butter

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1349451

for some reason, i expected butter to break out of its tiny mold and go big, but it started as a small story, developed as a small story, and finished as a small story.  the jokes flopped for the most part, usually in that uncomfortable way where the actor has done their utmost to deliver it correctly, but it just happens to not be funny.  the extent of the character development was that jennifer garner cried at the end.  however, this was right after she lost the big butter carving competition that meant everything to her, so it is perhaps unwise to read too much into those tears.  oh, by the way, this review may contain spoilers.  as usual.

it seemed to me that they did what they could with the story, but it was just not that interesting.  to make this heap much better, they would have had to take it in a completely different direction.  for example, they could have centered the story on the stripper, who could have entered the butter-carving competition to try to win the cash prize so she could save her strip club from going under.  she could have been joined by all the other strippers from the club, and zombies could have attacked the competition hall, forcing the strippers to use their butter-carving skills to defend themselves.  maybe the zombies turn out to be allergic to butter or something.  anyway, with dwindling butter supplies, they are forced to make a last stand around the stripper's award-winning butter sculpture, and she is forced to dismantle it for the butter to kill the zombie master once and for all.  with the zombies defeated, the judges for the butter-carving competition finally arrive and disqualify the stripper's sculpture on account of it having been used to kill the zombie master.  the stripper flings butter into the judges' faces climbs onto her motorcycle, and hits the road:  a wanderer once again.  i call it butter-carving zombie-slaying strippers and give it five academy awards.

butter, on the other hand, gets two sticks.  all in all, it flopped hard.  i vaguely remember laughing, though, so i am cutting it a little slack.  truthfully, my memory is a little fuzzy.  i might have been laughing because of something outside the movie, also we were watching SNL clips after it was over, so it could have been that.

the place beyond the pines

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1817273/

the place beyond the pines is one of those movies where you definitely need to *not* watch the trailer.  if you had watched the trailer, you would probably be expecting a ryan gosling movie, but then you would be sad.  so very very sad.  you would be sad because ryan gosling dies like 40 minutes into the movie and then it quite suddenly transforms from a ryan gosling movie into a bradley cooper movie.  not cool.

but ok, maybe you do not mind bradley cooper, in which case who are you?  do you exist?  i bet you have watched all of the hangover movies.  you are everything that is wrong with this world.  anyway, whoever you are, you are only going to be happy for another 50 minutes, at which time bradley cooper becomes largely irrelevant and it transforms into a movie about some kids.

there was some symbolism in there or something, but it was not really that interesting.

the place beyond the pines gets two pines.

john dies at the end

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1783732

just because it is weird does not mean it is good.

john dies at the end gets one packet of soy sauce.

zombies vs strippers

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2364997

zombies vs strippers.  it has zombies, and it has strippers.  what more could you want?  you might be thinking that that question is rhetorical, but pretty much no.  let me tell you about some of the things you could want.

• a script: other than the painful attempts at clever one-liners, there was little sign that there was an actual script associated with this film.
• THE ROCK: but then, i want to see the rock in pretty much every movie.  it is a pretty far-fetched notion for this film because the rock is probably pretty expensive, and this film was clearly lacking...
• a budget: if they had doubled their budget to $2000, they could have afforded to hire *professional* hobos to play the zombies or real strippers to play the strippers.  or with careful negotiating, both of those things.
• better communication between actors and the director: it seemed to me that the director could have done a better job of communicating to all the actors the kind of movie that they were making.  if everybody had been on board with the fact that they were making a crappy straight-to-video movie, then they could have made a really great crappy straight-to-video movie.  it worked for zombie strippers, and it could have worked here if no one had taken their roles seriously.  in particular, i thought most of the zombies took their roles a bit too literally

i do not know what i was expecting, really.  i knew it was going to be schlock, so i should not be surprised that it turned out to be schlock.

zombies vs strippers gets one zombie or one stripper, but not both.

megamind

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1001526

megamind teaches us that if you are blue and misunderstood and a super genius that you can can still win the day and the city and the girl.  speaking only for myself--because i know a lot of people who are not me have not had this work for them--it is absolutely true.  also, you can be an astronaut or a ninja or the president of the united states, no matter who you are.

those of you who are connected to "reality" of course realize how ridiculous that is.  it is all chance and good luck and just happening to be at the right place at the right time.  is that something we could take away from megamind?  answer: no, not unless you want to remove the only thing that makes it stick together.  but what am i doing, demanding that kind of quality from a film that 1) is animated and 2) stars will ferrel?  i might as well complain about water being wet.  you do not watch an animated will ferrel movie to get meaning, you watch it for cheap laughs.  megamind had a few of those, i guess.

megamind gets two brainbots.