Fish and Cherries Productions

A Million Ways to Die in the West is a frustrating movie to talk about because it had some major, unavoidable, unforgivable flaws and just as many redeeming moments. Let’s get the bad out of the way first. Quite a few of the jokes fall flat or serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, like the bewildering cameo by Doc Brown that comes out of nowhere and is never mentioned again. On top of that, the movie eschews comedy for action and drama in the third act to its detriment, the main girl not only becomes a shoehorned love interest when she and McFarlane’s character worked much better as friends, but also a dumbass in distress at the end, and the movie plays the standard coming-into-your-own story far too straight than a comedy like this should. But are their good parts? Absolutely. The humor is spot on when it’s not trying to mine gross out or shock humor, particularly in the middle section and about the time period, Neil Patrick Harris is enjoyable as always, and the songs are incredibly fun, because if nothing else, MacFarlane is a superb musician. Despite the laughs, though, I just found myself incredibly bored, and for a comedy, that’s just about the worst thing you can say.

X-Men: Days of Future Past went the extra mile of the path to redeeming the franchise that First Class started. While the apocalyptic future scenes kept the serious tone that the original trilogy had, the scenes in a past were refreshingly doused in the humor found in First Class. Seeing everyone return to their roles is a huge treat, but the new additions to the cast are also well in their element, such as Peter Dinklage as the creator of the Sentinels, Fan Bingbing as the mutant Blink who uses portal powers very creatively, and Evan Peters as Quicksilver who steals every scene he’s in. The scope is truly impressive too, as the mutants in this movie truly feel like the next step in evolution, even being something like gods to the normal humans and the future Sentinels are something out of nightmares. I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the costumes, but I can write that off as the future being light on materials. Days of Future Past is the hero the franchise deserved and needed and I would highly recommend it. And to those who are still a little burned from X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, let’s just say that problem is… fixed.

Midnight in Paris was a wistful and thoughtful trip through French history and faces. Throughout the film, the idea of nostalgia for times long gone that a person wasn’t even a part of is destructed by showing its progression throughout the passing eras, a point which is admittedly spelled out in the end, but sometimes it’s best to abandon subtlety. There are other themes too, like the interactions of different creative minds, but the former is certainly the main focus. I’ll freely admit that I don’t think Owen Wilson is the greatest actor, but he fits perfectly here as a wide-eyed Francophile writer surrounded by strangeness, often embodying some of the traits of Woody Allen’s younger roles. Speaking of, one cannot ignore the all star cast that makes up the famous faces of Paris’ past, my personal favorite being Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali. Some people may be thrown off by the daytime scenes in the present day feeling a lot more mundane than the night scenes of the past, but rest assured that that was the whole idea and not a filmmaking fault. Overall, I feel like this movie was made specifically for me and encourage the rest of you to enjoy it like a rich eclair. Unless you’re vegan, in which case you should enjoy it like a dark chocolate-dipped strawberry.

Mass Effect: Paragon Lost initially came off as a very run-of-the-mill tie-in movie to a game. Bogging it down was rather sub par animation, inconsistent characterization, and a character the was annoying at best and hazardous to his teammates at worst. However, this all changed in the end when the story took a gut-wrenching turn that lingered with me long after the movie ended and made this really feel like a Mass Effect story. From a fan’s perspective, it’s great to see the action of the games translated into full animation, but it’s also a little jarring when en effect happens that’s wildly different from the source material. The last five or ten minutes truly are gold and make up for the rest of the movie, making this a strange inversion to the original cut of Mass Effect 3. Ironic, seeing as this was supposed to promote that game. I’m not sure if I can recommend this to non-fans of the series, but fans will find a bit to love, even if they find themselves slogging through the mud and trenches to get there.

Godzilla was a huge step above the Roland Emmerich movie from the 90s and a pretty good monster movie too. While the meat of the story (as well as the overarching theme) is family, Godzilla is the crux and focal point of the story, meaning the the Godzilla movie is still about Godzilla, a mistake that quite a few adaptations make. Originally, I was going to dock the movie for not having enough Godzilla in it, but then I remembered that was true of all (if not most) of the old Japanese Godzilla movies, so I cannot begrudge it for that. What I can begrudge it for is completely failing the Bechdel Test and even employing the Women in Refrigerators tactic, so no points on the feminism front. On top of that, the child actors are so bland that they are practically a non-presence. However, I still enjoyed the movie and liked the fact that none of the human characters who died were too dumb to live. It may not be one of my favorites, but I daresay it is the Godzilla movie that I’ve been waiting for for a long time.

Neighbors has some entertaining laughs, but overall left me feeling very uncomfortable. The setup has some openings for a very zany comedy, but starts taking some dark turns and even though it’s still played for laughs, it’s hard to root for either side because each of them has done their share of reprehensible things that should have gotten them arrested. On top of that, it’s wildly inconsistent with its characterization, particularly with Zac Efron, whose character starts out as reasonably likable and even the more sympathetic party before taking a dive into outright villainy. The other side isn’t much better, being petty at best and instigators at worst. All in all, it’s hard to believe that either side got the ending it deserved. Like I said, there are some good laughs, but if either side had acted remotely intelligently, there wouldn’t have been a movie, so it’s really nothing to write home about. Even though that’s technically what I’m doing right now.

Brick is a film that I don’t think gets enough attention, which is a shame because it’s a rare movie that can be enjoyed on two levels: for its quality and for the novelty. For all intents and purposes, this is a film noir, but set inside a rundown suburban high school and the fact is that it works too perfectly not to be enjoyable. Like Pacific Rim, if this had been played for parody instead of completely straight, it would not have worked as well. But the different spots that the cliques hang out in serving like dive bars or Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s world-loathing loner Brendan standing in as the hard-boiled detective make this a very firm fit. The plot itself is very engaging on its own too and while it can get a little complicated, it never leaves the viewer behind for long. So when you’ve got the chance to rent or stream Brick, do so. It’s grim, it’s gritty, it’s great.

Dr. Wolf is back! Apparently, YouTube realized their error and reinstated his channel. Special thanks to everyone who sent messages to YouTube and kept it civil, and a special thank you to everyone who supported him and raised awareness of him in this dark time. Welcome back, Dr. Wolf of Wall Street.

I’m not even sure how to react to this. Dr. Wolf, a member of the brony analysis community, got his channel taken down, despite his work apparently falling under Fair Use. Dr. Wolf was honestly one of the nicest guys to listen to and I’m not sure I really know what to say on the matter. I’ll have more thoughts later, to be sure.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a mixed bag of varying qualities. On the one hand, it continued the previous movie’s tradition of giving Spider-Man the humor that the previous film series was sorely lacking, some of the music (particularly Electro’s theme) is quite cool, and the stuff between Peter and Gwen really feels genuine at times. On the other hand, the script has a lot of shortcomings, there was a little too much going on to feel complete, the villains’ motivations (save for Harry Osborn) are really weak, and the reveal of Richard Parker’s secret that the trailers have hyped up so much was a real letdown. On top of that, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the movie doesn’t do a good job of portraying foreigners, as the Russian Rhino and the German Dr. Kafka turn in laughably cartoonish performances that would probably tick me off were I a native of any of those countries. If you were wondering if there was a stinger after the credits, there is… for the upcoming X-Men movie, which makes its placement here absolutely baffling. Despite some really good stuff here and there, I wouldn’t go see it again. The best adaptation of Spider-Man to date was Greg Weisman’s Spectacular Spider-Man and this movie doesn’t even come close to capturing its brilliance. It is worth noting, however, that the series was canceled before its time to allow this movie franchise to exist, so take some time to mull on that for a bit.