a well done documentary on the earth's most boring animals. Now, I am not sure if all you married people with children are really constantly on edge, balanced precariously on tipping point between fights about really lame stuff, but it makes for good T.V.

The main characters were sad. Paul Rudd's usual charming dorkiness was replaced by middle class stress and emasculation. His wife is so incredibly annoying and obviously blazed on prescription meds, which is the only reason I can come up with to explain her slurred speech and slow, painfully confused way in which she goes about life.

After seeing this film, I totally understand the preoccupation that society has with post-apocalyptic scenarios. With scene after scene of people applying earth shattering importance to their mundane diets and arguing about having to sell their house while talking about who should cater their 40^th birthday party, I admit I was hoping for a meteor to land on the mansion, um, er, “house” or maybe the earth to open up to swallow the BMW and Lexus in the drive way so that maybe they could think about being 40 is better than being a pile of smoking hamburger under a meteor. When one of the daughters is having a freak out about having to play outside and not use the Wi-Fi anymore, it would've been pretty sweet if a zombie had shuffled out of the bushes to chew on her neck or maybe on the mom's annoying face. Seriously, her face looks like she is constantly sucking on a mildly electrified lemon. There is something about a scene where a man is at the end of his rope and rides off in a blaze of anger, but remembers to put on his expensive helmet that makes me feel like a bad ass for doing pretty much nothing. 

     I actually liked this movie, sort of.  It was like watching a documentary about Hurricane Katrina or the Japanese earthquake.  Horrible to behold, but you walk away glad it wasn't you.

 





 THE MOVIE :
LOOPER
THE DRINK :
 SKYY VODKA DRAGONFRUIT MINIS

  I was not aware that there was a Hyvee in Madison.  When I went in to buy popcorn cheese and alcohol minis it all became crystal clear.   Hyvee is basically the Target of grocery stores.  Everyone there is a crabby rich lesbian, or wishes they were.  I zipped up and down the aisles looking for popcorn cheese to sneak into the theater, because for some reason movie theaters don't cough up the couple of extra bucks it would take to make me actually buy the popcorn that supposedly keeps them in the black.  I mean, seriously, if my business was mainly funded by food and drink profits, I sure as hell would get more creative than just selling plain popcorn, souir patch kids, and friggin pretzel nubbins with bland cheese dip.
     So as  I dodged dirty looks from lesbian and IT employed couples for wearing athletic shoes and sweat pants, I grabbed the cheese and ducked into the attached liquor store.  I thought I would be safe there, but it turned out to be one giant wine rack infested with crabby couples trying to decide what the cheapest expensive wine was so they could look cool without facing reality about how not rich they were. Luckily this was the perfect place to buy mini bottles of some failed alcohol that did not pass the hipster handbook test.
     So I sat in the theater sprinkling cheese on my giant tub of popcorn and sipping surprisingly un-gross marriage of potato alcohol and dragonfruit.
     Looper is really good.  I don't really feel like giving too much away, except for the fact that it follows the simple, yet so often ignored formula of story before action.  And the action is awesome, so imagine how great the story is.  A few words of advice: Don't waste your time trying to figure out how Gordon Joseph Levitt's make-up is applied.  Don't buy the cheap popcorn cheese.  Most importantly, do not, DO NOT try to figure out time paradox.  Multiple times during the movie the characters themselves say they don't feel like talking about time paradox. So please, take their advice and don't worry about it. You do not really know what the actual consequences of time travel would be, so just accept the fact that anyone's interpretation of time travel could be accurate.  When the movie ended half the theater stayed seated and discussed with their friends about how this and that could have happened. Fail.   I had to take a major leak from all the Coke and dragonfruit I had been drinking .  Thanks to all the failed movie goers, the bathroom was nearly empty.  Nearly. A guy in a suit was at one of two unusually close urinals.  I ignored him like you're supposed to, but he just had to say " so have you figured out the time parts of that movie?"
     I looked straight ahead at the wall like you're supposed to and said " I'm pretty sure that Bruce Willis himself told you not to worry about it."  The guy laughed , but cut it short, realizing he had been dissed.
I'm sure his future self is thanking me though.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

The Drink: El Jimador tequila
The Movie: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

     I had been warned about seeing this movie, but it was by a friend that also says "The Life Aquatic" is up there on his top ten list, so naturally I thought "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" couldn't be all that bad. (I tried to do a review on "The Life Aquatic" but I was unable to get the image of all those hipsters gawking at the same movie through their fake lens nerd glasses while wringing their shoddily hand knitted berets in frail, soft hands while making sure no one else was purpously pigeon- toeing  their teal Converse sneakers in quite the same unique way they were.)  Where was I?

  Oh yes, driving down the highway in New Hampshire.  For those of you who don't know, New Hampshire has zero sales tax, and a little tendril of land that managed to worm its way between Maine and Massachusetts to reach the ocean.  If you take almost any exit off the highway along this nubbin of N.H. ( or any exit in New Hampshire for all I know) you will find a gloriously huge, cheap, tax free liquor store.  You can find anything there, from salted caramel vodka, to fifteen different types of absinthe.  Also a big potion looking bottle of pink alcoholic barf labeled Qream. ( see photo above)  This is also where I first discovered I could hold my breath for over two minutes while navigating a bathroom where, apparently, someone had been drinking Qream the night before.

     So that night we watched "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen".  I am a fan of both Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor, which is my only excuse for sitting through the whole thing.  This may have been a mistake.  Much like some friends of mine who in the late 90's went to see The Wallflowers in concert, leaving with giggly high hopes of catching Jakob Dylan's eye, but returning with runny mascara and grumblings about how he was actually sort of a douche bag, I also have lost a bit of respect for Blunt and McGregor.
     When McGregor actually turns and smacks his face into a glass door, I was disappointed.  When Kristin Scott Thomas makes her appearance looking like the daughter of The Wolfman and the Bride of Frankenstein, I was grossed out.  When Blunt spends half the movie moping and blubbering about the disappearance of her soldier boy-toy, not because she loved him but because "she never got a chance to know him", I was gagging. But when McGregor actually brandishes his fly rod like a whip, snagging the earlobe of an assassin from 50 feet away and preventing him from shooting, I was wishing for an assassin of my own.  And when the whole thing deteriorates into some sort of terrorist plot against salmon, I was in the kitchen pouring more tequila.
    While trying to point out all the lame things about this film is about as useful as trying to pick ticks off a feral cat, I feel I must point out one more complaint. C.G. salmon.  I've seen better computer graphics watching my nephew play Minecraft.
     When I first saw the film "A River Runs Through It", I admit that I was one of the dorks that went out and bought a fly rod and had dreams of standing in crisp waters, casting like a pro.  If I hadn't already snapped my rod in half and flung it into the creek in a fit of rage after one too many snags on the brush behind  me, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen would have no doubt produced the same result.
   

Movie: The Artist

Drink: Bombay Sapphire martini



     I admit, I did not have high hopes for this movie.  The fact that it  won the Oscar for best picture was my first warning.  My second warning came a mere 5 minutes into the film when my brain was telling me " better get us some more gin, buddy.  This is gonna be a long, annoying, big band music filled nightmare."
     Right off the bat, there is a long scene showing the audience in a theater watching a silent movie.  Watching a silent movie about people watching a silent movie so early in the film only served to make me remember that they were forced to watch a silent movie, where as I was watching one of my own volition. There is a reason movies have full soundtracks now.  The most important being that sometimes a movie needs to be truly silent.  Some of the best films use the music and the absence of music perfectly to create atmosphere and depth.  The worst ones have the soundtrack blaring away in the background while a dramatic scene gets swallowed up and lost in its wake.  The Artist is filled with  non-stop orchestra music.  If  I had seen it in a theater with a real band, then maybe , maybe it could get away with it.  If you are in your living room, then you are going to feel like you are on hold with the IRS for 2 hours.
    Another problem is with the actors themselves.  Berenice Bejo was a terrible choice in my opinion.  Her painfully bony face and plastic surgery pointy nose were so out of place, as were her bulging eyes and huge overly white teeth and protruding rib cage.  For a minute I thought I was watching Desperate Housewives with the color off on my t.v.  While Jean Dujardin wasn't quite as annoying, I still got so sick of his sad, sad eyebrow raises and the gigantic shark attack smile that makes me wonder if he's not related to Julia Roberts.
     I'm sure most of you are thinking "he just doesn't get it", but I assure you that I do.  If you are working with a limp, boring love story and your audience is a bunch of  limp, boring hipsters that will swarm to anything even remotely retro, this is the film to make.  It was a one trick pony, a gimmick.  If you don't believe me, I'm willing to take bets on whether a black and white silent film will win the Oscars again next year.  Any takers?

War Horse

The Drink :  A full growler of dark, slightly under-carbonated, home brewed beer. And about 6 shots of some cheap tequila purchased in Minneapolis.


It was a cold, damp weekend in Elk River, MN.  Trivial Pursuit had been played and Boggle had been unscrambled to death.  The soundtrack to Love Story spun lopsided on the turntable, skipping around between moody piano and needle scratches sounding like a syrupy hiccup until I was nausious, much like watching the movie itself, but that's a review for another time.
    I suggested we hit up the Redbox.  Now, for some still unexplained reason, my gracious hosts were profoundly opposed to Redbox.  I argued its virtues for nearly an hour, getting nowhere until I simply picked a movie and reserved it online, forcing them to choose between the age old dilemma of watching movies on a boring rainy day or losing a dollar.  We drove to Redbox, although in hindsight, I really wish they would have stuck to their guns and stood up for their beliefs.
    There is really very little good I can say about War Horse, except for that it's the first movie I have seen where I think the main animal character is a pompous ass hole.  Congo came close,  but really, if the scientist would have just deactivated that electronic translator the ape would just have been doing regular sign language.
     Right off the bat, the kid that takes a liking to the horse annoyed me.  I'm assuming he came straight from failed casting of Wizards of Waverly Place and walked next door to the War Horse set. Yes, I'm saying he looked like a Disney dork.  Second, Disney dork calls the horse Joey.  Watch Black Beauty or Seabiscuit and in your mind, name those horses Joey and tell me you still like those movies.
     The fact that the horse apparently listens to Disney dork and understands English and agrees to plow a huge field out of the kindness of its horse heart does not help its case.  Anyone who has ever been thrown from a horse, kicked by a horse, shat on by a horse, had  a horse fart in your face, know that horses just don't give a s**t.
     My gracious hosts usually have a rule about ABSOLUTELY NO TALKING during a movie, a rule I feel I should point out to them only applies in the theater, and that I can't bloody well tell other people in the theater to shut up and watch movies at home if they're going to talk if people aren't actually allowed to talk during movies at home.  However,  during the scene where the farm's entire turnip crop is ruined by...wait for it...rain, we could keep silent no longer.  The farmwife pulls up big beautiful turnips and throws them to the nicely moistened ground bemoaning her fate and we go to pieces, pouring more out of the growler, popping popcorn, and other usual protests.
     The rest of the movie just goes on and on with ridiculous horsness that is too painful to relate, like a time you were super embarrassed that you just want to forget.  Somewhere along the way someone said " Didn't Steven Spielberg direct this movie?"
    "No, he just produced it," said another.  I slipped out my smartphone, furiously typing into IMDB, fingers crossed, praying " Produced! Produced!"
     Nope.  Directed.  I couldn't believe it. Not that I think Spielberg is the greatest director of all time or anything ( a title I reserve for Christopher Nolan)  but still, doesn't he have people to tell him his movie sucks?
     When it was over we sat there, wanting our dollar back.  The gracious host's wife sighed contentedly.  " I like it." she said.  I wasn't surprised.  I know that girls like quirky horses and square jawed, blue eyed Disney dorks.  I just didn't know Spielberg did.

The Grey

Movie:  The Grey
Drink: mini bottles of Pinot Noir



     It started out with such promise.  An intriguing back story about Liam Neeson's struggle to deal with some hot chick leaving him and he being up here on this northern oil rig with a bunch of roughnecks.  Artsy close-ups of his strangely perfect nose as he writes a heart felt letter among the numb frozen tundra.  A failed suicide attempt.
     You know the scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail movie where the writer has a heart attack and then dies and the story changes?  Well I'm assuming that's what happened twenty minutes into this one.
     As soon as the roughnecks board the plane home, the movie takes a nose dive, much like the plane, the plot, and my buzz were about to do.  The dropping of F-bombs became so prolific that I actually broke one of my movie rules and pulled out my cell phone and started timing the seconds between swear words.  I soon found that it was impossible to be resetting my timer that fast , so I switched to recording times between f words.  I never got above 42 seconds.  I swear; no pun intended.
    After the callouses formed over the modesty portions of my brain, I sat back and tried to just get into the plot, but I had an easier time finding the bottom of my popcorn bucket.  Time  for a refill.
     "Can I get a f***in' refill?" I asked the snack counter girl.  She knew what movie I was watching, so she understood.
     Back in my seat I was subjected to dialogue and characters that made me cringe.  Imagine the most annoying A-holes you have ever met and now imagine they have frostbite and are crabby and you have to hike in the snow with them and they won't stop dropping F-bombs into your deathstar and your brain blows up over and over and over and Chewbacca, er, I mean wolves are surrounding you and why the heck haven't they invented a way to get butter on ALL the popcorn?!  Am I just supposed to eat the top and throw the rest in the aisle? Because that's what I did!
     I digress.  
     The wolves looked stupid.  CGI wolves are always going to look stupid.   I mean, would it be THAT hard to train some huskies to growl at swearing, unlikable idiots?  You probably wouldn't even have to train them.
    In closing, I think this movie was born out of Liam Neeson's need for some extra cash, and the producer of Twilight's need to recoup some of the cash he spent on the lame CGI wolf program he paid for.  Yes, they were that lame.  I was expecting one of the wolves to stop chewing on one of the roughnecks and explode into an Abercrombie and Fitch model sporting jean shorts and a spray tan.
     Exactly one hour and 8 minutes in, I walked out.  I realized it was time to go when I was cheering every time a wolf took out another douche bag.  Maybe it got better in the second half.  I dare you to find out.

GO WOLVES!