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MOVIES

Grizzly Review: PAUL

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The other night I saw the new Simon Pegg movie Paul. Wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, but Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (both Simon Pegg movies) were both good enough to make me give this a chance. Not that I normally need such a track record to see a Sci-Fi movie…

This is the story of a little green man, and his escape from our Government. All he want’s to do is go home, you know, like another little spaceman we met in the 1980’s. During his escape he happens upon a couple of sci-fi geeks from England whom he convinces to give him a lift, and obviously ends up bonding with.

The premise is simple, it’s basically a ‘road trip’ movie for the Science Fiction genre, and that’s a movie with a very specific target audience. But one that has the potential to appeal to a much broader set. Sure, it geeks it up. It was full of references to comic books and other movies, but for the most part, they are references everyone will get. You’ve seen E.T. right?

The thing that really surprised me though, was for a comedy, how good the visuals really were. The character of Paul himself was excellent. Like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, but more natural looking, more fluid. I suppose they’ve improved on the technology since 2003, but I was honestly impressed, and special effects are not so easy to impress me with anymore. I think it comes back to expectations, when you see a Battle LA or something like Tron: Legacy, you know the effects are going to be great, so the only way they can ‘wow’ you, is in a bad way. If you notice them because they suck. But for a comedy? These far exceeded expectations, to the point you almost forget Paul isn’t really there with the actors, but instead its Joe Lo Truglio on his knees, covered in motion capture sensors.

Speaking of the cast, it was outstanding. In addition to my main motivations for wanting to see this: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the movie also features multiple alum from Arrested Development – Jeffery Tambor plays ‘Adam Shadowchild’, a famous Sci-Fi writer, and Jason Bateman is the lead G-Man that’s chasing our protagonists.

Jason Bateman, Jeffery Tambor, Arrested Development
Bateman & Tambor on the set of Arrested Development

Then borrowed from the current SNL cast, we get Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. Wiig plays the one-eyed love interest for Pegg, and Hader, along with the aforementioned Joe Lo Truglio, play Bateman’s underlings. Then, the behind the scenes antagonist, whose voice should be immediately identifiable to Sci-Fi fans, is played by Ellen Ripley herself – Sigourney Weaver.

Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig together in ‘Adventureland’

Now I’ve already mentioned that Joe Lo Turglio actually played Paul, this is because the heavily advertised star handling Paul’s voice – Seth Rogen, was busy filming The Green Hornet. He later added the voice work. Now, I’ve talked to a few people lately that said they were just burnt out on Seth Rogen, and for that reason they didn’t really want to see this, but I have to tell you, I thought he did an excellent job. The voice, for me at least, came off a natural and I really enjoyed it.

The movie, ended up actually being more touching and heartfelt than expected too, but not in an overly cheesy manner.  Director Greg Mottola (whose resume totally explains how he was able to land this cast) flew under the radar a bit here. He wont get the attention or credit he deserves because of the subject of the movie, but this turned out better than I expected, and I certainly enjoyed it more than his most acclaimed film – Adventureland.

I’m gonna give this movie a very strong 3.5 Bears. Not the funniest comedy I’ve ever seen, and it starts off a little slow, but it is definitely worth a watch. 

Movie News & Opinions

Stop…Hobbit Time!

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After months and months of lawsuits, broke ass studios, a Guillermo del Toro bailout, boycotts, and ulcers, the Hobbit will finally begin filming according to Yahoo! Movies!

After writing several articles about the upcoming duology on BamKapow, all talk of it seemed to cease after it was announced that Peter Jackson would be the one to direct it. Aside from the minor casting calls of people we obviously know will be starring in it there was no announcement worthy of a hobbit feet picture… until now.

Hobbit, LOTR, Feet
Boom!

It’s about time Jackson and company got a move on because the first movie is set for a December 2012 release.

Returning stars to the world of Tolkien include Ian McKellen (obviously) as Gandalf the Grey, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Andy Serkis as Gollum, and Elijah as Frodo.

I’m a bit puzzled as to how Frodo would be in the movie since he wasn’t even born at the time The Hobbit events take place. I’m assuming it will be an introduction with Frodo looking over notes of Bilbo’s old travels.

Bilbo himself will be played by Martin Freeman who is well-known to those in the U.K., but a relatively unknown actor to us here in the States. I particularly enjoyed his small role at the beginning and end of Hot Fuzz.

Martin Freeman inherits Ian Holm’s role

Now, for those of you who do not know what The Hobbit is, the two films take place approximately 55 years before the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The one ring is in the possession of Gollum in the Misty Mountains at this time, and you don’t even realize that it is indeed the ‘one ring’, it’s simply a magical ring that helps Bilbo disappear. In The Hobbit, Gandalf and Bilbo are just meeting for the first time, in which the wizard puts Bilbo in the midst of an adventure he never asked for. Throughout the story we are treated to trolls, goblins, the dragon Smaug, and much more to keep any avid watcher or reader of fantasy entertained. So mark your calendars and hope the world doesn’t end in 2012 because the Hobbit draws near!

Ian Holm driven mad from a glimpse at my Hobbit feet
Movie News & Opinions

To Pan or not to Pan

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Since the inception of Peter Pan, written by J.M. Berry in 1911, there have been numerous incarnations of the character in the film realm. Starting with the 1953 animated classic from Disney, and leading to the live-action sequel Hook, directed by Steven Spielberg in 1991. Peter Pan has become a household name all over the world. Hell, personally I only eat Peter Pan Peanut Butter!

After Hook there was yet another Peter Pan movie in 2003 starring Jason Isaacs, that was not a horrible watch, but didn’t manage to bring in the big box office bucks.

Now we have a whole bunch of new Peter Pan stuff flying our way (pun intended), some of it is promising, and some if not so promising. Seeing as I’m the type who likes my bad news first, so here it is: Channing Tatum is said to star in a project purchased by Sony, and titled thus far as Pan. The movie would go forth based on the idea that Captain Hook and Peter Pan are brothers, and is said to be an origin story.

The idea of the two foes being brothers is a decent one, but casting Channing Tatum as Peter Pan? Do the letters W, T, and F mean anything to you?

I would hope that this is a complete re-imagining of the story; where Pan left Neverland and aged quite a bit, much like what happened in Hook. But so help me, if I have to sit and watch Channing Tatum fly around in green tights, acting like a happy little child, then I will be thoroughly disgusted and I might stab someone. Now, I am aware that Robin Williams did this in Hook, a movie I enjoyed as a child, but now I can’t stand seeing Robin Williams in the green tights.


Pan is a project that I have little faith but will keep an eye on to see how it progresses. You know, at least until Justin Bieber is cast as Captain Hook. Despite hating Channing Tatum, I’m trying to be open-minded about Sony’s Pan movie, because I do enjoy the story. The thing I want to see most is the crocodile that bites off Captain Hook’s hand, but who knows if they’ll even tell that part of the story.

For more, check out an article about it at The Hollywood Reporter.

Bang-A-Rang!

Now for the promising news: SyFy is also currently developing a prequel to Peter Pan in the form of a four-hour, four-episode mini series event that is set to debut in December of this year.

The project is titled Neverland, and has what so far seems like a very solid cast of actors. The most notable of them being Keira Knightley to voice the magical tree spirit – Tinkerbell.  Bob Hoskins is reprising his role as Smee from Hook, and The Amazing Spiderman‘s recently announced ‘Lizard’ Rhys Ifans as James Hook.

Rhys Ifans and Captain James Hook: Mr. Ifans needs to grow out that mustachio

Below is a description of the series courtesy of Slice of SciFi:

Peter, along with his pals of young pickpockets, have been rounded up by their mentor Jimmy Hook to snatch a magical orb which transports them to another world—Neverland. Filled with white jungles and imposing cities formed out of trees, created by Dr. Fludd and inhabited by a colony of tree spirits led by Tinker Bell, this mysterious realm welcomes unknown friends and enemies snatched from time. These include power-mad Elizabeth Bonny and her band of 18th century pirates who search for the answer to eternal youth, a secret guarded by a Holy Man. As the fight to save this strange and beautiful world escalates, Peter and his crew consider that growing old somewhere in time could be less important than growing up—right here in their new home called Neverland.

Keira Knightley and the ever popular Tinkerbell.

Out of the two projects I am more enthusiastic about SyFy’s Neverland mini-series, because four hours gives them plenty of time to explore Neverland, and develop the characters to the maximum. Plus Bob Hoskins portrayal of Smee in Hook was so brilliant he could perform the role exactly the same this time and I would love it.

I’ll keep everyone posted on the status of both projects, the Channing Tatum one will be under the most scrutiny due to its high probability of fail.

Channing Tatum - Fail

Comment below about both, or even if you just hate Peter Pan.

MOVIES

Random-Ass Movie Reviews: IP MAN (or Yip Man to you hipsters)

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When I sit down to watch a kung fu flick, I expect ridiculous action, a killer soundtrack, and a main character that has the ability to kick everyone’s asses, but won’t because of a higher sense of morality, spirituality, or justice. Now you might be thinking, “Wow, that sounds like a description of Batman Forever!” Shut up your face.

Ip Man was really more than simply a Kung Fu flick; it was a quasi-biopic concerned with the life of Yip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art of Wing Chun (No, not Wang Chung, but like you, I also love that band). While this film, upon cursory research, has severe historical and biographical inaccuracies, the basic premise behind it stands tall:

Continue reading Random-Ass Movie Reviews: IP MAN (or Yip Man to you hipsters) →

MOVIES

Craptastic Movie Reviews! – DIEner (Get it?)

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If there is anything I like more than a crappy horror movie, it’s a crappy horror movie title that plays on words. For example, Santa’s Slay portrays a man dressed as Santa, slaying people. Or The Gingerdead Man who is a dead killer resurrected as a gingerbread man who continues to make people dead.

With the movie I am reviewing aptly named DIEner, I expected no less than a diner where people die. Little did I know I was about to be served with zombies as well. Synopsis follows below:

Ken (Josh Grote) is a wandering and unassuming serial killer who enters a forsaken and empty diner during the graveyard shift. After a long conversation with the diner’s lone waitress Rose, (Maria Olsen) Ken kills her and promptly delivers the same fate to the diner’s cook Fred (Jorge Montalvo). As Ken cleans up the bloody mess and deposits Rose and Fred in the walk-in freezer, company arrives. A young, unhappy married couple Rob (Parker Quinn) and Kathy (Liesel Kopp) stop by the diner, only to be followed by the arrival of Sheriff Duke Purdett (Larry Purtell). Ken now finds himself in the middle of a rousing game of cat and mouse which he manages well until the unthinkable happens. Back from the dead, Rose and Fred emerge from the freezer and start walking around! Once an unflappable serial killer, Ken now holds the young couple and wounded sheriff captive, trying frantically to escape the zombie predators!

I was expecting a very low-budget zombie horror film that tried to be a horror movie but failed. It was instead a terrible horror/comedy(?) with no zombies showing up until about 20 minutes in. I suppose I should have watched the trailer first.

Much of the 75-minute piece of refuse was taken up by the first 23 minutes introducing us to characters we couldn’t give a dead moose’s last shit about. I loved how the first five minutes we had to hear the horse-gummed waitress tell the killer her life story before he slow-mo kills her, and owns the cowardly cook with a knife throw to the back. We are also served a couple of nearly five-minute long flashback scenes trying to make us somehow sympathetic to the comic serial killer. I might add, the little serial killer in the flashback is approximately 10 years old and wearing the exact same shirt as the 30 something,  grown up a serial killer. Great wardrobe department.

Ken – Our Killer. “No, I’m serious. I think we should duct tape this Zombie to the kitchen floor.”

When the zombies do show up, they are a complete joke. The three principle characters were able to dodge around them like kids playing freeze tag in elementary school. The young couple, Rob, and Kathy, decide to just go right along with the serial killer’s brilliant plan of detaining the zombies. Tying one to a flimsy coat rack, and duct taping the other one to the floor the greasy kitchen floor. You know, as opposed to trying to kill said zombies, or even just simply leaving.

The actors had about as much life in them as the dead mouse that my cat dropped off at the doorstep this morning. And the soundtrack- oh the glorious soundtrack! – organ music. We were also treated to some tunes during the flashbacks; they sounded like a monkey on LSD trying to play a guitar while kicking bells across the ground and wind chimes flailing about. At this point, Grizzly Park was Academy material compared to this scum sucking piece of garbage paste.

The being said, I highly recommend it to anyone looking to ruin their life for 75 minutes.

  • Bad acting (a given)
  • Bad Music
  • Not many zombies until the end
  • Nothing funny
  • Nothing remotely entertaining

For those reasons I award DIEner with a score of Zero Grizzlies, and may God have mercy on the souls of those who created it.

– Craptastic Bonus Fun Fact: the word diener is derived from the German leichendiener, which literally means corpse servant. Coincidence or DIEner writer genius? I’d put money on coincidence.

MOVIES

Craptastic Movie Reviews! – Grizzly Park

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First off, let’s not associate any name resemblance between this rancid dog turd of a movie and our beloved Grizzly Bomb.

One is awesome, one is not. Grizzly Bomb is beautiful; Grizzly Park is ugly as sin. Understood? Good, then let’s start, shall we?

*Spoilers like a mother effer – because you shouldn’t care*

Ok, so here is the official synopsis:

Eight troubled young adults are sentenced to a week of community service in a remote California forest range called ‘Grizzly Park’. Under the supervision of the stalwart Ranger Bob, the group is given the opportunity to seek redemption on their journey through the forest. While Ranger Bob seeks to provide guidance to the young adults, an escaped serial killer with an insatiable blood-lust has also found his way into the park with every intention of disposing anyone in his path. But he is not the only predator in these woods; a nine foot tall, thousand pound ravenous Grizzly bear has also set his sights on stalking the group and attacking them one by one, leaving the group to face their ultimate challenge…survival.

Some nights when I’m writing I like to turn on a random, bad horror movie on NetFlix.

Well, tonight it was Grizzly Park and damn was it bad. I usually like to have a laugh during B movies, but this one couldn’t get one chuckle out of me. The most famous person in the movie was Glenn Morshower who starred in minor roles in both Transformer movies, and also played ‘Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce’ on 24. In Grizzly Park, he plays ‘Park Ranger Bob’, the man in charge of overseeing the group of the young imbeciles who are doing community service. These morons are responsible for misdemeanors ranging from computer hacking to prostitution.

For some integral-to-the-plot reason, they are doing their community service picking up trash in a very remote forest where no other campers or hikers are to be found…so there is a lot of trash.

There is also an incredibly unnecessary subplot about an escaped serial killer being on the loose in the woods. Funny thing is, he doesn’t kill one of the community service kids because he instead tries to have a knife fight with a killer bear. Brilliant,  brilliant man. The bear wins big time eating the serial killer’s face off, much to my delight. The rest of the movie was a ‘paint by numbers’, one-by-one kill fest.

All of the offenders? Eaten by the bear. However, four of them were actually killed off-screen, which needless to say, was quite disappointing.

Actually, take that back, there was one huge twist; the first girl to die was run down and killed…by a wolf. A fricking wolf. I thought this was Grizzly Park?

Other notable kills included…

  •  A guy wearing a sweet bear suit getting the top half of his head knocked off by a real bear.
  • Girl getting the bottom half of her body completely devoured.
  • A guy being pulled out a window by the bear, resulting in the girls trying to pull him back in coming away with his severed arms.
“Excuse me good Sir, can you spare a cup of sugar?”

Probably the most unexpected way of someone dying occurred in the last minutes of the film: One of the girls, Bebe, was questioned in a brilliantly acted scene by the guys if her boobs were real or silicone. She awesomely replies with, “Silly cone?”, and insults women everywhere with her stupidity. So after talking to someone on the phone about how everyone was dead and she didn’t give a rat’s ass or learn anything, she walks outside to find the bear waiting. The bear takes a swat at her hitting her chest, and a bloody “Silly cone” implant flies and hits a tree. She, of course, dies from that.

Thank you Grizzly Park, because the whole movie my only questions were “Are Bebe’s boobs real?” and “Why am I watching this movie?”.

The very last scene reveals that the bear killing everyone is, in fact, anger Bob’s pet and buddy. He takes criminals out to pick trash in the woods hoping they will change, and if they don’t he has his effing bear kill them. CLASSIC! Now I must go vomit.

If this sounds awesome, maybe I described it wrong. I’m not saying don’t watch the movie, by all means, do, you may get plenty more out of it than I did. But you’ve been warned.

I understand what they were aiming for, but they just didn’t get there. This movie gets a well deserved 0.5 of 5 on the Grizzly scale. It earns this dismal score for the uninspired agony it put me through, and the most off-screen deaths I’ve seen in a horror movie! Scandal!