Wknd Box Office: Taken 2, Butter, The Master, Frankenweenie Looper, Pitch Perfect, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Won’t Back Down

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last weekand THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: Taken 2, Butter, The Master, Frankenweenie


By Debbie Schlussel



Due to the Jewish holidays, I was unable to attend the “Frankenweenie” critics’ screening, but I will see it later this weekend and post my review. Of the new movies I did see, only one is worth seeing, even if its star has a silly love affair with Islam. **** UPDATE, 10/7/12: I’ve added my review of “Frankenweenie,” below–the movie is fabulous! ****




* “Taken 2“: This isn’t nearly as good as the original “Taken” (read my review), to which it is a sequel. But it’s good enough, and I liked it. It should be a big hint that it’s being panned universally by mainstream media movie critics. If you were expecting a deep, thoughtful, Shakespearian masterpiece, then you clearly didn’t see the first “Taken.” And you are applying standards to this movie that you don’t apply to most others. I liked this, even if, per usual, the references to the villains being Muslim are muted–muted even from the original trailer for the movie. But they aren’t muted enough. It’s quite clear–even clearer than in the first “Taken”–that the brutal, violent, unforgiving, dishonorable, murderous villains here are Albanian Muslims, who get quite a bit of help from the Turkish Muslims in the movie’s setting of Istanbul. You’ll have to suspend your knowledge that the movie’s star, Liam Neeson, said he fell in love with Islam while filming this and considered converting to this violent religion and that he made the preposterous claim that the lion in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” is Mohammed, when it was clearly meant by devout Christian author C.S. Lewis to be Jesus, nothing else. (No surprise, given that this is coming from the son-in-law of dhimmi, pro-terrorist skank, Vanessa Redgrave.)



You don’t have to see the original “Taken” to see this, but a quick summary is in order here. In the original, Neeson is retired CIA agent Bryan Mills, whose teen daughter goes to Paris for the summer. When she is kidnapped by Albanian Muslim slave traders and sold into sex slavery to Arab Muslims, Neeson goes to Paris to find her, rescue her, and kill her captors. He achieves all three with aplomb. In this second installment, the father of one of the Muslim sex slavers wants vengeance. Neeson has just finished a private security gig in Istanbul, protecting some Arab Muslim. He invites his ex-wife and their daughter (Maggie Grace) to Istanbul to spend some quality time, when Neeson and his ex (Famke Janssen) are kidnapped by the Muslims, and Neeson enlists his secret agent skills to get out with the help of his daughter and then rescue the ex. Throughout Turkish Muslims help the Albanians and don’t help Neeson or his family, to whom they are particularly unfriendly. And the Muslim stuff is clear. We see the villains wearing Islamic garb and praying to allah. And that’s not to mention the quick shots of the crescent and star tattoos–bearing the symbol of Islam–also shown on the villains in the first movie. Muslims and their friends won’t like this. But you will.



Like I said, the movie’s not deep stuff (and it’s predictable), but neither is there depth in James Bond movies, superhero movies, etc. This is an escapist delight. And I enjoyed it. You know what you’re getting here before you buy the ticket, and it doesn’t disappoint. Again, not nearly as good as the first one, but pretty good. And it’s very clear that the Muslims are the bad guys all around in this movie–something you rarely see from Hollywood. And, toward the end, there’s a great scene in which you’re led to believe that Neeson is acting like a stupid liberal and that it will be the death of him. But it’s a good trick, proving yet again that the Muslim villains have no honor, no decency to speak of. But we knew that. Good to see a major motion picture release reaffirm it, rather than fantasize otherwise.



TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS


* “Butter“: This movie is meant to be a parable of some sort–a satiric take on the Clintons versus Barack Obama or John McCain versus Obama. Regardless, it’s clearly about the “greatness” and ascendance of Obama, and it’s a very clear knock on conservatives and conservative values. And it’s silly and a waste of time, not worth your ten dollars and 1.5 hours . . . even to see the butter version of “Schindler’s List” on quick display here. Question: is there a coincidence that a Black Muslim girl was tapped to play the Obama figure here? Just askin’.



This is the story of an Iowa butter carving champion (Ty Burrell) who retires. But his perfect, conservative wife (Jennifer Garner a/k/a Mrs. Ben Affleck) can’t handle it, so she takes his place, entering the butter carving competition. She’s very good, but she’s soon upstaged by a young Black girl (Yara Shahidi), who is a foster child to White people and utters such slogans as, “White people are weird.” (You think a White hero of a movie could utter, “Black people are weird,” and get away with it?) The Black girl is helped by a disgruntled stripper (Olivia Wilde), while the wife resorts to unethical behavior to try to win, all while touting conservative values. Alicia Silverstone and Hugh Jackman also co-star.



Like I said, this is a cheap, stupid attack on conservatives and middle America. And it’s full of the c-word, lesbian make-out scenes, and other similar stuff gratuitously inserted to shock. Instead, it was just a bore like the rest of this waste of time movie.



Skip it.



FOUR MARXES




* “The Master“: If this is a knock on Scientology–as it’s alleged to be–the Scientologists have nothing to worry about. The movie is long, boring, and a complete waste of time. The only similarities at all to Scientology are that it’s about a silly cult parading as a religion, complete with stupid BS as its philosophy, and the leader of the cult is a total phony. Even the son of the cult leader (the cult leader is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) knows he’s a complete fraud and says as much to Joaquin Phoenix, who plays a new follower. The setting is the early ’50s, and Phoenix is a lowlife drunk who is a Navy veteran of World War II (yup, another Hollywood flick in which the military veteran is a scumbag). He’s obsessed with sex and drinking and makes a “tonic” with part paint thinner in it (not sure how you can drink that and survive–and one guy dies from stealing the batch and making too much).



The movie goes on and on and on with zero point to it. But along the way, we see a scene in which women of all ages walk around in full frontal nudity for the cult leader (though it’s not clear if this is real or in the imagination of Phoenix–either way, it doesn’t matter ‘cuz the scene was unnecessary and low class), another scene in which the cult leader’s wife (Amy Adams) masturbates him in the bathroom, and yet another with Phoenix having sex with a sand sculpture of a woman on the beach, after which he masturbates. Oh, and it’s filled with the c- and p-words. You stay classy, Hollywood.



Complete and total garbage. Where do I go to get the nearly 2.5 hours of my life back that I wasted on this?



FOUR MARXES PLUS A BIN LADEN


* “Frankenweenie“: This was absolutely terrific. Fantastic animation, cool and creepy story, cute and funny throughout, and just all-around great. I saw this in 2D, and enjoyed it thoroughly, so I can only imagine how much better the already stellar animation looks in 3D. It’s in black and white and appears to take place in the ’50s. My only reservation is that while kids will enjoy this, they may be a little scared by it. It’s dark and creepy, if in an ultimately cute way.



Victor Frankenstein is a nerdy, genius kid with no friends, but a strong interest in science. He loves his dog, Sparky. His parents, worried about his lack of friends, and they allow him to participate in the science competition, so long as he joins the school baseball team. But at his first outing, he hits a home run, with the ball out of the park. His dog chases the ball, gets hit by a car, and dies. Victor is extremely depressed. Soon, though, Victor is inspired by his quirky mad genius new science teacher to try to bring Sparky back to life using lightning and electric current. He succeeds and tries to keep it a secret, but the secret gets out when one of his creepy classmates discovers it and blabs. Soon, Victor’s other classmates are trying to find out what he did and imitate his experiment, so that they can win the trophy at the science fair.



One cute thing you’ll notice is that each of Victor’s creepy classmates is modeled after and resembles a major scary character in a classic horror film. This movie is so clever that kids might not get a lot of it, but adults will thoroughly enjoy it. I loved every minute of it. Perfectly fine in 2D. One of the best animated movies I’ve seen in a long time.



FOUR REAGANS


Looper, Pitch Perfect, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Won’t Back Down


By Debbie Schlussel



Sorry for being late with my movie reviews, but I wasn’t feeling well on Friday, when I write and usually post them, so I didn’t finish them in time to post before the Jewish Sabbath. I didn’t particularly like any of the new movies at theaters, this weekend.





* “Looper“: While the movie had an interesting premise, the product is nasty and sick. This is science fiction at its worst, filled with killing porn, and then it gives us a sappy, unbelievable “evil children can change so don’t kill ‘em” ending that doesn’t make up for everything that came before . . . and actually makes it worse. I found this movie very cold and unfeeling, and at points, it’s even grotesquely disgusting with dismemberment. Only very warped minds would dream some of this up–warped minds that should long ago have been institutionalized. Sadly, instead, they populate Hollywood’s movie biz. No one in this movie is likeable, and I wanted them all to die instantly, so I wouldn’t have to sit through two hours of twisted cinema. But the makers of this film expect you to like and root for a man who murders people in cold blood for a living.



Excuse me if I didn’t fall for the ruse. Excuse me also if I didn’t fall for the usual lame Tinseltown insertion of an overly smart, saccharin sweet kid and wasn’t, like a typical liberal, pulling for him to be given the chance to grow up to become an evil mobster, instead of being snuffed out, as he should have been, like so many HAMAS kid terrorists in development, who are already throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails when they are seven or eight. Figures that the one person (other than the loopers) that should have been removed from this earth (in this movie) isn’t because liberals tell is we need to give them a chance to change, despite all we know about how they will turn out.



The movie begins with a sort of “film noir” vibe to it, but quickly degrades into bloody, violent garbage.













Joseph Gordon-Levitt (whose far-leftist, self-hating Jew In Name Only parents couldn’t just give him his father’s surname and had to be all “progressive” about it) plays a drug-addicted hitman in the desolate future. But he’s not just any kind of hitman. He’s a “looper.” Thirty years into the future from the already-future setting of the movie, mobsters have discovered how to do time travel. They use it to send people they want to murder to be killed thirty years back into the past. The loopers get paid to wait in some secluded area at a set time, watch a hooded live human appear from the future, and immediately shoot that person in the head from close range, then dispose of the body.



Since time travel is illegal in the future, and the mob doesn’t want to leave any evidence around of what they are doing, they also send each looper back in time to be murdered by their younger selves. That’s what’s known as “closing the loop.” When one looper (Paul Dano), lets his future self go, we see the older man losing his body parts as he’s trying to get away. Then, we see why. The mob has taken his present self, put him in surgery, and slowly amputated each limb off of him, and then the future self is murdered. Yup, pleasant movie, right? This is the sick, demented crap that Hollywood is serving up these days.



After this, Gordon-Levitt is faced with killing his future self–Bruce Willis, who has led a life of crime but for whom we are supposed to suddenly feel sorry for because he’s settled down and married an Asian chick in Asia. But Willis is far smarter than his younger self and gets away. The rest of the movie is filled with Gordon-Levitt and the mob trying to find the younger and older/future looper, while those two loopers are trying to find the younger “rainmaker” who has special powers and grows up to become the head of the evil, murderous mob.



One other thing: in the future setting of this movie–as opposed to the 30-years-plus future of the movie–about ten percent of the population has “TK”–telekinesis powers, consisting of only being able to float objects, such as quarters, around. And this is about the only funny, interesting part of the movie. The narrator, Gordon-Levitt, tells us that when the TK power was first discovered, everyone thought that superheroes with superpowers would emerge. But they were quickly disappointed when all these TK people could do was move around quarters to impress girls . . . and couldn’t do much else with it.



Yes, I gave away some stuff in this movie. Sorry for that. But, frankly, I provided you with a badly needed service, in the case of this movie. If you liked “Looper,” you’re a cold hearted liberal. And there’s something wrong with you. If you go see it, despite reading my review, you’re just an idiot. And since there is no shortage of those in America, I predict this movie will be number one at the box office, this weekend, or pretty close to it.



One other thing: uber-leftist Jeff Daniels (in whose charity golf tournaments I was a “celebrity” golfer a few times–but that was before I knew his annoying politics) is ill-cast as a schlubby mob consigliere. Wasn’t hard to see him snuffed out.



FOUR MARXES



* “Pitch Perfect“: If you’ve watched TV’s “Glee,” you’ve seen it all before. While the a cappella/human beatbox singing in this movie is cool, the story is lame. And it’s filled with gross, raunchy, bathroom humor. Massive vomiting by one girl, with another girl falling into the pool of vomit and doing a “snow-angel” in the vomit–that’s supposed to be funny? Yuck. The movie is also very predictable.



A girl (Anna Kendrick, who has a pretty good singing voice) is pushed to go to college by her professor dad. She soon finds herself in a women’s a cappella group that is competing nationally in a college competition. The movie focuses on the dynamics of the group, which includes a slut, a gambling-addicted Black lesbian, a stereotypical Asian chick, and a morbidly obese fat chick–the very fat Rebel Wilson, who calls herself, “Fat Amy.” I know: sounds absolutely scintillating, right? And there’s also the competition against the college’s men’s a cappella group, plus the cheesy “commentators” and their silly, raunchy remarks on the various singing groups.



As I said, the singing is cool and entertaining, but it’s not worth sitting through all the other crap that infests here. Fine if you want to waste two hours of your life on singing and gross, unfunny jokes. For everyone else, skip it. Yes, I know, I’m not the target demo here, which is tweens and 20-somethings. Says a lot about the direction in which American is headed: far downward. And to the epitome of blandness.



ONE-AND-A-HALF MARXES



* “The Perks of Being a Wallflower“: This snoozer was a complete waste of time. I struggled to stay awake. Plus it’s filled with hipsters and hipster-wannabes. I hate hipsters. Sorry. There’s nothing new in this film. It’s the usual cliches about an offbeat, high school student who is depressed and not popular, but suddenly finds his wings when others befriend him. You’ve seen it a million times before, and I liked it much better when I saw this in the ’80s and it was called, “The Breakfast Club.”



Logan Lerman plays a kid who is mentally unstable, especially after his best friend committed suicide. He’s an introverted freshman who is soon befriended by outgoing hipster seniors in high school. He falls for one of them (Emma Watson), after also briefly dating a psycho girl in the group and being propositioned by the gay guy in the group. Filled with way more drama and angst than I needed. And way more hipsterism. A slow-moving bore. Even during the melodrama, of which there was far too much here.



Oh, the perks of skipping this and saving two hours of your life from waste. Annoying to the max.



TWO MARXES



* “Won’t Back Down“: This is another cliche-filled, slow bore of uber-fiction in which all the inner city kids and parents are wise angels who value education, and every problem in public schools is the fault of the unions and bad teachers. In many ways, the lies in this movie remind me of “Waiting for Superman” (read my review), another cinematic fraud in which all inner city (and other) students are angel geniuses who only want to learn and whose parents are excruciatingly dedicated to their kids learning, ‘cuz, hey, that accurately portrays the kids and parents of inner city American culture, right? (As you may know, because I pointed out this fakery in my review of “Waiting for Superman,” Paramount Pictures kicked me off their critics’ screening list, until the New York Times investigated.)



A slutty, single mom (played by the vastly over-rated, homely Maggie Gyllenhaal, the loathsome Marxist who said America “deserved and is to blame for 9/11″) with tattoos all over and a funky wardrobe is very concerned with the education of her dyslexic daughter because, after all, slutty single moms with tramp stamps on their chest are typically the ones who really care about their kids’ education, right? Puh-leeze. Gyllenhaal gets together with a teacher/parent (Viola Davis) to change a Pittsburgh school under a state law that allows them to. They face opposition of unions, administration, and parents, and even though they are dirt poor, they somehow have gazillions to spend on t-shirts, color brochures, etc. Holly Hunter–who looks like an 80-year-old anorexic and is very scary to look at (solid proof that Botox and Restylane injections don’t necessarily make one look youthful)–co-stars in this movie. There is also a cheesy, silly scene of teachers line-dancing at a bar. Oy vey. This is one of those movies billed as “inspired by actual events,” which, per usual, actually has little to do with anything that actually happened in reality.



I hated this movie and it was hard to sit through. It’s not credible, and, yet, it’s so predictable, you don’t need to see it to know the ending. Not that you care. I didn’t. An over-hyped, complete waste of time.



TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES