movie mumbo jumbo

I don't really know what I'm talking about.

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Looking Forward To It: ‘Don’t Think Twice’

I’m excited about this Mike Birbiglia movie, because I liked his other movie, Sleepwalk With Me.  This one’s about an improv group and what happens to friendship when one member of the group gets called up to the big time. Here’s the trailer, but whatever. Too many spoilers! By the way, this is already out! But I haven’t seen it yet because I’m tired. 

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HA! Look At This Promo Image For ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’

Geez no wonder why everyone makes fun of Sarah Jessica Parker. This is not right. Her head looks like it’s going to fall right off because it’s so huge.

Here’s what Hulu’s website looked like for awhile. 

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Important Film Discussions: Ghostbusters in 4D

This small group of genius experts who are authorities in various eighties-ghost  and movie-going disciplines gathered together at the new high end expensive 4dx theater in Union Square, New York City. Afterwards, the group, which progressively consisted of all genders, retreated to a nearby watering hole dive in the very artsy beatnik neighborhood of East Village to discuss their mega cultured analyses, theories, and hypotheses while calmly guzzling Pabst Blue Ribbons (with sides of Evan Williams).

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Countdown to Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters opens tonight! FYI! It’s showing this weekend at the new 4DX theater in Union Square New York, which is where I’ll be. I’m a feminist, so I’m going opening weekend. Pssst, I have early secret whisperings that the movie is pretty great.

While we’re waiting for the main event, carefully peruse this sophisticated Architectural Digest slideshow of the fascinating set locations of Ghostbusters.

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ID2, a Summer Night at the Movies.

We went to see Independence Day Resurgence at the Imax at Lincoln Square. If this movie wasn’t a pretty cool looking 3-D movie and didn’t have Jeff Goldblum in it, it would have fully sucked. Instead it just mostly sucked. Terrible dialogue! Bad acting! Shit plot! And since it’s been two weeks since I’ve seen it, I don’t really even remember what happens, but I do know that the plot is completely non-sensical. 

I do remember these things. 

- Both Tokyo and London were both completely wiped off the face of the earth (Brexit!?). 

- The only Will Smith siting was a photo portrait of him on a wall at the Capitol.

- The lady president dies and no one really cares

- The inspirational speech was totally uninspirational and was said by William Fitchner (not Bill Pullman) after he takes over as president.

- When Bill Pullman decides to come out of his crazy person hotel room lock down and help save the planet, he shaves off a huge intense beard and gives himself a haircut in 5-10 minutes.

- When Dr. Okun wakes up from his TWENTY YEAR COMA (is that a thing?) he immediately gets up, walks, and then goes to do science stuff. 

- Jeff Goldblum has some fantastic one-liners.

- There’s an African warlord who sort of hangs out the whole movie.

- At the end when the young pilots safely make it home, the three dudes still have their uniform shirts on but the two ladies have shed down to their tank tops.

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The New Ghostbusters Song Might As Well Be in Japanese, That Would Make More Sense.

The entire world wide web is in complete shock after this week’s release of the new Ghostbusters song by Fallout Boy and Missy Elliot (”I’m not Afraid”? ..what?). Words cannot describe the heinousness of this senseless piece of work, because it literally does not make sense. There are many many more things that make sense than this. For example, Dolly Parton is on tour, can she do it? Is Brian Eno available? Isn’t almost any basic chart topper like Taylor Swift or fucken Megan Trainor definitely definitely dying to make this song? Hell, it even makes more sense for the entire original Ghostbusters song to be sung in Japanese! OH WAIT SONY JAPAN ALREADY DID THAT SO LET’S JUST USE THAT INSTEAD.

It features four Japanese comedians, and probably has a bunch of Japan inside jokes, but it definitely begs the question, “why are Asian countries repeatedly better than us when it comes to Ghostbusters?” This video is simply a bunch of ladies singing into the camera and dancing around in proton packs, cut in with clips of the movie. See what happens when things are not over-produced, America?

BONUS VIDEO: I’m clearly not a fan of Fallout Boy. (Hey, who is? Am I right?) But I do love this Fallout Boy video.

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Thumbs Up of the Week: ‘Swiss Army Man’

What a beautiful story of two friends on journey of friendship, mentorship, love, and growth. One friend cannot function in actual society because he is dead and he farts too much, the other just can’t find society. Will they get to be together?

Now that I have gotten to see this and be the official judge of whether or not it’s good, I have decided that yes, it’s good. This “Weekend At Bernie’s” meets “Castaway” indie movie is a creative but wacky comedy done totally straight-faced, with gorgeous and colorful “indie film-like” montages, a hipster soundtrack, a moving and sweet conclusion of which the lesson is “hey man, we’re all going to be ok.” I was laughing slash crying at the comedy slash beauty during the entire last third of the film. 

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Finally Saw It Alert: The Usual Suspects

Net time I watch this I won’t be on my phone for the first twenty minutes trying to figure whether to get  Mexican or Thai food. There’s some important plot points in there. But I got the jist. Kaiser Soze and all his bullshit! There’s a surprise double twist at the end!! Daaaaamn!

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Singapore is Either Obsessed with Ghostbusters or They Are Just Really Organized

Singapore! I’m impressed! I need to know about the group email that made this costume happen. I mean it’s creepy as shit, and I congratulate you. 

According to Mashable, these weirdos gathered at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore while the ArtScience Museum lit up the skyline with a touch of green. I mean, check this out. Whoa. 

Also, Melissa Mccarthy and Paul Feig showed up and waved. 

In political slash movie news, comedian Billy Eichner tweeted this:

Yeah, I agree. Either way, no one has to move to Canada; they can just move to Singapore. 

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10 Little Netflix Movies That Are Actually Worth the Watch

There’s a whole lotta crap on Netflix. Most of it probably sucks. And you’ve probably learned by now that Netflix will make terrible suggestions and encourage to watch some bad shit. So occasionally I go on little indie vision quests to find some good little movies on Netflix. Here’s what I’ve found recently.

Hateship Loveship

Here’s Kristen Wiig doing what she does pretty dang well: playing a pathetic loser. This dark comedy is kind of a weird romance. The dude’s teenage daughter and her friend play a mean prank, then a lot of awkward moments ensue.

Adult Beginners

Yaaaaaa Nick Kroll. Yaaaaa Rose Byrne. Nice acting you two! The brother and sister duo gets rounded off by Bobby Cannavale, who plays Byrne’s husband. Nick Kroll plays another pathetic loser who gets kicked out of the tech company that he started and then moves in with his sister and starts nannying. He’s kind of a dick. Guh. 

Man Up

MAN, this was cheesy. But I laughed at the jokes. I really like Lake Bell and I really like Simon Pegg. I mean if you don’t like fun, then don’t watch it. SPOILER ALERT. They get together romantically. 

Slow Learners

HA! Thirty-year-olds, am I right? They’re just about to figure things out, but they haven’t quite done it yet. This movie is cray, because a male/female platonic friend couple (Adam Pally and Sarah Burns) are both the opposite of wild and have had very little contact with the opposite sex (pathetic losers) so they decide to rumspring the fuck out of their town, and then. . . . duh. You know what happens. 

There are a shit ton of comedians in this film, keep an eye out! Some of the most LOL out loud scenes are when Adam Pally is hanging out with his dorky friends, including comedians Gil Ozeri (writer, Happy Endings), and Bobby Moynihan (SNL). They have terrifically beautiful improvised conversations that tend to trail away off-topic.   

Manson Family Vacation

Ppppph ok this is a real interesting movie. Jay Duplass and Linas Phillips play brothers. One of them is more pathetic losery but carefree than the other is of course uptight but has his shit together. I can’t reveal too much of this one, but they go on a road trip. That’s all I’m gonna say! So leave me alone about it!

Gold

If you like Game of Thrones. . . .then you’ll recognize someone in this Irish film. It’s the girl that plays Aryea (not gonna look up spelling). Areya is fantastic in this film in which she plays a runner whose stepdad really pressures her to win a lot. Her estranged bearded biological father struts into the picture, and shit goes down. Unlike a lot of these films, this ain’t no comedy.

Save the Date

You’d think that anything called “Save the Date” and starring two young actresses would be dumb. But it’s not like that! However, it is a full romantic comedy with some predictable plot points. OH WELL. I loved the sister sister chemistry between Alison Brie and Lizzy Caplan. Martin Starr is in it! 

Moonwalkers

Hey man, this movie’s out of nowhere and it’s pretty fucking fun. Did you ever hear that conspiracy theory that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing? This is kind of about that, but not really. Ron Perlman plays a CIA agent whose job is to produce a film to fake the moon landing, but he gets tricked into thinking he’s working with Kubrick, but he’s actually dicking around with some failing band manager. They all get real fucked up on a bunch of drugs.  

ACOD

Uh huh uh huh you should watch this. Richard Jenkins and Catherine O’hara play Adam Scott’s divorced parents, Jane Lynch plays his therapist, and Amy Poehler plays his stepmom. Basically he’s surrounded by hilarious idiots. Very good watch.

God Bless America

if you like extreme violence, you love this movie. And it’s especially fun because the people getting murdered are those super annoying types, like reality stars, people who cut in line, and teenagers Ugh I hate teenagers. Bobcat Goldthwait directs this dark DARK comedy about a couple of natural born killers who are really fed up with America. Get ready for a fantasy sequence where a baby gets blown to pieces. 

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The Lobster: Weirdo Movie of the Month

Who thought of this shit? Ooooh, Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou did. Hey Yorgos and Efthymis, congratulations you fucking weirdos, that’s a smart script. I mean I’m no hoity toity snob with a high movie IQ but I think The Lobster has metaphors and symbols and stuff.

As you might have heard, this film takes place in a society where newly widowed people are taken to a hotel where they have to find a mate in 45 days or they will be turned into an animal of their choice. That alone sounds ridiculous, but there’s a lot more to the story that I don’t want to get into because of spoilerrrrrs. All I can say is this: no single people allowed! 

Why are people in this every-man-for-himself type world so dead pan and emotionless? What time period does it take place in? What brought them to this animal transformation rule? I guess we are supposed to figure that out for ourselves. In a time of remakes, sequels, and adapted screenplays, this is quite a lovely imaginative story that some critics are calling a “macabre” drama and some are calling a comedy. 

If you want, you could take a mate or potential mate to this movie and then feel really awkward about it.

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Saw It Again Alert: ‘What We Do In the Shadows’

LISTEN UP! There’s a HOT movie on HBO Go. It’s called What We Do In the Shadows and it was named Movie Mumbo Jumbo’s best comedy of 2015. 

On my second time around, this film got even better. The magical movie makers completely nailed a tone that’s a perfect mixture of documentary style combined with vampire jokes. For this watch, I found it to be less of a LOL out loud film and I was simply mesmerized. You know how when you watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians or The Bachelor, you just can’t stop watching? This had the same effect as I was captivated by the relationships between these vampire bros. They made fun of each other, defended each other, got mad at each other, got upset when the other was hurt or in a fight, and made jokes together. You can almost forget that this movie is not reality, but a hilarious comedy. 

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The Metrograph Disappoints, ‘Heat’ Does Not

Anyone who is at a average to high level of cool in New York is talking about the new Metrograph Theater in Manhattan’s Chinatown. All its hype and its slick website will get you excited about an unusual movie-going experience, claiming to be “a world of hospitality harkening back to the great New York movie theaters of the 1920s.” It also claims to have high-end curation, quality 35mm and digital video, and be a great place for a movie enthusiasts. This all seems like fun excuse to spend 15 bucks on a movie from 1995, snob style. You’re paying for the experience!

The experience, however, is ok. Admittedly, the experience is probably a lot better if you are a total cinephile, and now have the opportunity to see artsy AF movies that you cannot find on the internet. I chose to see Heat, which is $3 to rent on Itunes. So for my buck I was expecting a fully ornate art-deco situation, but what you see is a minimalist exposed concrete and brick type of design with a couple of antique couches and some art deco fonts. The hipstery decor comes with good-looking employees and nice bathroom paper towels.

Perhaps we should be happy about a new independent theater in the city, and Variety says that the the theater reminds directors like Noah Baumbach of the indie theaters that they went to while growing up in New York. I wouldn’t know much about that, but wouldn’t those theaters be divey-er? And cheaper? They probably didn’t attempt to “harken” to any time period. And I bet they had fresh popcorn.

Let’s talk about the popcorn, because when it comes to popcorn, I am a real New York snob. A small fresh popcorn at Union Square Regal Cinemas is 7 cups, or 56 ounces of popcorn, and it costs $6.50. A not fresh, sold at the “Commissary” in a 32-ounce plastic container of popcorn costs $6 (2 for $10) at Metrograph. And it’s an extremely light and fluffy 32 ounces, to be clear. Oh, but it’s made by the restaurant’s chef (jerk-off motion). I pounded that fancy-ass popcorn so fast. What kind of “movie enthusiast” only eats that amount of popcorn? And more importantly, what kind of movie theater doesn’t have freshly popped popcorn?

There’s a bar in the lobby where a 12-ounce beer costs eight bucks. Eye roll. AND Manhattan law says you can’t take your beer in the theater, which explains why all the fun boozy theaters are opening in Brooklyn.

The most 1920′s part of the Metrograph were the seats. When our great grandparents walked to movie theaters barefoot in the snow, maybe they didn’t have reclining seats. I get that. So I watched a 3-hour movie in the red velvet 90-degree upright non-reclining seats.

I loved Heat, a classic Pacino/DeNiro movie that I knew would not disappoint, and I guess it was cool to watch it on 35mm? The theater has screening programs, director retrospectives, and old artsy movies you can’t see on the internet, so maybe that should be more of the focus, and not 3-bucks-on-Itunes movies. 

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Ghostbusters Update: Trailer #2 is Out, No Need to Watch It

You don’t really need to watch it. You don’t need convincing, because you’re definitely going to go see it. Unless of course, you’re this guy. 

You might like to save the surprises for the movie itself. If so, don’t check out this trailer!  

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Ghostbusters Update: This Nerd Comes Up as the Top Hit When You Google ‘Ghostbusters’

This fully grown man called “Cinemassacre” sits at a desk on a wood panel backdrop, next to a computer from 1995, a cardboard cutout of Captain Kirk, and a fucking gumball machine, and talks about how he’s not into stuff because they didn’t do the characters right or didn’t give it a horrible “Sqeekual” type of name or didn’t do it the way Star Trek did it. 

Why is this fucking nerd the top hit? How can I watch six and half minutes of a catless video that features a man nerd-hating and rambling about how he’s not going to see Ghostbusters because he’s 100% sure he’s going to hate it? The “I’m not going to review it!” concept somehow leads to a full-on review of the mere existence of the film he refuses to watch. Not only does he pronounce “review” like Hank Hill from King of the Hill, he’s particularly nurious (nerd furious) because now when he googles Ghostbusters, he’ll see both “Ghostbusters (1984)” AND “Ghostbusters (2016).” But actually, I am the one who should be annoyed, because when you google Ghostbusters, Cinemassacre comes up as the top hit. 

This dude, who must have a real following because he’s crafty enough to use his War Games computer to get himself to a top google result, ends his video by asking his viewers to “check in next time” to listen to him keep talking more about Ghostbusters 3, the movie he’s not going to watch.

A lot of fellas online agree with this guy, who is the slimer of nerds because he’s the most popular and the grossest. Maybe these internet boy-man nerds who jerk off to the mental image of Rick Moranis telling them he’s the keymaster are right. Maybe it’s not going to be perfect; who knows. But don’t folks like Paul Feig, Ivan Reitman, Leslie Jones, Kate Mckinnon, Melissa Mccarthy, and Kristen Wiig deserve at least a watch? 

UPDATE: at the time of this posting, Cinemassacre is no longer the top google hit. It’s trailer #2! Rejoice!

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DO NOT WATCH ALERT! ‘Begin Again’ on Netflix

If you’re like me, Netflix is pushing the film Begin Again in your face. HARD. I even got an entire email devoted to telling me that this movie, which stars Keira Knightley and Oscar nominated actor Mark Ruffalo, has been added to Netflix.

What Netflix doesn’t know is that I have already watched this movie more than once, and it was not good any of the times. I know for a fact that It’s not even good on an airplane. I also know from experience that, on an airplane, on silent, it’s terrible. And finally, it’s definitely not good while watched with your mom at her house. Trust me. Adam Levine is in it. Don’t watch it. Please.

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Remembering the Kid

1984 hit film Purple Rain brought all the drama, over-the-topness, fashion, darkness, talent, and beauty that is the Prince, musical and performance genius. To quote the trailer:

“Prince. The story. The struggle. The movie. Purple Rain.”

Prince film fun fact: Prince, a man who, according to folklore, was good at many things, directed Graffiti Bridge, the 1990 sequel to Purple Rain

Extra bonus video: Watch this mini-documentary about Prince’s epic rainy performance at Super Bowl XLI. It’s excellent.