movie review

The Duff (2015)

The Duff

The Duff (2015)

Director:

Ari Sandel

Starring:

Mae Whitman

Bella Thorne

Robbie Amell

Plot:

A high school senior instigates a social pecking order revolution after finding out that she has been labeled the DUFF – Designated Ugly Fat Friend – by her prettier, more popular counterparts.

Review:

Honestly I’m really pushing it renting movies I’m interested in seeing. Right now there’s not much at Red Box I want to see, I’ve also seen most of the good stuff on Netflix and Amazon too. So if I have a passing interest in it I’m renting it for this blog. I’m pretty sure I’ll be re-watching a lot of favorites in my future.

It’s been so much longer than I realized since I’ve been in high school.

I think that might be the most awkward montage I’ve ever seen. Period. It was impossible to watch. So many awkward moments in this film that I found parts of it difficult to watch because of that, still I got into it and laughed several times.

Really liked Robbie Amell’s character. He wasn’t trying to change Whitman’s character he was trying to focus her. I liked that. In She’s All That Freddie Prinz Jr. changes his girl, Amell just tries to bring who she really is to the front. He was a clueless dick sometimes, mainly at the beginning of the movie.

Ultimately Whitman’s character discovers for herself who she is, but she wouldn’t have gotten there without him or her friends and mom.

The Duff brought back memories of being a silly teenage girl, watching goofy high school movies, so I enjoyed it.

3.5/5

Tinker Bell (2008)

Tinker Bell

Tinker Bell (2008)

Director:

Bradley Raymond

Starring:

Mae Whitman

Kristin Chenoweth

Raven-Symoné

Plot:

Enter the land of Tinker Bell and her four best fairy friends.

Review:

Sorry for another Tinker Bell post but my movie watching time is very limited and no matter how many times I tell my daughter that The Matrix: Reloaded is a masterpiece she refuses to sit still for it.

For those of you who’ve always wondered how Tinker Bell came to be this is the movie for you. It starts out with Tinker Bell’s origin story and then goes right into what life’s like in Pixie Hollow. That’s right fairies live in Pixie Hollow, I’m sure you thought they lived in Neverland, newb.

Once she makes herself a nice tight, little miniskirt Tinker Bell is ready to tinker. Tinker is not really her name it’s a title cause that’s the profession she was called into when she was born. She’s not really thrilled with this placement and spends the movie trying to be something else.

Eventually, due to Tinker Bell coming to grips with her geeky role, she puts automation into effect in Pixie Hollow and is able to get an entire seasons worth of work done in a day. What is not discussed is all the fairies now out of jobs due to this. I’m sure one of the future movies will delve deeper into this issue.

3/5

Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014)

Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014)

Director:

Steve Loter

Starring:

Ginnifer Goodwin

Mae Whitman

Rosario Dawson

Plot:

Fun and talented animal fairy Fawn believes you can’t judge a book by its cover, or an animal by its fangs, so she befriends a huge and mysterious creature known as the NeverBeast. While Tinkerbell and her friends aren’t so sure about this scary addition to Pixie Hollow, the elite Scout Fairies set out to capture the monster before he destroys their home. Fawn must trust her heart and take a leap of faith if she hopes to rally the girls to save the NeverBeast.

Review:

The scout fairies are by far the coolest, but that’s probably just my adult talking. I’ve seen a lot of these fairy movies floating around and even watched bits and pieces of them, but never actually paid attention to them. Since I’ve got a daughter they’re probably in my future so I decided to check one out and see if I should try and steer her clear of them.

The movie really teaches you not to trust the police. Fawn believes a giant beast isn’t a monster and doesn’t tell the scouts about him even when she’s given proof that he plays a part in some apocalyptic world ending event. She just assumed that the leader of the scouts would kill the beast, of course the leader ends up trying to kill the beast so I guess she knew what was best.

It’s a pretty dark movie for something starring fairies. Lots of green lightning and the beast ends up almost dying in the end. He does have to go away for 1000 years of hibernation.

I ended up missing the last few minutes because my daughter decided she was done watching and wanted to play in the cat food so maybe he got to stay around.

It was a cute movie and if I end up having to watch them a lot it could be worse.

3/5

The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix

The Matrix (1999)

Director:

Andy Wachowski & Lana Wachowski

Starring:

Keanu Reeves

Laurence Fishburne

Carrie-Anne Moss

Plot:

A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Review:

This is one of my happy movies. I watch it and can’t help but grin. So many scenes that I love, a great world, great editing, and a great story.

I really shouldn’t review movies and books I love because I get so caught up in them that I can barely think past OMG I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!!!

The movie opens great, I love that you get to see Trinity kicking so much ass. The cool little slide phone. Her flight through the window looks a little bad, but the movie is from ’99 it gets a pass.

This was the first rated R movie I ever owned; it might have even been on VHS I’m not sure. I remember letting my little brother watch it, without my parents’ consent, and getting so angry that the coolest part for him was when Neo flips of Agent Smith. How could he not see how cool the action scenes were or how amazing the world was? Kids.

The scene where they walk through the metal detectors makes me grin like an idiot. From there until the end it’s just nonstop, everything is so spectacular and eye opening. The world becomes so much bigger.

5/5

 

“I know Kung Fu.”

Skin Trade (2014)

Skin Trade

Skin Trade (2014)

Director:

Ekachai Uekrongtham

Starring:

Dolph Lundgren

Tony Jaa

Ron Perlman

Michael Jai White

Plot:

After his family is killed by a Serbian gangster with international interests, NYC detective Nick goes to S.E. Asia and teams up with a Thai detective to get revenge and destroy the syndicates human trafficking network.

Review:

Lot of action names in this movie. The story was fairly mindless, I called everything that happened, there were several good fights, and the ending was weak.

Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, and Michael Jai White all had good fight scenes. There wasn’t much shaky cam, though, there were more quick edits than I wanted. Still I was surprised at how good the fights looked, considering the budget for the film.

Something that annoyed me were the edits through the movie. My husband said that some people said it was the directors style. I don’t know if that’s true, but it felt more unprofessional than a style choice. At one point Michael Jai White was talking with Dolph Lundgren while walking down a hall and then all of a sudden Robocop (Peter Weller) was talking in front of a large group of cops with DL and MJW in the room. It was not seamless and didn’t work with the story and stuff like that happened a few times.

The ending was a set up for a sequel, which is pretty ambitious for this type of movie, but it also took away from the impact of the ending. A helicopter has exploded, which is great, but instead of some cheesy line and riding off into the sunset, Lundgren’s character finds out his daughter is still alive. Which sets up a sequel and gives no real closer for the first movie.

3.5/5