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 about some of the movies from last week and 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 choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Weekend Box Office: Miss Sloane, Office Christmas Party

By Debbie Schlussel



It’s nearly Christmas time. So, this is supposed to be the time of year when most of the new movies are very good. That ain’t happening. Two new movies this weekend, neither of them good.
* Miss Sloane – Rated R: This is a very cold, very harsh, very dark, and very overwrought picture of the kind of lobbying that happens on Capitol Hill. As one who worked for several Congressman on the Hill, I can tell you that this movie is ridiculous and bears no resemblance to reality. The cat-and-mouse absurdities that go in during the course of this movie are just not how it’s done in real life. Not even close.
Plus, while the movie pretends to be even-handed on the gun control debate, it really isn’t. The protagonist, a female lobbyist, risks it all in order to get stricter gun control laws passed–it’s the only “moral” position she’s ever taken in her life. And with that, the movie is a more subtle version of the gun control propaganda we’re used to seeing in the movies, on TV, and throughout pop culture. On top of that, this is an attack on the free market and makes no bones about it. Our “heroine,” the lobbyist, is a free marketeer and evil until she gives it all up to pull out all the stops in favor of more gun control.
On top of that, the movie is long, slow, and boring, taking up 132 minutes of your life that just aren’t worth the wasting here.
Jessica Chastain–in very dark, harsh makeup–is a Elizabeth Sloane, the aforementioned lobbyist, who tells us flat-out that she believes in the free market and American free enterprise. That’s “bad” in the filmmakers eyes, as she bends the rules to almost the breaking point in order to get tax laws and import duties to go her clients’ way. But she’s also smart (or so we’re told). In order to get a client’s sugar-laden breakfast cakes out from under restrictive regulations, she recommends reclassifying them as cookies, which are covered by more relaxed rules.
But that’s the humdrum stuff. Now, a new client–the gun lobby (and presumably, the NRA)–wants to hire her lobbying firm and her to in order to relax gun laws. The lobby wants her to present guns as the ultimate equalizer for women against violence and would-be attackers. But Elizabeth doesn’t want that and laughs in the new client’s face, as well as that of her boss (Sam Waterston). Soon, she’s gone from her big firm to a smaller one in order to lobby for more gun control and fight her former employer in the fight.
Elizabeth has no life. She never sleeps (and takes a lot of pills to stay awake). She hires male prostitutes for sex, as there’s no time for a relationship. And so on. In the meantime, the team she’s poached from her former firm, helps her pursue several senators to get their votes for gun control. They’re working with a victim of “gun violence.” However, later in the film, there’s an incident that makes the gun lobby’s point.
The various machinations in this movie just don’t happen on Capitol Hill. The lobbying in real life is a lot more dry and basic. There just isn’t the intrigue–to the point of the cockamamie in this film–that is presented here. Not even close. And there aren’t mechanical bugs with cameras crawling into Senators’ and lobbyists’ cars. There also aren’t major Senate hearings into the personal lives of lobbyists. The only thing I can ever remember happening that was even close (and it didn’t involve an examination of the lobbyist’s private life or health), were the Senate hearings into corrupt, convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s multi-million-dollar rip-offs of federal Indian tribes. But in that case, there was major money-laundering, tax-evasion, and other crimes going on, including the use of jihadist Muslim Grover Norquist’s “non-profit” Americans for Tax Reform to launder Indian tribe money and hide the source and ultimate destination of it. Apparently, some of that money went to Islamic terrorist outfits tied to Al-Qaeda, too. That’s a legit inquiry by Congress.
The Senate inquiry into Miss Sloane, a major and prolonged scene in the movie, is just ludicrous, and it would never happen. After nearly 2.5 hours of this movie, there just isn’t a worthy payoff. Not even a little bit. (Unless gun control is what you consider a worthy payoff.)
The movie’s just a high-styled, low-brow bore pretending to be something important. It isn’t. Certainly not important enough for 132 minutes of your life and ten-bucks-plus from your wallet.
Yawn.
TWO MARXES

Watch the trailer . . .

* Office Christmas Party – Rated R: I hated this poor excuse for comedy. You’ve seen this crap–waaaaay toooooo muuuuuch of it–already in recent years. Juvenile, crass, depraved jokes pretending to pass for funny. And they just aren’t. Sure, I laughed several times. But most of this movie was just dumb. Extremely dumb. On top of that, it’s the usual message from liberal Hollywood: loser, drug-using, incompetent, unethical schmucks are the good guys and the heroes; straight-laced, disciplined people, who actually work for a living are the losers and the villains. (Ditto for the human resources manager who objects to female employees wearing too-sexy-for-work outfits–she’s “too uptight”). So typical, so stupid.
The story: Jason Bateman is the Chief Technology Officer at the Chicago branch of Zenotek, a failing internet-hosting and online promotions company. Everyone at the branch is either incompetent or a whiner. The boss is Clay VanStone (T.J. Miller), a rich idiot who wastes money and acts like a child. His rival sister, Carol (Jennifer Aniston), is the hard-working, responsible adult in the family and the company CEO. She wants to pull the plug on the Chicago branch and end the bleeding. She’s right. But, of course, in all Hollywood movies these days, responsible people and responsible decisions aren’t hip and they aren’t to be admired. Instead, they are to be condemned.
Clay and his sister agree that if he can land more business and keep the office profitable, it can remain open. So, he goes about trying to recruit the account of Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance). At first, Walter rules out hiring Zenotek, and morale is lower than low. But Clay decides to throw a giant, wild Christmas party to entice Walter to change his mind and hire Zenotek. The party is filled with cocaine binges, topless naked women, a prostitute and her female pimp, and other lowlife stuff, which makes it “cool” in the world according to Hollywood. Soon, Walter is literally hanging from the chandeliers, trying to ride ropes of lighting–Tarzan-style–from across a second-floor balcony.
Ultimately there are hospital trips, annoying Uber rides, car crashes, and a power outage in the entire Chicago. Haha, funny. NOT. Also not funny: that a guy (Bateman–who is supposed to be the voice of reason here) drinks spiked eggnog from the male genitalia of an anatomically-correct ice sculpture and then gets his tongue stuck on it. If this is your idea of humor, that’s a not-so-thrilling statement on the state of America. And, sadly, that’s where we are. Forget Kris Kringle. This is Kris Kringeworthy.
Absolute garbage. And not even good for more than five or six laughs. If that.
FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO ISIS BEHEADINGS

Watch the trailer . . .

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 about some of the movies from last week and 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 choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: London Has Fallen, Zootopia, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

By Debbie Schlussel

In the movies debuting today in theaters, it’s a weekend in which FINALLY a Hollywood movie portrays Muslims as the terrorists and doesn’t sympathize with ’em (in the only movie I recommend). But, sadly, it’s also a weekend of politically correct Disney animation for kids, telling us that Islamic terrorists are just misunderstood and we must be more tolerant. Plus, it’s a Tina Fey weekend, so yuck.
* “London Has Fallen” – Rated R: Finally, finally, finally, Muslims are the terrorists in a movie and are shown as they really are: evil, without qualification (which is probably why Sephardic Jewish Israeli actor Alon Aboutboul–of Egyptian and Algerian descent–took the role of chief terrorist Aamir Barkawi; Muslim actors don’t like portraying reality and prefer political correctness). On top of that, this is the rare sequel that is far better than the original. This is the second installment to “Olympus Has Fallen” (read my review), which I didn’t like that much (North Koreans are the terrorists, along with a disgrunted Secret Service agent on the President’s Personal Protection Detail). You don’t need to see the first movie to enjoy or get this.
If I had one qualm with the movie, it’s that, at the beginning of the movie, America uses drones to strike the wedding of the daughter of a billionaire Muslim arms dealer (Aboutbout as Barkawi) who sells to terrorists, and this is somehow the Muslim’s excuse to perpetrate terrorist attacks against the West. Sadly, in real life, while we should strike weddings where Islamic terrorists are guests we don’t have the guts because we’re too concerned about “innocent civilians and children” (all of them hate us and support the terrorists who are present). In real life, on the rare occasion that we do strike a wedding, it’s by accident, and we always come under a torrent of phony world condemnation, and then we endlessly apologize. Not in this movie.
Aaron Eckhart is back as the President, and Gerard Butler is back as the chief member of his Secret Service Personal Protection Detail. Angela Bassett is also back as the head of the Secret Service.
The story: the British Prime Minister dies, and many of the world’s leaders, most of them Westerners, travel to London for the funeral. But President Eckhart’s Secret Service Director Bassett and Agent Butler are suspicious and tell him not to go to the funeral. As they note, advance for Presidential trips usually takes months or even a year, and they’ve had no time to plan and scout for the security for this trip. They think something else is going on. And they’re soon proven right. On the way to the funeral or already at the cathedral, Western leaders are targeted and murdered through a series of bombs and shootings. Islamic terrorists have infiltrated the London police, the protection detail of the current British Prime Minister, and even have a mole in MI-6 (the British version of the CIA).
Eckhart and Butler barely and narrowly escape, and they are on the run, as the Islamic terrorist mastermind of it all (the arms dealer who sells to terrorists) has vowed to have the President beheaded on live TV that night.
This is a tightly-written script without a single dull moment (though some of the stunts and feats just aren’t believable, including one with fire and explosives near the movie’s end). There’s lots of action and there are many car chases, explosions, and and Islamic terrorists getting what they deserve. The audience clapped when, in one scene, Butler tortures an Islamic terrorist to death so that the chief terrorist can hear it over the phone. Eckhart: “Was that really necessary?” Butler: “No.” If only we did things like this in real life–instead of having John McCain and even Ted Cruz lecture us about torture, human rights, and the Geneva Conventions by which terrorists don’t abide–we’d have fewer terrorist attacks. The movie also has some funny dialogue.
Toward the end of the movie, racist Morgan Freeman as the Vice President speaks to the world and tells us that America would do these things all over again and makes no apologies for it. If only. Sadly, that only happens at the movies, these days.
This is violent and bloody, though tame by R-rating standards. That and the language (a few F-bombs) is the reason it has the “R” rating (and isn’t for kids).
HAMAS CAIR and the other Islamic terrorism supporters in our midst ain’t gonna like this movie. Reality bites.
I used to hate Gerard Butler, but now I’m in lust.
This would normally be a TWO-TO-TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGAN movie, but because of its absolute in-your-face lack of political correctness, it earns . . .
THREE REAGANS

Watch the trailer . . .
* “Zootopia” – Rated PG: While this has great animation and a lot of funny lines and characters (that only adults would get), I hate being lectured to about political correctness, diversity, and tolerance. And I hate kids being lectured on that baloney. We have far too much “tolerance” for the intolerable and “diversity” in terms of promoting those who believe in and promote the intolerable. The movie’s message is that savage, predatory animals are people, too (they’re just “misunderstood”). That we must accept and understand them and not expect that they will attack prey just because they are predatory savage animals. And, of course, what we’re really being told in this movie is that Islamic terrorists are people, too. And just because Islamic terrorists murder thousands of people every month, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t trust Muslims who openly support and promote Islamic terrorism. It’s insane! And that, my friends, is why this movie is called “ZooTOPIA,” not “ZooREALITY.”
In the movie, all predatory animals and those of prey have signed some sort of treaty. The predators have agreed not to attack the prey, and they all live in peace and harmony. Suddenly, predators no longer have the instinct or urge to pounce on prey. Uh-huh. Sounds like the constant lectures we’re told about how peaceful Muslims are. There are savages all over this world seeking to destroy us. That won’t change, no matter how many lectures we get from liberals (and Mitt Romney and the RNC) and no matter how many absurd treaties between animals are portrayed in silly PC Disney flicks. So this movie teaches kids a bad lesson.
On the other hand, I think the lesson is way over kids’ heads. They’re not gonna understand that, and so I think it’s probably okay, if you wanna spend the money and reward Disney for tricking kids into believing Muslims . . . I mean, animated predatory animals, are gonna change their stripes despite ideology, history, culture, and instinct.
The story: a bunny (Ginnifer Goodwin–I hate the pretentious conceit of a “different” spelling, especially this idiotic one) dreams of becoming a cop, instead of going into the carrot farming business like her parents and 237 other siblings. She’s mocked by classmates who are foxes and other predatory animals. They bully her and laugh at her dream, saying she’ll never be a cop. But, one day, she grows up to become the Zootopia Police Department’s first bunny cop. Her boss doubts her abilities and forces the bunny to be a meter maid. But she meets a con artist Fox (Jason Bateman), who she ultimately convinces to reform his ways.
Together, they investigate the mysterious disappearance of several citizens of Zootopia. It turns out that the animals are all predators who’ve become savage and attack prey. They’re being illegally held at a secret Gitmo-style Zootopia facility (yup, political correctness yet again). When the bunny and fox discover and free them, the bunny gives a press conference. She accidentally says something politically incorrect and “intolerant”: that any predatory animals in Zootopia might become savage like this and attack prey. Soon, innocent predator animals are shown the door or moved from high profile jobs in the front office to the back room where they won’t scare prey customers. And, of course, it turns out the bunny is “wrong” and “raaaaaycist” (or is that predatorist?).
Yup, there’s discrimination against predator animals. And intolerance. Instead, we should have understanding and not believe all predators will become savages.
Riiight.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to adopt a bear or a cobra. Or believe that the Muslims in my neighborhood–all of whom openly support Hezbollah and HAMAS–are peaceful and nice.
Here’s a tip: they aren’t. They aren’t “misunderstood.” We understand exactly who they are. And kids would be better off being exposed to reality, not this BS.
Yes, there’s a lot of cute and funny stuff in this to make the silly PC message of tolerance and diversity palatable. There are mobster Godfather-like characters, and even a Mafia daughter who resembles Jersey Shore’s Snooki. I laughed a lot, as will the parents who take their kids to see this. It’s amusing . . . with a dangerous message.
A spoon full of sugar makes the poison go down.
TWO MARXES PLUS THREE OBAMAS PLUS TWO ISIS MICKEY MOUSE BEHEADINGS

Watch the trailer . . .
* “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” – Rated R: Two words: Tina Fey. America’s most overrated actress/comedienne ever. And the character she plays in this movie is even less likable and ethical than the real life thing. In case you didn’t get the title of this, take the first letters of Whiskey, Tango, and Foxtrot, and you get “WTF.”
Fey and her former “Saturday Night Live” boss Lorne Michaels produced this after Fey bought the rights to the memoir this is based on. The book, by current New York Times reporter Kim Barker, is about the reporter’s exploits as a print journalist in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the movie, Fey plays Kim Baker (minus the first “R”), a cable TV news writer who’s sent to Afghanistan to be an on-air correspondent. The movie is supposed to be a drama/comedy (“dramedy”), and there are quite a few laughs. But it’s quite slow, mostly silly and stupid, and a complete waste of time. Fey’s character is supposed to be the heroine of the movie, but while she’s not as much of a jerk as most of the rest of the people in this, she’s still a jerk.
And she’s even more than that, when it comes out that a story she did cost an American soldier his legs. But, as with all things Hollywood, liberal piece-of-crap reporters come out of it all right. She visits the soldier to apologize, and he’s all fine and dandy about it. Problem solved!
Fey said she made this movie to show all of the sexism against female reporters. And while she does show that Muslims are sexist against women, it’s all fodder for comedy, and the Western men–whether they are correspondents or her personal protection detail–are shown as just as sexist. See, in the world according to Fey (and Michaels–some idiots keep insisting to me he’s “conservative”), we in the West are just as bad as the Muslims, so DON’T. JUDGE. That fraudulent message is so stale and moldy, it would make the Chinese plaster wall makers blush. Also, I had a question: if female reporters are such sluts, obsessed with new bed partners as they are in this flick, maybe they deserve the disrespect they believe they’re getting (but aren’t–victimhood isn’t just annoying, it’s overwrought and fraudulent).
The other message of the movie–also not news or original in any way–is that reporters in war zones are adrenaline junkies and they keep getting more aggressive in trying to get stories, interviews, and footage of terrorists and terrorist attacks. Sadly, it doesn’t delve into the most important aspect of this: that the reporters are generally willing, gushing cheerleaders for evil (usually Islamic) terrorists.
There are a couple of silly, go-nowhere plot angles. Margot Robbie plays Fey’s far more attractive rival/frenemy. She lets Fey know (a point repeated by other parties) that Fey, a New York 6 (in attractiveness) is a Kabul 9. Robbie and Fey are both competing for the most violent and bloody stories and interviews that will keep them on the air and make them stars. There’s also the dumb flirtation between Fey and the Afghan Attorney General (Alfred Molina). She uses this to blackmail him into rescuing her unlikely lover, an extremely annoying and creepy cameraman played by “The Hobbit’s” Martin Freeman.
Like I said, nothing to like in this movie (except Billy Bob Thornton as a realist USMC General, though we don’t see nearly enough of him), nobody and nothing to care about. And nothing worth spending your ten-bucks-plus and two hours on.
We have enough of the liberal media BS everywhere around us, including on FOX News. Unless you’re a moron, why pay to go see more of it glorified as some sort of (phony) heroism?
By the way, why did this need two directors? It’s not the case of “too many cooks spoil the broth,” though. Swill won’t taste good no matter how many people work on it.
TWO MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS PLUS TWO MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS PLUS TWO ISIS BEHEADINGS

Watch the trailer . . .

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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 about some of the movies from last week and 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 choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: The Gift, Ricki and the Flash, Fantastic Four, Beyond the Brick: A LEGO Brickumentary

By Debbie Schlussel

This weekend’s new movie releases includes one of the most clever and tight thrillers I’ve seen in a while and one of the most torturous, left-wing PC movies I’ve seen in the last several years. Remember, this is August, the Pet Cemetery of movies, where Hollywood sends bad movies to die a quick, painless death.
* “The Gift“: This is the clever, tight psychological thriller I told you about. It deserves better placement than August. The more I thought about this movie after seeing it, the better I liked it. It’s smart, suspenseful, and well-written. One of the my favorite actors, Joel Edgerton, wrote, directed, and stars in this. It’s entertaining and quickly moves along. At this point, it’s in my top ten movies for the year, maybe even top five.
It’s difficult to properly review this movie without giving it away. But the movie is a lot of things, all packed effectively into one. It’s about how sometimes the person who appears to be the bully is really the bullied and vice versa. And it’s about how sometimes the behavior and evil tactics of kids lasts a lifetime. It’s also a revenge fantasy.
Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall are a young couple who’ve just returned to his native Southern California after he’s received a job promotion. They run into Joel Edgerton a/k/a “Gordo,” with whom Bateman went to school as a kid. Bateman is weirded out by Gordo. And the weirding out continues as Gordo starts to pop by the couple’s very cool mid-century modern home. A bottle of wine from him mysteriously appears inside their home, and, soon, fish appear in their previously empty koi pond. Then, he gets himself invited to dinner by Bateman’s “naive” wife (Hall). All of this annoys Bateman, who feels he’s being stalked in an ever escalating way and wants it to stop.
But things aren’t always as they seem. And, as with any good thriller, there are many hints as to what is really going on. Bateman seems to be rude and arrogant. Gordo–whom Bateman says they called, “Gordo the Weirdo,” in school–is somewhat sympathetic as a stalker because he is seemingly well-meaning and socially needy loser. And you never really know a person, even the one you are married to.
My one minor issue with this movie is that Rebecca Hall, with short hair, resembled and kept reminding me of K.D. Lang or Rachel Maddow, which was kind of distracting. I didn’t think she had chemistry with Jason Bateman and never thought a character of her caliber would have ended up with Bateman in the first place, but often that does happen in real life.
Another thing: I predicted some of the things that would happen, but that’s only because I’ve seen so many movies, you learn to think based on clues and prompts. Most of this isn’t predictable at all, and that’s part of what makes it a well-honed film. Also, the cinematography in this movie is beautiful, from the home–which is almost a character in and of itself in the film–to the shots of the scenery and city lights at night.
This movie really struck a nerve with me because it reminded me of a bully who used to attack me relentlessly in middle school. A classmate of mine at Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit, Erik Klein (or maybe it’s Eric Klein), not only attacked me non-stop for no reason, but he did it repeatedly years and years later when I’d have these strange coincidences of running into him at various places over the years. He was the bully who never grew up, never became an adult, and never ceased his cruel behavior. (I’ll put up some more about that later.)
But even if this movie hadn’t struck a chord with me personally, I’d still rave about this film because it is well done, carefully crafted, and has a subtly bad character type with whom I think we’ve all had a run-in sometime in life.
Go see this.
FOUR REAGANS

Watch the trailer . . .

* “Ricki and the Flash“: This heavily pimped and promoted waste of time was painful to watch. And so laden with left-wing hatred of conservatives, it was basically unwatchable. Not surprising, given that the movie was written by tattoo-covered former stripper Diablo Cody.
If I told you about a woman who abandoned her husband and young children to move to Los Angeles and try to become a rock star; if I told you that woman was a loser who never made it, worked as a cashier at Whole Foods, smoked pot and drank too much, lived in a flea bag apartment complex, was completely broke, played in her crappy cover band at a trashy bar at night, and still dressed like a Grace Slick/Cher wannabe into her 60s complete with nasty, ratty hair, and trashy, dark, Goth eye make-up–would you assume this woman was a liberal Democrat or a “racist, bigoted” conservative Republican?
If you guessed the former, you would be dead wrong. Everyone knows that loser, druggie, never-been wannabe rock stars who abandon their families are conservative Republican racist! Oh, and did I mention that the abandoned family is a politically correct set of cliched narratives who have the moral high ground over the mother/wife who abandoned them?
Meryl Streep is “Ricki Randazzo”–the fake name and character she has assumed since she left for L.A. years ago. But she’s really Linda, a cashier at “Total Foods” (which is certainly supposed to be Whole Foods, complete with rip-off jokes about spending your “Total Paycheck”–real life: “Whole Paycheck”–at the place; and, by the way, a better reason not to shop at Whole Foods is that it supports HAMAS terrorists and is Islamophiliac). Ricki left her rich husband, Kevin Kline, and their three young kids so that she could pursue her dream of becoming the next Joan Jett. But she failed in that conquest.
And, while Ricki chasing her ambitions, a hot, saintly Black woman took her place and raised those troublesome, evil White kids in Ricki’s place. Oh, and did I mention that unlike Ricki, the hot, saintly Black chick is a terrific cook, fabulous mother, terrific home decor maven, and devoted, drug-free nurse? Ricki is, as I’ve said, a pot smoking alcoholic, plus she can’t cook.
But, one day, Ricki gets a call from Kevin Kline to let her know that their daughter, Streep’s real-life, mini-me daughter, Mamie Gummer, has attempted suicide and is a hot mess after her husband left her. Streep is asked to come to Indianapolis to help heal her daughter and talk her back to normalcy.
While Ricki does manage to thaw her relationship with her estranged daughter and nurse her back to mental health, there is a problem: Ricki is a conservative Republican who voted for George W. Bush twice, engages in “racist” anti-Obama needling of her one Black band member, and is “intolerant” of her gay son’s homosexuality because she heretofore thought he was bisexual and would choose to become straight. And, also, her son rants that because she twice voted for Bush, she kept him from having a gay marriage to his boyfriend. The movie is instantly dated and anachronistic, given that the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, and you haven’t heard a peep from Republicans since the week of the decision. We’ve accepted that we’ve lost and moved on. But not Hollywood.
Ricki soon leaves Indianapolis in a huff after she sees that he kids mostly resent her for abandoning them and they have little in common. Plus she was basically kicked out by the saintly, beautiful Black chick for doing drugs and encouraging her suicidal daughter to skip therapy and go shopping and primping, instead.
But, soon, Ricki is invited to her straight son’s wedding by the saintly Black chick (Ricki’s son didn’t invite her and doesn’t want her there). This is the only good part of the movie: the invitation is so PC that there are only two meal options: Vegan and Vegan/Gluten-Free. And the invitation asks the recipient to “do the right thing”: be environmentally-friendly and plant the invitation into the ground, as it has been embedded with sunflower seeds. “That’s some bougie sh-t!” laughs the bartender at the dive bar where Ricki and her band play.
So, Ricki and her boyfriend, Rick Springfield (who looks good for age 65 in real life but looks nasty and grimy here), travel to Indianapolis for the wedding. And when they are there, they are dressed like aging, trashy rock stars–to the repeated looks of consternation of all the evil, pale-faced, stiff, fuddy-duddy, rich White people at the wedding. Ricki doesn’t have any money to buy a gift for her son and his new wife, so, instead, she and Rick Springfield and their band play Bruce Springsteen and other rock songs at the wedding. This, again, draws the repeated looks of consternation of all the evil, pale-faced, stiff, fuddy-duddy, rich White people who are guests at the wedding and comprise the family of the bride. Because, after all, in the year 2015, White people would never ever ever ever enjoy and dance to rock music being played by a band at a wedding. Never happens. Ever. Including at my cousin’s wedding a month ago (at which a band played rock music and all of us evil, stiff White people danced to it).
I should probably also mention that all of the servers and others working the wedding are quirky butch lesbians with strange haircuts and obtrusive hipster hair colorings. Is that a thing at straight weddings? Who knew?
I should also definitely mention that Ricki, the conservative Republican bigot who abandoned her kids to try to be a rock star, says this when she meets her gay son’s Asian boy friend: “Do you know Bruce Lee?” Yes, all conservative Republicans are so bigoted, so sheltered, so out of touch, that they believe that all Asians know Bruce Lee (and Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu and Olivia Munn and Margaret Cho). Especially conservative Republicans who live in Los Angeles, where there are absolutely no Asians at all.
This movie was painful to watch, but definitely high-quality Gitmo torture material the Obamas would love.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS PLUS FOUR OBAMAS PLUS TWO ISIS BEHEADINGS

Watch the trailer . . .

* “Fantastic Four“: Fantastic Snore. Or Bore. In a sheer money-grab, Hollywoodites remade a movie that we just saw a decade ago. And they made it worse. The original wasn’t a “great” movie, but it’s a masterpiece compared to this. The 2005 version at east had a tight script and an understandable story. This one meanders and is kinda confusing.
Plus this is so long, slow, and boring, I struggled to stay awake . . . and lost the fight. But I still didn’t miss a thing. The whole movie is a long, slow, pointless slog to barely any action, almost all of which takes place in essentially the last four minutes of the movie. And the pay-off–if you can call it that–wasn’t worth it. The actors in this movie are incredibly dull and lifeless, to boot.
The story: various individuals are recruited to be in some high-tech, super-secret school. One of them is the son of the place’s lead scientist and founder. They are teleported to Planet X, a planet that mirrors earth in many ways. But when they get there, an accident happens with the energy and atmosphere of the planet, transforming one of them into a villain (Dr. Doom), and the others into superheroes with various powers.
Miles Teller, on whom the movie focuses, is a scientific genius and child prodigy, whose limbs now stretch incredible lengths. He is Mr. Fantastic (though this name isn’t uttered in the movie). Michael B. Jordan becomes “The Human Torch” because he can turn himself on fire and spread fire to other entities, parties. Much has been made that he is now Black. That part didn’t bother me because race wasn’t important in this. The lack of any interesting story or plot to speak of, is the problem. Then, there is The Thing and the woman (Kate Mara) who becomes the Invisible Woman after the spaceship returns to the lab while teleporting and causes an accident to which she’s been exposed.
You really don’t get to see much of these characters’ superpowers on display because, as I noted, there is very little action, and most of it is toward the end of the movie. But I didn’t care. Because it was that godawful boring. And because the story and characters were so dull and uninteresting.
I was slightly annoyed, however, that there is a brief plot narrative–the usual for many of these superhero movies–that the “evil” U.S. military wants to (and does) use The Thing to defeat terrorists. Yup, if we had a superhero to save American men’s lives, is it really unethical and evil to use it? Nope. But that’s the attitude of many of these superhero flicks. It’s irritating and oh so stale and tired.
Not much objectionable about this movie, other than what I just mentioned and that it was made in the first place. There was absolutely no reason to redo a movie just ten years old . . . other than more obscene, capitalist profits for Hollywood scum that purport to loathe capitalism and laugh all the way to the bank while doing so.
HALF A REAGAN

Watch the trailer . . .

* “Beyond the Brick: A LEGO Brickumentary“: Even though this is essentially a 1.5 hour paid commercial for Lego (the company produced it and put up the money), it is interesting. Jason Bateman narrates this (yup, it’s Jason Bateman week at the movies), posing as a Lego character. The movie covers various aspects of the Lego world, from its fans to the history of the company and its products. I loved and played with Lego as a kid (and still sometimes make cool jewelry out of it and I have an incomplete Lego clutch purse I started a while ago–maybe I’ll post some pics in the future), so this was up my alley.
While some of this movie is repetitive and becomes kinda tedious, most of it is very cool eye candy. The coolest part of the “documentary” is the artwork of “Lego artist” Nathan Sawaya. A former corporate lawyer, he quit the legal rat race to create very cool lifelike sculptures and artwork for clients. He said he spends at least six figures a year on Lego bricks (he doesn’t work for the company, though Lego has hired or partnered with him for some artwork and exhibitions). See his stuff, below.

I learned (though I’m not sure I needed to) the name of Lego Trekkies–“AFOLs,” or Adult Fans of Lego. Trust me, their convention is even more nerd-infested than Star Trek conventions. “NLSO” is Non-Lego Significant Other. But even the NLSOs will like this movie. But some of the Lego jargon got ridiculous: a “1 x 5″ is a “hot girl” at a Lego convention. And then there are words for various types of rare pieces of Lego and shapes of bricks that are undesirable. And I didn’t need to see the professor whose life’s mission is concocting formulas to discover the possible number of combinations of Lego bricks. Dude, you spent your whole life on that? True, it is a step up from studying overweight lesbian culture and why they’re fat, but just a step. And speaking of fat . . . . A zaftig woman who spends her life building Lego cities and buildings says that girls come up to her and thank her for being a role model. Role model for what? Um, American chicks aim high! Well, at least she’s not a Kardashian.
One scene shows an expert in autism therapy demonstrating how playing with Legos has helped kids with autism tremendously. The movie ignores the utter irony that his name is Dr. Legoff. Coincidence?
Another scene shows a European Lego artist who wants to commemorate the Holocaust by “Lego bombing” a train station from which Jews were shipped to death camps. Lego bombing is the concept of putting rows and rows of Lego into gaps in bricks of buildings. Not sure how this helps remember that Nazis cooked Jews in ovens. In fact, it seemed kind of trivial and blasphemous of their memories, at least to me. But the sentiment and intention is good.
Apparently, NASA uses Lego bricks to help design models for space robots, including the Mars Rover. That’s cool.
Not cool: Lego refuses to produce Lego guns because the company is ensconced in the lefty, socialist, Scandinavian, let-our-countries-be-raped-by-Islam, surrender culture. What is cool: a red-blooded capitalist American who believes in the Second Amendment, started his own company, Brickarms, which makes Lego guns. It’s weird that Lego has commissioned and encouraged the creation of lifelike Lego scenes of the battles at Normandy and Fallujah. Um, what does Lego think they fought these battles with–Q-tips?
The movie spends a good amount of time on the making of Lego movies, many of which are posted on YouTube. The people who make these have incredible patience, as the filming is shot with repeated still shots after a single brick is moved just so slightly. But, then, we’re told that there is Lego porn. Um, no thanks. Glad they only mentioned it in passing.
Like I said, eventually, the movie got a little long and told me stuff I didn’t need to know. Overall, though, a very cool and entertaining documentary . . . even if it is really a paid commercial.
ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

Watch the trailer . . .