Going Haywire...

Haywire

      This time of year is known for putting out the worst Hollywood has to offer. For those of us who go to the movies, we know that there is generally bad movies every week of the year. God knows we've all sat through a crappy movie in June and wondered, "Did they spend over 100 million dollars on that?" Remember Green Lantern? Yet this first month of the year seems to continually throw out garbage and reruns of Oscar contenders. Why no one has ever tried to put out a good movie in January and capitalize on the down movie time, I do not know. So to find a good movie, you almost have to jump back from the mainstream studio hits and look for a movie that speaks to you. God knows I don't want to sit through another independent movie about bean sprouts that is really teaching me of the plight of the hispanic community and the horrible way we treat them. Not that I don't think that message is valid but seriously, do I have to be scolded when I go to a movie? Of course not but after seeing Haywire with MMA women's fighter Gina Carano, I may enjoy getting my ass kicked a little more.

      The movie stars MMA fighter Gina Carano as super agent/spy/independent contractor Mallory Kane who is the very best at what she does. What she seems to do best is kick the crap out of people. That is until she decides to leave the company she works for and they decide to set her up for a fall. You ever notice how these setups never seem to go as the ring leader imagines? Well this movie is no different. Mallory escapes her death trap and flees back to America. We learn all this in a flashback so I am not really ruining anything for you. Needless to say, Mallory wants payback and must fight through the sea of governmental red tape to get to the man who did her wrong. This is literally all the plot that needs to be known. Yet the movie is stylish and interesting taking a conventional action movie and making it almost artistic. You believe and want Mallory to win through killing and maiming. Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi from the blasphemous Episodes 1-3) is pitch perfect as a jilted lover and boss to Mallory who seems to beg to be killed. Michael Douglas comes in and out of this movie as a state department politician with little to do but offer sage advice and a way out for Mallory. I'm still not sure to what degree he is culpable in her being taken down but he almost surely knew and used the situation to his advantage.

     I think what can be said for this movie is that the star (Carano) does an adequate job and the movie moves at a pace that allows the lack of acting skills to not be distracting. When she looks over the snow capped New Mexico (seriously does it snow that much in New Mexico? Both this movie and last year's Let Me In seems to say it does.) and says "You better run." I cringed a little in my mind. A gifted and talented woman indeed but the script offers her little to do. Indeed I think the intent was to put her into a situation to be carried by the other actors in the movie. Nothing wrong with that and in fact, it probably makes for a better movie. The movie does not throw punches and indeed has the most violent intergender fighting I've ever seen. Ewan McGregor's character Kenneth seems to sum it up best when describing her to Michael Fassbender's assasin Paul, that to think of Mallory as a woman would be a big mistake indeed. Carano has the sensuality and looks to be very successful in movies and acts about as well as anyone does in her first role. She can learn a lot but she surrounded herself with brilliant actors (McGregor, Fassbender, Douglas and the heavy bearded Antonio Banderas) who can lift her up and teach her while creating a good movie.

     As far as the action goes, this movie delivers in rough fight sequences and fierce brutality what some more recent action movies rely on crisp neat fights and explosions. As in real life, the fighting in this movie is rarely pretty. Certainly they have skill but every fight seems to be a fight to the death. Carano wraps herself around her male counterparts in ways that make me blush. Her sexuality is controlled and fierce. She is always in control and every fight scene seems bent on turning into passionate sex in mere moments. Tragically, it turns into her shooting someone in the face or strangling her with her thighs (not a bad way to go) more than it turns into some good loving. Something tells me that Mallory Kane has sex on her terms and not just because someone is pretty. So is this a great movie? Not at all but it is a very competent and entertaining movie. Carano is a person to watch as she grows into an action actress . I've never given much thought to whether action movies needed a female action hero and I can now see the appeal. Can Gina Carano become Glen Close? Probably not but she could easily become the female Bruce Willis and that is good enough for me.

Mr. Unhappy Sez: Violence can be sexy fun entertainment.

Mission to please my Tom Cruise loving reader

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

I really really did not want to enjoy this movie. I fought hard to despise it. I even used outside influences to make me more unhappy (and for someone named Mr. Unhappy that is saying something) by using the young couple kissing at 5 minute intervals, as though to not have contact with the other person was physically painful to them as motivation to hate the new Tom Cruise vehicle. I wanted this movie to be so shameful that Tom Cruise would need to take a 15 year sabbatical inside of the Church of Scientology asking his god why this movie failed so miserably. I am not a fan of Mr. Cruise but damn him and his cocky Maverick smile. While Ethan Hunt may be one of his more dour characters, he is still just as charming with Simon Pegg as Goose in this occasion, as he was those years ago in Top Gun. 

So despite all my unhappiness, this movie left me smiling. From the first thought during the previews “Just when I thought it was safe to enter a theater and not hear that damn Celine Dion song from Titanic they rerelease Titanic in 3D” to the last moment when well…if I told you it would ruin it for you. I guess my consolation prize was that this movie did indeed seem to take great pleasure in inflicting pain on Mr. Cruise as though Ethan Hunt and Harry Dresden (wow a Dresden Files reference) were distant cousins in getting the hell beaten out of them. Blown up by a bomb, crashing cars, leaping from a car in a sandstorm, zip lining down a telephone cord onto a movie van and then crashing off the roof of the car to the ground below, driving a car off a 6 story parking garage into the ground where the airbag probably gave him a bloody nose…that really smarts. Yes, this movie is all about breaking Tom Cruise in half for me. 

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol brings together a new IMF team with Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner (as an analyst who seems to be a bit too badass for that position) and Paula Patton (who I do not know but would love to know in a more groiny way) seemingly cut off and disavowed but still trying to stop the villain (Swedish Version of The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo’s Michael Nyqvist) from starting a global Nuclear war. By now you’ve probably already seen the Dubai hotel which gave this unhappy reviewer a glimpse of Tom Cruise nearly plummeting 100 stories to his death but alas the bastard hung on. Still watching that made me queasy and I needed to look away. It works at a break neck pace that brings all the aspects of a good action movie. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. To the last second of the movie, you are not sure if everything will work out. Can the IMF team succeed or will they finally be a second too late? 

       This movie is made for fans of action movies that have intelligence. While some of the technology seems far fetched, the action is intelligent (impractical and insane too) and the actors are all game to play surprising three dimensional characters in action movies. The story is tight, driven and constantly fast paced. We travel the world and yet barely have time to take in the scenery (except in that Dubai Hotel where we see just a bit to much of the scenery 100 stories in the air).  Brad Bird, in his live action debut (he previously directed The Incredibles) shows real ability to direct actual human beings and pace action. Not many directors can film in a sandstorm and keep you from having to squint…too much. You enjoy the characters and hope they all survive the ordeal but are never fully convinced they will. The world feels very much on the line and all of this is a credit to the filmmakers. They may wait a while between Mission Impossible movies but they do them well. Overall, I liked this movie.  Yes it has Tom Cruise…but it suffers little because of it and damn it all, it works because of it too.

Mr. Unhappy Sez: I hate me some Tom Cruise but I loved me this film…I still can’t believe he got Katie Holmes with his oddly old man lower on my chest nipples n stuff.    

See what I mean? Or is this normal?

The First Annual (though slightly late) Worsties!

The Worsties of 2011!

Better late than never....I start my first annual Worsties with an open mind. Also I do have an opening musical number but since this is just text you have to imagine it. It's not a pretty sight. What is my worst may not be yours so do not get your panties in a bunch if say you loved Something Borrowed and feel I just don’t get the subtle complexities of Kate Hudson’s performance. I’ve attempted to really limit my worst of’s to movies I actually saw and not ones that everyone says is horrible. Like in Battlefield Earth, the first annual worsties will be like breaking in a horse although it will probably be a lot easier to believe that I really hated these movies than that a bunch of horse riding yokels can learn to fly jets in dog fighting maneuvers against trained pilots in only a few days. Also I am adding onto the end of this a review of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol because I am not a masochist, you can only stand so much awful movieness before you need a review of a good one or so my therapist would say…if I had one.

Worst Film of the Year

Something Borrowed

There are few things like nails on chalkboard in movies that can drive me insane. A movie in which none of the romantic leads are at all socially redeemable is one of them. Something Borrowed got under my skin more because it tried to be obnoxious and vain yet still likable. At the end of the day, the latter was never accomplished. Kate Hudson…well I’ll get to her later. I cannot tell you how upset I was leaving this movie, not because it was poorly made (I can enjoy even bad movies like Bride of Chucky where the boom microphone keeps dropping into view) but because it tried to be a love story and then proceeded to punish the viewer with the most obnoxious love triangle of all time. Thanks for letting us know that the moral of the story is: if you are a douche to your best friends, true love will find you. Actually I guess that sounds like real life.  

Worst Actor of 2011 

Shia LeBeouf in Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Dark of the moon is perhaps the worst movie of the series. Shia runs around like a chicken with his head cut off and screeches through his lines as though on something. Seriously, someone needs to take the Red Bull from his hands. By far, this movie sold us a bill of goods and then changed the item. At least part two had the racist transformers. This movie just made me weep for the cartoon show of my childhood and Shia was the headliner. It is just an awful performance. Perhaps it was the script, perhaps the director but the actor makes the movie. Shia made this movie something. Just not something good… and not reminiscent of a pile of shit.

Worst Actress

Kate Hudson in Something Borrowed

Speaking of walking piles of poop. I’ve been trying honestly to think of one aspect of Kate Hudson’s performance that I enjoyed. Well she was an incredible slutty woman…yay…although if she acted like this in real life I wouldn’t make love to her with a stolen penis and 30 condoms. She was really manipulative of her best friend and stole anything that had made her happy in the past 20 years of friendship. Nope, character as well as actress, completely worthless. Can you remember those years where Kate Hudson was hot? It’s been awhile. Now she seems like someone took Blake Lively and melted her a little in the microwave. I literally fail to see why she would take this role and think it would make her relevant again. I could not have hated her more. 

Worst Hot Actress (because it makes a difference) 

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley – Transformers: Dark of the Moon

When you are a Victoria’s Secret model, you are probably hot.  When they, and by “they” I mean Michael Bay and the other abortion doctors who suck the fetus of a good movie out of the movie,  come to you and say “Hey, we need someone hot to stand in piles of rubble and pout whilst wearing a white outfit that miraculously does not get dirty…in rubble.” When they come to you and say that, perhaps the next hot Victoria’s Secret Model will say “You know what? I’m good.” This is nothing personal Rosie, you just got sucked into the world of Michael Bay suckitude and by that I mean attitude while sucking.

Worst Movie/ Best Moment of 2011

13 from House gets groiny with Ryan Reynolds in The Change-up

I love Olivia Wilde. 9 of 10 women would want to tear her clothes off and make sweet sweet love. The other woman is a blind mute. So while I was trying not to completely hate myself for paying my unemployment money on seeing this craptastic wade through Freaky Friday with more poop jokes, Olivia Wilde showing up and getting a vijayjay tattoo and wearing shockingly little in a lap dance scene with Ryan Reynolds playing Jason Bateman was a fresh. Like the little man in the Chronicle, I was sitting quite erect.

“I still not sure they aren’t the same person” Award 

Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester – The Roommate

There has to be some sort of movie special effects here. How can I see a movie with both of these actresses and still not be entirely convinced of them being them? Well the performances were as though the other person wasn't in the same room. Not a good movie but I thought it may end my debate as to whether Minka Kelly was Leighton Meester in disguise.  Maybe Minka Kelly wants to date Derek Jeter and Sebastian Stan (I know entirely too much about the celebrity gossip) and when they found out it explains them both mysteriously “breaking up” with their respective/other boyfriend. Now Derek and Minka are trying to get back together with the caveat that there will be no more nights out as Leighton Meester. I am no conspiracy theorist…but this one is almost too easy to believe.

Worst Special Effect Laden Awfulness 

I am Number 4

Yeah curveball thrown. You expected Michael Bay’s mess of  a Transformers movie here but you would be incorrect. I am Number 4 is by far the worst beginning to a franchise that will never happen since Eragon. No dragons here…a dog that turns into a huge slobbering mess but no dragons. There isn’t even much of a story. Perhaps Miles Millar and Alfred Gough were spending too much time wrapping up Smallville and decided “Just throw some kids 30 feet in the air, have some weird electrical thing in his hand and get that girl from Glee…not Quinn…okay Quinn.” A coming of age tale for an alien trapped on our world, followed by other aliens that hope to kill them. This was done much better on the TV show Roswell and indeed I did feel a certain CW appeal to this movie. How else do you explain the completely pointless shot of one of our heroes walking away from a building as it explodes? God this movie makes both my head and my balls ache because walking away I feel as though someone kicked my testes and picked my pocket of the $10.25 in cost to see this pile of garbage. 

And Finally....

The Uwe Boll Lifetime Achievement in Horrible Movies

Battlefield Earth

L. Ron Hubbard’s book must have been more in depth than this John Travolta disaster. This is by far the worst movie ever to penetrate my blue eyes. Battlefield Earth is the story of an Earth in which Aliens have enslaved the human race to dig for gold for their home planet Cyclo and who can scan for gold but still haven’t found Fort Knox. Then along comes Barry Pepper who, with his Bill S. Preston Esquire looks and long dreads, can save humanity. Not for any real good reason but because he is and this is the true sci-fi in this movie, smarter. This movie is just awful. I’ve never been so tempted to walk out on a film as I was with this one. I’ve never found a movie that is worse. Even Troll 2 was slightly more entertaining because it was so bad. If I never see some Neanderthal humans fire up a flight simulator and learn what it took Tom Cruise all of Top Gun to learn, it will be too soon.  Battlefield Earth has the audacity to make you think that millions of dollars would not be wasted on a movie with no story, horrible effects and worse acting. By the end of the movie, you begin to wonder whether the producers saw the final product before they released it. When someone comes to you and says "God, I just saw the worst movie of all time", raise your hand, shake your head in the negative and pull out a DVD of this pile of crap made by the leader of the Church of Scientology. You'll win that argument. I guarantee it. 

Mr. Unhappy sez: We ran a little bit over tonight so I’m just gonna say: While some movies are bad, not many are as bad as these! Don’t ferget to wipe your ass kids! Goodbye everybody bye!