Bengie's Triple Feature Experience #3

My third trip and final trip to Bengie’s this year.  They are closing for the season and this makes me sad since there are other movies I would like to watch as long as they cost $3 a piece.

Wreck-It Ralph

John C. Reilly has a voice that sounds like he has always been criticized.  Imagine if everyone only knew you from Days of Thunder or as Will Ferrell’s shadow and how your voice might change.  That is what happened to John C. Reilly.   As such it seems to be a perfect fit for Wreck-It Ralph, the in-game bad guy of an old-school Donkey Kong knock-off.

Ralph dislikes being the bad guy and being treated as such, so he leaves his game and explores others in hopes of being treated better.  This leads to us being introduced to other video game worlds and handful of clever visual puns.  What is most surprising is a slight break from Disney formula whereby the villain isn’t identified until about three-quarters of the way through the movie.  When they introduced the central villain I was surprised.  Surprises are usually vacant for contemporary Disney movies.  Still the villain is defeated by their own missteps (See the Lion King, Tarzan, Aladdin, etc…).

Video games movies are generally awful in a what-the-hell-were-the-makers-of-this-film-thinking way.  The only good ones ever produced seem to be documentaries.  This is a good film and shows that to make a good video game movie; it has to be a documentary or based on a video game that doesn’t actually exist.

Rating:

1 Zelda Heart Container

A nice treat

 

Alex Cross

At this point in the night it was getting cold.  Luckily, Bengie’s reminded me I could get an in-car heater for only one dollar.  It sounds like a steal, but they require your driver’s license, registration, and first-born son to safeguard themselves from you stealing it.

It was a good thing the heater was initially adequate so that I could stay awake during Alex Cross.  Alex Cross, played by Tyler Perry, is a doctor, Sherlock Holmes-style detective, father, and a damn good cop.  Everything about him screams protagonist.  About ten minutes into the movie a sudden shift to jagged techno music tells us that the antagonist is being introduced.  Surely he has to be badass to stand against the likes of Dr. Cross.  We are shown his badassery because he takes down a top underground MMA fighter for shits and giggles. I once wrote a movie script where a villain punched somebody and their head exploded.  The concept is similar here except I hope the scriptwriter for Alex Cross wasn’t ten years old.  This villain also has no name so we will refer to him as Mr. Balding.

            The movie was really generic and then Holy Shit! Mr. Balding kills Alex Cross’ pregnant wife.  Totally was not expecting that.  I got back into the movie at that point only for it force me back out.  The camera during many action scenes shakes uncontrollably to cover up how horrible these scenes are.  I’ve seen CSI episodes with better production values.  The difference is that CSI does a better job of establishing everyone’s motives.  I was going to add to this review that like every Tyler Perry film I probably had to be black to enjoy it. But I don’t think I would have enjoyed this film even if that was the case.

Scene of the Movie:  Mr. Balding is trying to kill a company executive.  The executive locks himself in his office with a fellow officer.  The officer tells him to open the door to let him out.  The executive says the door can only be open from the outside.  This is either a bluff or an incredibly stupid security system that would let thugs open the door.  Threats to the executive show he is bluffing.  The entire scene is made unnecessary from this.  If it was true the door couldn’t be opened the scene would have worked but be laughably stupid (and fitting for the film).

Rating:

100 Bison Dollars

Not worth the paper they're printed on.

 

 

 

 

 

Argo

 

Argo might be proof that Ben Affleck should only star in films he helps to write or direct (on second thought just name a film that’s not Good Will Hunting).  Argo was a good film and this is a good thing because Alex Cross nearly put me into a coma.  The Bengie’s heater wasn’t warm enough to keep me wide awake but hot enough to melt into my dash.  Argo kept me wide awake proving that Bengie’s saves their best film for last.

            Argo is about how scary it can be to be surrounded by angry Persians.  Imagine you go to Iran and a Persian starts angrily screaming at you in a language you don’t understand.  If you don’t have a military to back you up, one’s only other option is to find a clean pair of drawers.  This movie uses these instances to make every minute event tense.  Does a character have the boarding pass currently being held in their hands?  Holy crap, if he doesn’t show it to them the consequences may be unfathomable.  Yet this movie consistently throws these needlessly tense moments to the audience and does it well.

Argo is also about how easy it is to make a horrible film in Hollywood.  Argo is chosen solely for its locational needs.  The script is a Star Wars knock-off that might have made Episode One look good.  Might is the key word.  It is amazing that Hollywood still upholds this tradition (go look at Ben Affleck’s IMDB page)

Rating:

The Shoe.

A stupid concept made awesome in execution.


















Future reviews will likely not be at Bengie's for some time.  Expect a little more variation.

Bengie's Triple Feature Experience #2

My second trip to Bengie's due to its awesome value and to try their apple cider.

Hotel Transylvania

I missed part of this film due to rain but seeing a blurry screen for about ten minutes didn't effect what I was watching

An animated film starring Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. Dracula (Adam Sandler) opens a hotel for Monsters so they can avoid humans. However, a human voiced by Andy Samberg enters the hotel and like any reasonable organism Dracula tries to get Samberg to leave the premises. All the classic monsters are represented: Frankenstein's Monster (Kevin James), Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), David Spade (Invisible Man), Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz), and the Mummy (Cee Lo Green). Again Adam Sandler surrounds himself with fellow comedians to try to convince us are still funny. Nice try (Except Buscemi who is great in everything).

The movie actually does have a couple funny moments in the first half, but falls apart in the end. I mean the second half is horrifically retarded. Dracula is introduced to the human world and humans automatically accept him and his friends without panic. We all know sunlight is bad for vampires, but an hour in the sun will only cause “sunburns” to dracula making his panic minutes earlier to being sunbuned seem a merit-less. However, the worst was the ending whereby there is a techno-beat singing number and Dracula starts rapping. Non-musical animated films that end with musical numbers tell me the filmmakers never had a proper ending. And if your film ends with Dracula rapping you obviously stopped caring about your own film.

This movie actually plays out a lot like Adam Sandler's filmography

Rating:

It started out good but now it is just bad.

It should be noted that Frankenstein's Monster is named Frankenstein because the writers obviously know little about these monsters except what they saw on NickToon reruns.

Pitch Perfect

Have you seen Step It Up or any of the Bring it On sequels? Me neither. Although without watching those I can tell you Pitch Perfect is the same exact movie. I have seen the first Bring It On and have regretted that decision more than the time a Nickelback song came on the radio and I didn't change the station. Pitch Perfect is about an outsider joining an a capella college team and taking home the gold as a result. If you are hating me because of that spoiler then you obviously don't know these movies have only two potential endings. The protagonist comes in first or they come in second by a narrow margin but still somehow break the spirits (read arrogance) of the first place team.

Let me also add, at this college acapella is the after-school event to join. What kind of pansy college is this? Are the students so horrible at sports that they have resorted to singing? I know I saw a swim team in this film but they must have all drown because there is only a brief moment that is shown. The one redeeming factor of Pitch Perfect is the character Fat Amy. She steals every scene she is in although half her jokes were shown in the previews. The rest of the cast is either weird but unsubstantiated or cookie-cutter.

The movie does honor “The Breakfast Club.” The “Breakfast Club” is an unintentionally great movie if seen through sarcastic eyes. Pitch Perfect tries to achieve this but ends up being bland sarcastic or not.

Rating:

 

I'll consume it if its free but you'll never see me pay for it

Looper

I never watched a time travel movie where the characters actually went into some kind of conversation about time travel and almost everything made sense. The only thing that didn't make sense to me is why they made Joseph Gordon-Levitt a young version of Bruce Willis (or vice versa) when the two people don't look alike. It would be like trying to make Stallone look like an old Devito. Wait, that sounds like a good movie.

Rating:

It's a good thing the best movie premieres last at Bengie's because if Pitch Perfect was last I would have gotten an extra hour of sleep.

The Triple Feature: Bengie's Drive-In Experience #1

Bengie’s Drive-In Theatre found in Baltimore.  A relic of the past that manages to be better than your run of the mill movie theatre experience.  For $9 you can see three films (all released in the past month).  This makes for an cheap and efficient means of movie-watching.  Three films premiered this past Saturday.  They were FrankenWeenie, Trouble with the Curve, and End of Watch.
 

FrankenWeenie

This movie was watched before the weather at Bengie’s got cold.
 
Remember The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and James and The Giant Peach?  Excellent Tim Burton animated films.  What’s that? Henry Selik directed all those?  Damnit!
 
FrankenWeenie is a movie made in typical Tim Burton style but with a lesser Disney influence than Alice in Wonderland.  Granted the Disney sting is still there, but the swelling is less noticeable.  Wonderfully animated made in black and white, the movie contains numerous hat tips to classic horror movies (few of which I have actually seen). 
 
The movie follows the standard Disney family film arc of tragedy, recovery, shenanigans, unnecessary action, emotional cop out.   The tragedy was the dog dies, dog is brought back to life, undead dog is attempted to be hidden, action scenes of other pets being brought back to life (which made no sense), and the dog seemingly have had to die again.  However, this is a Disney movie so the dog was brought back to life.  The film would have been much better if the dog remained dead (re-dead?) but Disney doesn’t want kids to get upset and grow up to be cynical.  Cynical adults don’t watch Disney movies.  Also the movie never addresses the issue of reanimating rotting flesh but, again, telling kids that the characters are hugging Chinatown leftovers would only upset them.
 
Rating:  8 out of 15 stars
(1 Star is “RedBox Rental”, 6 stars is “Excellent”, 15 Stars is “Horrible”, 9 stars is “Italian Sub no Tomato”)
 
Side Notes:  Friends I was with left after this feature leaving me to stretch in my highly comfortable bench seats for the following two features.
 
 

Trouble with the Curve

 
What the hell Clint!  The last couple movies you directed were great but…. Oh, you didn’t direct this. …. Must be a pattern.  Trouble with the Curve is the worst movie starring Clint Eastwood since BloodWork.  Neither movie is bad, it’s just that Clint has set the bar too high for himself.  Okay this movie is kind of bad in the generic way.  Clint plays the same grumpy old man he played in Gran Torino only without the racism which makes this movie far less entertaining.  Every character introduced follows a very predictable path.  Sitting at Bengie’s made me miss my departed friends for they provided warmth.  A warmth that might have prevented me from dosing off during short stretches of the movie.  Then again, cuddling was probably out of the question.  If I missed any dialogue, it was okay because the movie didn’t require one’s attention to know how it would end.
 
Rating:

 

End Of Watch

 
I had no problems staying awake during the course of this film.  This is primarily due to the fact that the movie was intense, funny, and had wonderful dialogue.  End of Watch was sort of shot Blair Witch style only with steadier cameras and cameramen not fascinated by trees or rocks.  A great buddy cop film without all those forced one-liners.  Watch this movie. 
 
 

Rating:   It was Pretty Good.