THE BEST AND WORST OF SUMMER 2014

THE BEST AND WORST OF SUMMER 2014

I don't think the 2014 summer movie season will be remembered for the good movies that came out. Let's face it, it seemed like each week we succumbed to some pretty disappointing movies at your local cineplex. Like every summer, we had our fare share of comic book movies, sequels, and reboots. There were big action franchises that wanted to continue their reign. Some fared well (X-Men: Days of Future Past), while others left us shaking our head in frustration (The Amazing Spider-Man 2). Here are my picks for the best and worst of the summer season, plus some that were pleasant surprises.

THE BEST

1. BOYHOOD
Writer/Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei Linklater, Marco Perella, Libby Villari

By now, you are probably aware of the fact that writer/director Richard Linklater spent twelve years filming this movie. The huge gamble paid off, and I obsessed over it after I saw it. I bought the soundtrack and am currently working on making the Beatles Black Album that Hawke's character created. It was the movie I plugged and championed for whenever anyone asked me for my recommendation. If you are sick of seeing the same kind of movies in theaters over and over again, Boyhood is your kind of movie. It will be one of the most unique and thought-provoking films you will see all year or of any year recently.

RATING: 5 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



2. LIFE ITSELF
Director: Steve James
Starring: Roger Ebert, Chaz Ebert, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, A.O. Scott, Richard Corliss, Gene Siskel

Documentarian Steve James and Roger Ebert started working on Life Itself with the intention of it being an adaptation of Ebert's memoir of the same name. Unfortunately, Roger passed away before the film was completed. I have been a huge admirer of his dating back to when I was a kid watching Siskel & Ebert & the Movies. This film is a wonderful look back at his life and career. He is truly inspirational as he never once gave up or quit working when his health started to decline. It is one of the best documentaries that I have seen in years.

RATING: 5 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



3. THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
Director: Josh Boone
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Willem Dafoe

I knew I would enjoy this teen romance as I had already read the book and fell in love with the story. What I didn't expect was that I would go on and do a full ugly cry at the theater. I rarely cry at movies, but this was the grand exception. I even tried to recreate it on Twin Cities Live when I reviewed it. Click HERE for the video.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



4. SNOWPIERCER
Director: Joon-ho Bong
Starring: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, John Hurt

There were many films this summer that I wouldn't mind seeing a second or third time once they are available on blu-ray. I left Snowpiercer and immediately wanted to see it again as it was also available via On Demand at the same time it was in theaters. I never got around to writing a full review, but I will once I watch it again. It was a stunning visual feast for the eyes. I haven't seen any of Bong's other films, so I went in not knowing what to expect. For a film that takes place completely on a train, I completely awed by the fact that I never knew what was going to happen next! Plus, you've got the brilliance of Tilda Swinton giving her third performance this year alone.

RATING: 4 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



5. GODZILLA
Director: Gareth Edwards
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe

I admit, this is probably a strange pick that you didn't see coming. I had a hard time filling this fifth spot. Do I go with a trusty and easy choice like a Marvel movie or go in a different direction? I'm going with Godzilla as it was a film, like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, that really took me by surprise. I had never seen a Godzilla movie before, but now I want to go back and rewatch those old black and white classics. Director Gareth Edwards gives the film its slow burn until our main character is finally revealed in a very Spielbergian way. It's sound and visual effects were top notch and made it a true summer popcorn creature feature flick!



*HONORABLE MENTIONS: it's a tie between X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

THE WORST

Stay FAR FAR away...I'm warning you.

1. TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

What a piece of garbage. A nearly three hour piece of garbage. Yes, I expected that going in but I still don't think we can excuse Michael Bay and not hold him accountable because we now expect that out of him. I can't believe people keep throwing hard earned money at these movies.

RATING: 1/2 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



2. A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

Seth MacFarlane is one of the funniest and smartest people in Hollywood. He can act, sing, direct, write and do voices as we have seen with Family Guy and Ted. It was a real shame that his attempt at a western comedy turned out to be a complete waste and really showed how lazy he can be.

RATING: 1.5 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



3. LET'S BE COPS

I didn't even give this film a full review as I saw it weeks after it opened. It should be one of those dumb comedies that's so dumb, it's funny or it's so funny that you don't mind it being dumb. This was all dumb and no funny. Okay, I take it back. There was maybe two funny moments, one of which involved a fat naked man running.

RATING: 1.5 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



4. JERSEY BOYS

It's a shame that this didn't work out in the end. Clint Eastwood was the wrong choice to helm the big screen adaptation of the hit jukebox musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. They tried sticking close to the musical but in all the wrong places. They even forgot to include the music in the second half.

RATING: 2 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



5. TAMMY

It's good that Melissa McCarthy, Allison Janney, and Kathy Bates were all up for Emmys this year as it made me forget about this movie. We've seen McCarthy do this type of loud-mouthed, crass, and dirty character countless times. It's time for the otherwise talented actress to retire this character and move onto other more challenging roles that she is easily capable of.

RATING: 2 out of 5 TICKET STUBS



*DISHONORABLE MENTION: MILLION DOLLAR ARM

There you go! Those are my picks for the best and worst of the summer season. Here's hoping next summer gives us some better quality popcorn flicks. I'd love to hear from you! What are your picks for the best and worst? Feel free to comment below or you can find me and comment on my Facebook page by clicking HERE.

TWIN CITIES LIVE- July 2, 2014

TWIN CITIES LIVE
July 2, 2014

It was another great day on Twin Cities Live with Elizabeth and Dez. Unfortunately, two of the movies were not so great. Here they are:

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction, starring Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer,
2. Tammy, starring Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Allison Janney, Kathy Bates
3. Cutie and the Boxer, Ushio Shinohara, Noriko Shinohara, Alex Shinohara

Here's the video:




Video courtesy of Twin Cities Live/KSTP

You can find all of my past segments HERE.

As always, thank you so much for watching and your continual support. I truly appreciate it!

Movie Review: TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Titus Welliver, T.J. Miller

I should have known that when I heard the line “My face is the warrant” from Titus Welliver that I was in for a certain kind of cinematic “treat”. I actually went into Transformers: Age of Extinction with a little bit of hope that it could actually be good. The trailers looked awful, but I had faith in Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci that they wouldn’t have signed on for a crappy movie. One would assume they saw the first three movies and knew what they were getting themselves into. This is the fourth film in this Michael Bay series, but we have a brand new set of characters thanks to returning screenwriter Ehren Kruger. Wahlberg and Tucci must have seen something different in this script that prompted another go after the first trilogy ended. Surely they weren’t just doing it for the residual checks that will come down the road.

Wahlberg is seen tinkering around in his barn as engineer and inventor Cade Yeager. He loves salvaging old machine parts of all sorts trying to make robots and other homemade inventions in hopes of earning a buck or two. He lives there with his college bound daughter Tessa (Pelz), and they are flat broke. Eviction notices are piling up as Cade can’t seem to make a profit off his creations. Cade and his friend Lucas (Miller) buy an old semi-truck at a run-down theater in hopes of breaking it down for parts. After spending some time with it back at the barn, it starts to come alive and Cade realizes that it’s a Transformer. Oh no, it’s not just some random Transformer, its OPTIMUS PRIME!

This big reveal can’t stay a secret for too long. There is a government project called “Cemetery Wind” led by Kelsey Grammer’s Harold Attinger. His team is led by Titus Welliver’s James Savoy, and they come knocking on the Yeager barn door pretty quickly. The project plans on eliminating all of the known Transformers that survived the attack on Chicago which happened in the original trilogy. Let’s not forget about Stanley Tucci who comes into play as a scientist trying to build his own type of Transformers. An all-out war ensues between Optimus Prime and his fellow Autobots versus these new Transformers that have come into play. Cade, Tessa, her boyfriend Shane (Reynor) and the rest of the humans are along for the ride as they follow the Transformers and their battle from Chicago to Beijing to Hong Kong.

I already feel exhausted trying to remember what happened or what didn’t happen during that 2 hours and 45 minutes I won’t get back. Most movies that are that long better have a decent plot and interesting characters in order for that kind of runtime to feel warranted. This has NONE of that. In what kind of cinematic world do we live in where we allow a movie that is this long with no redeeming qualities to exist? There is no need for a Transformers movie to be this long, yet all four of them have exceeded a two hour run time. The story is a series of explosions, attacks, and battles repeated over and over each taking place in a different city cranked up some ridiculously high sound volume. With such high octane and fuel going into this movie, there are about two different tempos going on. The cinematography is so frantic that the camera wizzes around so fast that you can’t see straight which is even more problematic if you see it in 3D. Am I already getting that old that it was hurting my eyes? The other tempo comes at that the opposite end of the spectrum with the multitude of “slo-mo” shots with our various characters running away from the action in order to survive. I would understand one or two but it was so excessive it was comical.

Let’s not forget all of the added moments of unnecessary bits, one-liners, and cheesy declarations that further add on run time. Screenwriter Ehren Kruger penned the second and third film, so he is very familiar with this series and working with Michael Bay. I wonder if they just sat around and thought of the most obnoxious and ridiculous lines of dialogue imaginable. A bad script typically leads to some bad acting. Have no fear as that concept still holds true here. Mark Wahlberg is doing a really good impression of Andy Samberg’s impression of Mark Wahlberg that he used to do while on Saturday Night Live. If you’ve ever seen Samberg’s sketches, you know what I’m talking about. Stanley Tucci comes off a bit better as there is a bit of campiness with his character that Mr. Wahlberg couldn’t pull off. Then there's poor Nicola Peltz, who does good work on Bates Motel, but is left screaming “Daaaaaad!” or “I’M. NOT. LEAVING. MY. DAD!”

I suppose one could say that you know what you are getting yourself into when you see any sort of Michael Bay movie. Do you go in expecting it to be this dumb, loud, action film? Yes. However, I don’t think that means it has to be completely stupid, over-the-top, and laughable or that he gets a free pass for how the final product turns out. I feel like making a Transformers movie could work. You could have decent characters, witty dialogue, and a movie that clocks in under two hours. Isn't this supposed to appeal to kids? I don't have any kids yet, but I am curious if a young moviegoer would sit through that run time? Are the explosions enough to keep them interested?  Godzilla is a good example of how you take movie that has some camp and make it fun and exciting. With so many awful one-liners, slo-mo runs, explosions, and fits of rage thrown around, I started to wonder if Bay and Kruger were trying to make the worst movie possible? Did they think they were making gold and has the audience been had in some sort of meta sense? I’ve talked to numerous people who have seen Transformers: Age of Extinction, and a majority of them that it was epically awful as well. At least I’m not the only one.

Is it Worth Your Trip to the Movies? Why would you waste $15 and 2 hours and 45 minutes of your day on this garbage?

RATING: 1/2 out of 5 Ticket Stubs