Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Movie Title-- Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Release Year-- 2016

Running Time-- 1 Hour and 38 Minutes

Director-- Jake Szymanski

Cast-- Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam DeVine, Aubrey Plaza, Stephen Root, Sugar Lyn Beard

Mike and Dave Stangle are forced to get nice wedding dates for their sister's wedding in Hawaii and are tricked into taking two party girls.

Mike (DeVine) and Dave (Efron) Stangle are brother that bring out the very best and the very worst out in each other. They are liqour salesmen by trade but they are truly known in their family for ruining every family gathering they attend. Wit their little sister Jeanie's (Beard) Hawaiin wedding fast approaching, the two of them are sat down by the rest of the family for an intervention. Once they are shown that they ruin all family gatherings, their parents give them an ultimatum; they must bring nice dates to Jeanie's wedding.

Unsure how to find the prefect girls to take to Hawaii, they put an ad up on Craigslist. Very quickly their ad goes viral and they start to interview women to take with them. Realizing that they are not attracting the right women due to their viral ad, they go on the “Wendy Williams Show” where they talk about their ad then explain what they are looking for in a nice girl.

Elsewhere, Alice (Kendrick) is having a hard time getting over being left at the alter by her fiancee and her best friend Tatiana (Plaza) tries to cheer her up by taking her drinking before they go into work at their waitressing jobs, only to be fired later that evening for showing up to work drunk (again).

The next day they are watching the “Wendy Williams Show” when they see Mike and Dave talking about needing dates and Tatiana decides that a Hawaiian vacation is just what Alice needs to pull her out of her funk. The two girls clean themselves up and go to the bar where the men are interviewing potential dates at. Instead of going in, Tatiana tells Alice that they don't want to look like one of those desperate women inside, so they wait for Mike and Dave to come out. To get their attention, Tatiana throws herself in front of a moving car then lets Mike believe he has saved her.

The four of them go on a date where Tatiana pretends to be a teacher and leads Mike on although she has no intention of sleeping with him. Alice tells them that she is a hedge fund manager and she believes that having sex with Dave is just the thing to help her get over her ex. Mike and Dave, believing they have finally found the perfect girls to take to Hawaii, they invite Tatiana and Alice to join them as their wedding dates.

I thought this movie was great. Honestly, if you are looking for a stupid, funny comedy, this is one to check out. There are a few raunchy parts but if you can handle them there should be no problem.

I am finding more and more that I am becoming a fan of Anna Kendrick. I mean, I have always liked her but I didn't realize before how much I like her. And Zac Efron, what is there to say? He is gorgeous, funny and a good actor for someone so young.

I really don't have too much to say about this film. Say too much and you give all the funny things about the movie away but say to little and it doesn't sound like much of a film to watch, so I am going to end this by saying this--

This film is worth the watch. Watch it with a group of your closest friends and prepare to laugh until you cry. Don't Forget the Popcorn!

Big Hero 6

Movie Title-- Big Hero 6

Release Year-- 2014

Running Time-- 1 Hour and 33 Minutes

Director-- Chris Williams and Don Hall

Cast-- Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, T.J. Miller, Daniel Henney, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, Alan Tudyk, James Cromwell, Maya Rudolph

After experiencing a devastating loss, Hiro Hamada teams up with inflatable health care robot Baymax and four friends to become super heroes.

In the futuristic city of San Fransokyo, 14 year old robotics genius Hiro Hamada (Potter) spends the bulk of his free time hustling illegal robot fights. This time Hiro hustles the wrong man and narrowly escapes his wrath thanks to his older brother Tadashi (Henney) dropping in at the right time to save him. Although they escape, they are caught by the police and put in jail. Their guardian, their aunt Cass (Rupolph), bails them out but once they arrive home Tadashi sees Hiro gearing up to find another fight. Tadashi insists that if Hiro is going to go that he will drive but Tadashi tricks Hiro and instead takes him to the research lab at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology.

There Hiro meets Tadashi's friends, Honey Lemon (Rodriguez), Fred (Miller), Go-Go (Chung) and Wasabi (Wayans Jr.) and they each show him what they specialize in. After introductions, Tadashi takes Hiro to his office and shows him the project he has been working on, a inflatable health care robot named Baymax (Adsit). While Hiro is there he also meets the head of the robotics program at the university, Professor Robert Callaghan (Cromwell). Hiro decides he want to be a part of the program and signs up for the university's science fair for a chance to win a scholarship.

After a lot of heartache and frustration, Hiro invents “Microbots” and gives an amazing presentation in front of a large crowd of onlookers. He explains that the microbots are swarms of tiny robots that can link together by using a neuro-cranial transmitter, making it possible to create anything that can be imagined. The CEO of a company called Krei Tech, Alistar Krei (Tudyk), loves the idea and offers to market and sell the microbots but Hiro declines his offer, instead deciding to take the offer to join the robotics program from Professor Callaghan. Tadashi pulls Hiro aside to congratulate Hiro when they notice a fire has broken out in the building where the science fair was being held. They hear someone say that Professor Callaghan is still inside the building and Tadashi runs inside to save him. Once Tadashi is inside there is an explosion, killing both Tadashi and Professor Callaghan.

Hiro withdraws from everyone and everything in the weeks after Tadashi's death. One day, after finding one microbot that had been accidentally saved from the fire, he inadvertently activates Baymax. Baymax refuses to shut down until Hiro tells him he is satisfied with the care that he has received, so Hiro jokingly says he will feel better if Baymax followed the microbot to see where it is trying to get to. Baymax, not understanding that Hiro was kidding, sets off in the same direction the microbot is trying to go, leading the pair to an abandoned warehouse. Once they are inside they find that someone has saved the microbots and are not mass producing them. They are discovered and attacked by a man wearing a Kabuki mask that is controlling the microbots.

After their escape Hiro decides to fight back by uploading karate moves into Baymax's database and outfits Baymax with armor. The two of them then tracks the masked man to the docks. Unbeknownst to Hiro, Baymax has contacted Honey Lemon, Fred, Go-Go, and Wasabi to try to improve Hiro's mood and they arrive at the docks as well. The 6 of them are then all chased by the man in the mask and after escaping, they go to Fred's house where they all decide to become super heroes to defeat the masked man.

I really enjoyed this film. This film is one that my 4 year old daughter has fallen in love with (some days she is a princess others she tends to be a super hero), so we tend to watch this movie a lot and often. I love the theme song but I will say that I am a little bias, “Fall Out Boy” being my favorite band. All in all, I think this film is great.

I have noticed that Alan Tuydk is starting to become a regular in the Disney animation department, his credits now being Wreck it Ralph (King Candy), Frozen (the Duke of Weasleton), Big Hero 6 (Alistar Krei), Zootopia (Duke Weaselton) and Moana (Hei Hei) and it makes me wonder if he is going to be like John Ratzenberger who has voiced a character in every Pixar film released. I'm not complaining, I am a fan of Tuydk's, it just makes me wonder.

I will add, you may want to bring some tissues along because just like every other Disney animated film, there are tear jerker moments. Another thing to remember is Hiro is a teenager so he does have his angsty moments but stick with him he is growing and learning.

Grab your favorite kids and watch this one early because I guarantee that when this film is through you are going to want to play superheroes but whatever you do, Don't Forget the Popcorn!

Vessel

Movie Title-- Vessel

Release Year-- 2014

Running Time-- 1 Hour and 30 Minutes

Director-- Diana Whitten

Cast-- Dr. Rebecca Gomperts,

This documentary follows a pro-choice Dutch organization founded by Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, “Women on Waves” and it's sister organization.

Dr. Rebecca Gomperts goes to work on the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior II, after she finishes her abortion training. While she is in South America she heard many heart wrenching stories from women who were raped, were unable to provide for a child or even were at physical risk by being pregnant with no safe way to terminate their pregnancy. These stories pushed Dr. Gomperts to do something to provide safe alternatives for women in countries were there was no legal option for them. This led to the creation of “Women on Waves”.

In the Netherlands it is legal to have an abortion as long as it is in a licensed clinic, therefore they build a mobile clinic out of a shipping container in order to be able to obtain a medical license. It started out as a privately funded project but once the word got out, Irish women's group in Ireland invited “Women on Waves” to have their maiden voyage there and donated the money to get the mobile clinic up and running.

Once everything was completed and arranged, they set off for Ireland. The taking off of this ship became big news, so as soon as the ship set off, they began getting emails inquiring about when they would arrive and how people could set up appointments. The only problem is, when the ship leaves the Netherlands they do not have their medical license and the press gets a hold of this information, causing more problems than they were already facing in Ireland and they are forced to leave before they can help anyone. Once they arrive back in the Netherlands, they get word that they do not actually need a license to do early term abortions.

Every where they go they run into very strong and harsh opposition and they come up with inventive ways to get word out and keep women's identities private. Dr. Rebecca Gomperts goes on television in Portugal and tells women how they can abort an unwanted pregnancy with medication and after that they started to get tons of emails, first from Portugal and then from other places around the world, asking how they can get the medicine or how to take it; “Women on Web” was then born.

So, there is SO much more to this documentary than posted above but I didn't want to give all of it away because honestly, no matter how you feel about this subject, it is a good watch. I will go ahead and warn you, I watched it on Netfilx with the subtitles on so that I wouldn't miss anything and there are times when they are in different countries, speaking the native language and it isn't translated. That being said, knowing the subject matter and seeing the situation the women are put in, you don't really need to know what they are saying to understand what is going on.

There are tons of statistics throughout this film. I neglected to post them however because the statistics are about 3 years old now and I am not sure how much they have changed.

I just want to say, no matter your opinion, you have to give Dr. Rebecca Gomperts her due. She is a woman, striving to help women that have no means of helping themselves. She and her crew are making a difference, even if you don't agree with what she is doing.

As of the time this film was released the “Women on Waves” campaign helped to change the laws in two countries dealing with legal abortion. They have set up safe abortion hotlines in Ecuador, Chili, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, Thailand, Poland and Morocco. They have set up “Women on Web” that provides questions and answers for women that are seeking help and importantly, they help to provide contraceptives. I don't care how you feel about the subject, for a woman and her supporters to achieve this kind of success is amazing. Love it or hate it, she is getting results.

Watch this film. If you are a pro-lifer, watch this film but go into with an open mind (if at all possible). A pro-lifer should watch this film just to see how hard this woman works for what she believes in. If you are pro-choice, watch this film and if you are interested, see what you can do to help out this organization.

I hope that I did an alright job not putting my own personal opinions in this week's documentary. This subject is not one I like to get into debates with people over, so I try to keep my opinions to myself. Also, I can not review a film like this one and not list the information for the organization, so if you or someone you know needs help or someone to talk to, the websites you can go to learn more will be listed below. If you are just interested in helping out or joining their cause, click the links. I went to the websites while doing research for the review and they do have a lot of information for people to look into. If you need to speak to someone, the hotline information is listed on the “Women on Waves” website.

Thanks for stopping by, give this one a watch with an open mind and Don't Forget the Popcorn!!

(The websites you can go to for information are as follows:)

www.womenonwaves.org

www.womenonweb.org

www.who.int
(The World Health Organization)

All Good Things

Movie Title-- All Good Things

Release Year-- 2010

Running Time-- 1 Hour and 41 Minutes

Director-- Andrew Jarecki

Cast-- Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst, Frank Langella, Lily Rabe, Phillip Baker Hall, Michael Esper, Diane Venora, Nick Offerman, Kristen Wiig, Stephen Kunken, John Cullum, Maggie Kiley, Liz Stauber, Marion McCorry

Inspired by the life story of Robert Durst, this film tells the story of the wealthy son of a New York real estate mogul and his volatile relationship with his wife.

David Marks (Gosling) is headed to a black tie even when his father, New York real estate mogul Sanford Marks (Langella) tells him to go to one of the tenement buildings he owns to fix the plumbing. David knocks on the door of Kathleen “Katie” McCarthy (Dunst) and after working on her sink, making it worse than when he arrived, he tells her that a real plumber will be there Monday morning. Sensing an attraction between each other, Katie accompanies David to his event, much to the disapproval of his father.

David and Katie get married and move to Vermont where they open a health food store they name “All Good Things”. They are not in Vermont long when Sanford harasses David into coming back to New York. David buys them a beautiful, large upscale apartment in the city and soon Katie starts thinking about having children. David implies to her that he is unable to have children and it puts an end to the thought of children.

They then by a weekend lake house and after meeting one of the neighbors, Katie confides in her that she is pregnant. When she later tells David that she is pregnant, he hurls a chair across the room and tells her that she is going to have an abortion. On the way to the clinic, David is called away to work for his father, forcing Katie to go alone.

Noting a change in her husband, Katie decides to go to nursing school. On the night of her graduation, David and Katie are at a party at her mother's house when he decides he is ready to leave. Katie tells him that she is staying and David goes to the car but when she doesn't join him he storms inside, grabs her up by her hair and drags her to the car.

Katie decides to leave David but when she tries she is cut off from the family trust and she needs the funds to continue with her medical training. After her visit with the trust lawyer, David begins to abuse her and she slowly starts to show the signs of domestic abuse.

I liked this movie. I think that Ryan Gosling does a great job as David Marks, he sells the character in the right way. If you don't know the story that this film is based on, it really does keep you on your toes. From the onset, it doesn't look like it is quite as dark as it eventually turns into.

The acting between Kirsten Dunst and Ryan Gosling is well acted, they make a pretty convincing couple before and after the domestic abuse starts.

All in all, well acted, great story, average film. I think it is worth a watch.

So the first time I saw this film, I had no idea that is was inspired by a true story. It was only after I heard this story on a crime show, but with different names, did I put the two together.

For anyone that doesn't know about Robert Durst (David Marks in the film), he is the son of Seymour Durst (Sanford Marks) who was a real estate tycoon in New York. Robert seems to have had somewhat of a trouble childhood (his claim is that his father made him watch as his mother committed suicide by jumping from the roof of their home) and by all accounts, is still troubled today. He has been accused of the death of his wife Kathie McCormack Durst (Katie McCarthy) although there is no evidence of anything other than her disappearance. He has been accused of other crimes as well but if you don't know his story or haven't seen this film, I don't want to ruin anything for you, so I will stop there.

If you are interested in learning more about Robert Durst, HBO did a 6 part documentary series on him called “The Jinx: the Life and Deaths of Robert Durst”. It really is worth the watch. It was this film and director Andrew Jarecki that led Robert Durst to come and interview him.

Finally, if you are at all the victim of domestic abuse, please seek help. You can go to www.thehotline.org to chat with someone anonymously or you can call 1-800-799-7233. Please know that you are not alone and you don't have to suffer in silence.

Until next time, Don't Forget the Popcorn!

March's Documentaries

Hi everyone and thank you so much for coming back for my new posts!  So, typically I don't pay much attention to "______ History Month"  (Black history month, women's history month, latino history month, ect) but then I thought, why not use that as a theme for my documentaries.  

So, this month is "Women's History Month", therefore, the next few weeks the Thursday documentary will be about women.  I don't plan on spotlighting a certain kind of woman or anything like that, I actually am going to try to find some unique type stories to hightlight this month.

That being said, I am going to put out a warning about this week's documentary:

It is about abortion.

The reason for the warning is, this is a very touchy subject and I don't want anyone to show up Thursday and go "WHAT IS THIS??"  I will not put any of my views into the post, that is not what I am here for, I am just going to give you a run down of the film and explain why I did or didn't like it without sticking my opinion on the subject matter in the end.

Just to clarify, this week's documentary is called "Vessel" and it is about a woman that gets a crew and takes a ship into international waters to help provide abortion services (they don't do any physical abortions, they just help women with pills) to women that have no where else to turn.

Now that you have been warned, make sure you come back Thursday for "Vessel" and Don't Forget the Popcorn!

Trash Fire

Movie Title-- Trash Fire

Release Year-- 2016

Running Time-- 1 Hour and 34 Minutes

Director-- Richard Bates Jr.

Cast-- Adrian Grenier, Angela Trimbur, Fionnula Flanagan, AnnaLynne McCord, Sally Kirkland, Matthew Gray Gubler, Ezra Buzzington, Molly McCook, Roy Santiago

Owen, a clinically depressed bulimic that suffers from seizures, is forced to try to make a connection with his psychotic grandmother and disfigured sister after learning his girlfriend is pregnant.

Owen (Grenier) is in a session with his therapist Florence (Kirkland) when he notices that she has fallen asleep. After waking her, he accosts her for falling asleep while he was pouring his heart out to her and when she tries to twist it so he will talk about how he feels about her sleeping, it angers him more and he storms out. Next he is at dinner in a restaurant with is girlfriend of three years, Isabel (Trimbur) and it appears to be a very tense dinner. Isabel tells him that she needs security and after he has nothing nice or reassuring to say back, she storms out of the restaurant.

Owen is then in the bathroom, throwing up his dinner before going home and finding the door locked. Without warning, Owen lays down in the floor and has a seizure and Isabel comes out into the hallway, begrudgingly taking care of him.

Later, after arguing with Owen, Isabel reveals she is pregnant, a revelation that catches Owen off guard. Isabel tells Owen she isn't going to keep the baby and runs off to bed. Throughout the night, Owen has terrible nightmares of his parents deaths and tells Isabel the next morning that he wants to be a father to her child to try to step out of his past and into a new future. She reminds him that family is important to her and says she will have the baby with him only if he takes her to visit his grandmother and sister whom he has nothing to do with and try to reconnect with them.

Although Owen doesn't want to visit his grandmother Violet (Flanagan), he decides to go for Isabel's sake and also to try to talk his sister Pearl (McCord) into coming away with them. The resulting weekend turns into a horrific time that will soon be their biggest regret.

I am going to give it to you straight folks...I HATED this film. The best things about this film are, the opening sequence right before the title screen, Adrian Grenier's beautiful blue eyes and Matthew Gray Gubler. I am a little bias though because I have been a fan of Gubler's for a long time and I will say, although I do count him as one of the best things about this film, he didn't have nearly enough screen time to really be counted as a third reason to like this film.

Owen is a very unlikable character. He is a huge jerk, he has no care or respect for anyone else other than himself and he is arrogant. I am not sure how a character that is a male bulimic (yes, I know they exist, they are just not quite as common as a female with bulimia) with clinical depression that suffers from seizures could be so conceited and self important. With that many health problems, you would think the character would just be happy to be alive.

And Isabel...PLEASE don't get me started. First and foremost...WHY is she still in a relationship with him? It is obvious they do not like each other, from the way they speak to each other to their very lackluster sexual encounters, these two characters are so bad for each other it hurts. I don't mean in a since of they are so bad for each other it turns out as a perfect match, I mean, bad for each other in murder/suicide kind of way. This couple is a couple that should have broken up a long time ago and stayed apart, for their own sanity.

Honestly, I could go on and on about this film but there is no point because it would all be negative. I was cruising through Netflix the other day and saw this on there and thinking it would be interesting; I now feel robbed because I invested over a hour and a half of time to this film that I will never get back. I will tell you, worst use of time ever. Don't suffer the same regret of time loss that I do, skip this one completely.

Until next time, Don't Forget the Popcorn!

The Imitation Game

Movie Title-- The Imitation Game

Release Year-- 2014

Running Time-- 1 Hour and 54 Minutes

Director-- Morten Tyldum

Cast-- Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightly, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard, Charles Dance, Mark Strong, James Northcote, Steven Waddington, Ilan Goodman, Jack Tarlton

Based on the true story of Alan Turing, the father of modern day computing; Turing leads a motley crew of scholars during World War II that is formed to crack the “uncrackable” codes of Germany's Enigma Machine.

After Britain declares war on Germany in 1939 Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) is accepted by Commander Alastair Denniston (Dance) for a code-breaking job at Bletchley Park to break the Enigma codes that the German's use to encrypt their communications with, along side of Hugh Alexander (Goode), John Cairncross (Leech), Peter Hilton (Beard), Keith Furman (Goodman) and Charles Richards (Tarlton). Turing works alone and focuses all of his efforts into making a decryption machine instead of the more time consuming decoding by hand.

Denniston refuses to fund the construction of the machine, so Turing writes to Wintson Churchill who makes Turing the team leader and sets up funding for the machine. Turing then fires Furman and Richards due to them not being mathematicians and demands that the rest of the group help make the machine with him.

Needing more people on the team, Turing places a crossword puzzle in the paper with the heading “solve in under ten minutes for an exciting career opportunity” which leads him to choosing Joan Clarke (Knightly) and Jack Good (Northcote) to round out the team. Clarke's parents do not approve of her being on an all male team, so Turing sets up a job for her as a telegraph clerk since it is an all female job and sends cryptographic material to her room in secret.

Together they work on a machine that will change the future of the war but not without having to work through the trials and struggles that comes with one of the most top secret projects in the history of the world.

I enjoyed this film. There were a few parts that did seem a little lengthy but a story like this should be a little lengthy. It is basically told as a flash back; the film starts it is 1951, then flashing back to 1939 and at one point going back even further to his school days.

I adore Benedict Cumberbatch; I feel like he is one of those actors that can take on a role and totally transform into that character. Don't count out the rest of the cast of this one though, this film is peppered with great actors.

Alan Turing is a very interesting man, it is just too bad that he has such a sad story though. I won't say anything else for anyone that has not already seen this film or doesn't really know Turing's story but I do want to try to find a good documentary on him to review. I think it is good to learn about people that have actually done things to better the world or “saved” the future, especially in today's age of instant gratification and sudden celebrity.

Don't take my word for it, sit down and check it out for yourself. You should maybe grab some tissues just in case but whatever you do, Don't Forget the Popcorn!