The Expendables 3 (2014)

Expendables 3

The Expendables 3 (2014)

Director:

Patrick Hughes

Starring:

Sylvester Stallone

Jason Statham

Jet Li

Harrison Ford

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Mel Gibson

Wesley Snipes

Dolph Lundgren

Randy Couture

Terry Crews

Kelsey Grammer

Antonio Banderas

Plot:

Barney augments his team with new blood for a personal battle: to take down Conrad Stonebanks, the Expendables co-founder and notorious arms trader who is hell bent on wiping out Barney and every single one of his associates.

Review:

It sucks that this movie got leaked, but then it sucks that they screwed over their fans and made the movie PG-13. I don’t expect much of a story from an Expendables movie but I do expect lots of blood, action, and violence. When the best part of the movie is the dialog you know that something is wrong.

The best parts were Kelsey Grammer, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, and Antonio Banderas. The kids might not have even been in the movie, though if they weren’t we wouldn’t have the awesome scenes with Grammer. I wasn’t expecting much from Banderas but he was crazy and not what I had anticipated. I expected more from Snipes, but apart from the beginning, he was barely in the movie.

Evidently the original cut was four hours long but obviously it couldn’t be that long so they cut a bunch. At least I hope that’s what it was, because there were a lot of parts where it was just what the hell? They had a dude for half an hour just jumping up an elevator shaft. They’d just cut to him randomly.

There are a lot of people in the Expendables movies but unlike the Avengers movies they have a hard time finding a good balance with characters. That’s actually something I wish they had done with these, have build up. One movie shows off how much of a badass this character is and then another movies does the same with another and then they team up to kick even more ass. But that hasn’t been done so I should just get over it.

I really liked the first two Expendables movies, they were on the cusp of being awesome and with each one they just fell a little short. They suffered from too many quick cuts, poor editing, and bad CG. This one had that times a hundred. My hope is that they cut a lot to get a PG-13 rating and that when the extended cut comes out on Blu-ray I get a better movie.

3/5

Despicable Me (2010)

despicable me

Despicable Me (2010)

Director:

Pierre Coffin

Chris Renaud

Starring:

Steve Carell

Jason Segal

Russell Brand

Plot:

When a criminal mastermind uses a trio of orphan girls as pawns for a grand scheme, he finds their love is profoundly changing him for the better.

Review:

I’m not sure why but I didn’t like this one as much as the second. I should have. Part of why I liked the second one was how adorable Gru was with the kids and there was certainly this, but it just didn’t get me like it does in the sequel.

My daughter liked this one better. Well, she paid attention more with this one. She’s still little though so movies aren’t really her thing.

I wonder why they picked those names for the girls? Very old lady names, I wonder if that was on purpose?

Still really cute movie and evidently I can look forward to more in the future.

4/5

Three Girls and a Leading Man

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Three Girls and a Leading Man (Three Girls #3) By: Rachel Schurig

Plot:

Annie Duncan has never put much stock in true love. Sure, she loves dating, but she gets more than her share of drama working as a struggling actress—she can live without the romantic kind, thank you very much. Instead, Annie focuses her energy on her two best friends, Jen and Ginny. And now that she finally appears to be getting her big break, Annie couldn’t be happier with the way things are going. When she meets Nate during a weekend away in Vegas, she figures she’ll just have an exhilarating fling—even if he is totally adorable and clearly into her. But when Annie finds herself falling for Nate, she’s faced with a choice she never wanted to make. In Three Girls and a Leading Man, Annie Duncan attempts to chase her dreams and keep her heart under control. Her heart, however, may have different ideas!

Review:

I completely forgot to write this review. Read the book and just moved right on. I felt a little cheated by this series. The first book was really good, the main character had a lot of growth. The two following weren’t as good. This isn’t completely uncommon in books but still not any less disappointing.

Throughout the book I kept thinking can a book later in a series retroactively make the first book worse? I don’t think so in this case. I think what it boiled down to was I wasn’t the market for this book. I don’t consider myself old, I’m only twenty-eight, and the New Adult genre should still be accessible to me, but I was never this young.

It felt like every few pages she was going out drinking or dancing or just staying in home drinking. The book should have had a hangover cure at the end. I realize I’m in the minority when it comes to drinking, I have no problem with it I just don’t see the need to drink until I feel sick the next day.

Anyway, the drinking was just a very small part of the overall story but it perfectly highlighted what I didn’t like about the story. I’ll still read books by Rachel Schurig, in fact I have another of her books purchased and ready to read, I’m just going to give her a little rest first.

3/5

Author’s Anonymous (2014)

Authors-Anonymous-movie-01

Author’s Anonymous (2014)

Director:

Ellie Kanner

Starring:

Kaley Cuoco

Teri Polo

Tricia Helfer

Plot:

When a dysfunctional group of unpublished writers accept Hannah into their fold, the last thing they expect is her overnight success. Can these lovable misfits achieve their artistic dreams and avoid killing one another in the process?

Review:

Wow so maybe I just took this movie the wrong way because I call myself an author. The movie was incredibly insulting and did not do a good job of depicting authors. At least the authors I know. I thought I’d give that as a disclaimer so people can keep that in mind when reading my review.

Anyway, it was very predictable. I called the blond sleeping with the punk kid at the opening. For the most part the movie was just a steady stream of insult to people who want to be published writers. The fact that the whole group imploded because one of them got success is really sad. It didn’t make matters any better that she slept her way to success.

It was supposed to be a documentary, they addressed the cameras often enough, but there were lots of shots that couldn’t be done with that approach. Inconsistent.

Just overall a real disappointment.

1/5

Alex Cross (2012)

AlexCross

Alex Cross (2012)

Director:

Rob Cohen

Starring:

Tyler Perry

Matthew Fox

Rachel Nichols

Plot:

A homicide detective is pushed to the brink of his moral and physical limits as he tangles with a ferociously skilled serial killer who specializes in torture and pain.

Review:

What’s with the shaky cam while looking at a computer screen? Really? Was that necessary?

Matthew Fox played a freaking creepy villain.

I’ve been waiting a while for the first book in the series to be in at the library and this movie just made me want to read it even more.

Way too much shaky cam in the fight scene. Also it’s hard to believe that Alex Cross would win in a fight. The way they did it though it was really just surprise that caused him to win. I liked that he didn’t try to save the guy, he wanted him dead. Vengeance.

Women did not fare well in this movie. Also yet another movie that makes living in Detroit seem like the worst thing to do.

3.75/5