Article: Palooz Presents: 2013 in Film

[Palooza]

115. Kick-Ass 2
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jim Carrey, Clark Duke, Donald Faison, John Leguizamo, Iain Glen, Lindy Booth, Lyndsey Fonseca​

Director(s): Jeff Wadlow
Writer(s): Jeff Wadlow
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: August 16
RT Score: 29% (45 fresh, 109 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: The Motherfucker wants revenge on Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl for the actions of the original film.
Comments:
Part 2 in our "I do not understand my source material" chronicles. Kick-Ass was a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek look at VIOLENCE. Kick-Ass 2 is a try-hard piece of garbage that uses cheap and lame excuses to be as violent and obnoxious as possible. Matthew Vaughn is a genius and needs to stop giving up his projects' sequels. Really hope X-Men: Days of Future Past doesn't carry on the Vaughn kiss of death. Here, we hand the reigns off to Jeff Wadlow of NEVER BACK DOWN fame. We get a Never Back Down level movie.

The best part of the original is easily Chloe Grace Moretz's Hit Girl, the foul mouthed preteen girl. Well, she's in high school now and instead of having her be a fucking badass throughout the movie, she is regulated to the "superhero who lost/doesnt want to use their powers" role and tries to be just boring old Mindy Macready. It often attempts to use the high school setting for laughs, it's mostly just Farrelly-level raunch that is more dumb or gross than funny. At one point, Moretz uses something like the Sick Stick from Minority Report to make some girl shit her pants or puke or both. Either way, it's cheap and dumb. Moretz does the whole "i just wanna be normal!" routine and it's boring as fuck. Factor in that Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Kick-Ass is the "Straight man" in this film, it gets pretty vanilla.

One of the biggest problems is Jim Carrey. He's fucking great in the TWENTY MINUTES OF SCREEN TIME! He is killed off, fuck you spoiler alert, almost immediately after meeting him. They almost completely copied the role of Nic Cage from the original, being the death that broke the camels back for the two heroes. Donald Faison is also great, but he doesn't get enough screen time either. He is genuinely the only funny part of the movie. In addition, almost all of these hero vs. villain films depend on the dynamic between the hero and the villain, you'd think that's obvious. Here, the hero is boring and the villain is a scum piece of shit who is in no way shape or form a threat to anyone. The Motherfucker is absolutely intolerable, lisping his way through commands to have others killed, never doing fuck all for himself, ever. Plus, he dies like a lil bitch.

This movie is a sorry excuse for a sequel and is almost exactly why it is impossible to duplicate something so unexpectedly great. Which leads us to the next film....

Spoiler Alert: Pretty much only the main characters live. Good guys win.
Grade: F-

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

I'm going to join this thread...and not porst reviews...but just buzz along and post my rankings as you cruise along with this surely, un-finishable thing.

My bottom seven...

The Purge - 2.5
Runner Runner - 2.5
Oz The Great And Powerful - 2.0
Last Vegas - 2.0
The Hangover Part III - 1.5
The Lone Ranger - 1.5
The Great Gatsby - 1.0

 

[Palooza]

114. The Bling Ring
Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga, Katie Chang, Isread Broussard, Claire Julian, Leslie Mann, Gavin Rossdale​

Director(s): Sophia Coppola
Writer(s): Sophia Coppola. Nancy Jo Sales (based on her Vanity Fair Article)
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: June 21st
RT Score: 60% (108 fresh, 72 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: Dumb, materialistic, spoiled, bored bitches rob dumb, materialistic, spoiled, bored celebrities.
Comments:
This movie doesn't even need to exist. There's not story beyond a one line description. There is nothing to these people besides they're bored and are obsessed with celebrity culture. Sophia Coppola says nothing on the subject, instead just follows a bunch of spoiled kids in LA who are bored with getting and doing whatever they want, so they break into Paris Hilton's house. Then the next 45 minutes is of them sitting in a room talking about what they did, someone new in the room saying 'omg I wanna rob Paris' then they play around in the house with their shit and then sell it to some shadeball (Gavin Rossdale), rinse and repeat. They get caught and get in trouble. Fin. There's no story. Emma Watson is hot, but she's not even the main character, she's just a side character/wannabe celebrity. The leads are two shit actors - some queer kid and some annoying bitch. Actually all the characters are annoying as fuck.

Sophia Coppola continues her tradition of slow, plotless explorations of bored people with too much time and money. Sounds exactly like herself. Her father, Francis Ford Coppola was at one time the Greatest Director on Earth, but now he makes garbage, Sophia Coppola makes these boring movies and we already know all about Roman Coppola. The Coppola dynasty is dead. The only one who remains is Nicolas Coppola himself, the one true god.

Spoiler Alert: They get caught.
Grade: F-

 

[Pitty]

So what you're saying is to avoid any films by the Coppola family?

 

[Palooza]

So what you're saying is to avoid any films by the Coppola family?

:jack:

 

[Palooza]

113. The Hangover Part III
Bradley Cooper, Zack Galifinakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy, Jeffrey Tambor, Heather Graham, Jamie Chung​

Director(s): Todd Phillips
Writer(s): Todd Phillips, Craig Mazin
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: May 23
RT Score: 19% (36 fresh, 152 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: These fuckboys are on their way to bringing Alan to rehab when John Goodman kidnaps them and holds Doug while the other three have to go find Senor Chang. Mayhem ensues.
Comments:
Same shit, different sprinkles/10

Spoiler Alert: :marty:
Grade: F-

 

[dell71]

I'll go ahead and own up to liking Kick-Ass 2. I know, you all hate it. Whatever.

I didn't hate Now You See Me, either. Didn't love it or anything, but thought it was 'meh.'

I did hate The Hangover Part III, but actually for the exact opposite reason given in Palooza's comments. It's biggest problem was that it WASN'T the "same shit." It did have the "same sprinkles," i.e. all the characters, but instead of a bunch of zany and raunchy jokes about a wild and forgotten night we got a boring, unfunny crime thriller that wanted to be a dark comedy.

 

[Palooza]

YO Luke, u either the only human on earf to like Hangover Part III or the symbolism of my review was beyond you. I put the same amount of effort into that review as the filmmakers did for the movie.

 

[Palooza]

I'll go ahead and own up to liking Kick-Ass 2. I know, you all hate it. Whatever.

I didn't hate Now You See Me, either. Didn't love it or anything, but thought it was 'meh.'

I did hate The Hangover Part III, but actually for the exact opposite reason given in Palooza's comments. It's biggest problem was that it WASN'T the "same shit." It did have the "same sprinkles," i.e.all the characters, but instead of a bunch of zany and raunchy jokes about a wild and forgotten night we got a boring, unfunny crime thriller that wanted to be a dark comedy.

wait what do you mean "instead"? Zany and raunchy jokes are still there, they've just been so exhausted they're boring. Their adventure isn't because of a wild and forgotten night, sure, but it's still the basic theme of their immature actions catching up with them. This movie is so lazy it doesn't even present the 'OMG WTF HAPPENED WE GOT SO WILD LAST NIGHT, SURE HOPE THAT DOESN'T COME BACK TO BITE US' it just uses their relationship with Leslie Chow over the past two movies as that. So it's OMG WTF HAPPENED WE GOT SO WILD THE LAST TWO MOVIES, HOPE IT DOESN'T COME BACK TO BITE US. That is what we call the shit. The heist element is what we call the sprinkles.

Same shit, different sprinkles.

 

[NAHSTE]

YO Luke, u either the only human on earf to like Hangover Part III or the symbolism of my review was beyond you. I put the same amount of effort into that review as the filmmakers did for the movie.

Bruh I was drunk last night and I was like "FUCK THIS MOVIE I HATE IT SO MUCH" so it was a reflexive groan. Then I realized "wait, I'm not groaning the movie I'm groaning Kyle" and I was consumed with regret.

But I'm a man of my word. I cannot un-groan a groan.

 

[Palooza]

Bruh I was drunk last night and I was like "FUCK THIS MOVIE I HATE IT SO MUCH" so it was a reflexive groan. Then I realized "wait, I'm not groaning the movie I'm groaning Kyle" and I was consumed with regret.

But I'm a man of my word. I cannot un-groan a groan.

Sounds like dave's alcoholism. Knows he has a problem, won't do nuffin to fix it.

 

[Palooza]

My next review is dedicated to NAHSTE

edit - jk it wasn't next but it is coming soon. if i don't post it tonight you can stand on my neck

 

[dell71]

wait what do you mean "instead"? Zany and raunchy jokes are still there, they've just been so exhausted they're boring. Their adventure isn't because of a wild and forgotten night, sure, but it's still the basic theme of their immature actions catching up with them. This movie is so lazy it doesn't even present the 'OMG WTF HAPPENED WE GOT SO WILD LAST NIGHT, SURE HOPE THAT DOESN'T COME BACK TO BITE US' it just uses their relationship with Leslie Chow over the past two movies as that. So it's OMG WTF HAPPENED WE GOT SO WILD THE LAST TWO MOVIES, HOPE IT DOESN'T COME BACK TO BITE US. That is what we call the shit. The heist element is what we call the sprinkles.

Same shit, different sprinkles.

I wasn't really looking to get into an argument about why it sucked. That would be pretty pointless since we both agree that it was a steaming pile .

 

[Palooza]

112. A Good Day to Die Hard
Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Luliya Snigir, Cole Hauser, Mary Elizabeth Winstead ​

Director(s): John Moore
Writer(s): Skip Woods
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: February 14
RT Score: 14% (30 fresh, 181 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: A Good Day to Die Hard is the fifth installment in the Die Hard franchise. John McClaine travels to Russia to ‘save’ his son.
Comments:
I’ve said this on more than one occasion - action movie franchises are dependent on two things (one much more important than the other) - villain(important one) and the 'sidekick' (the much less important one). Die Hard is the best example of this because we know exactly what we are getting from John McClaine. Especially at this point in the game, John McClaine will do his John McClaine thing, it’s the supporting characters who need to step it up to elevate the films. Just being John McClaine isn’t enough, we need more. For starters, McClaine’s sidekick needs to be colorful and easy to root for and the villain needs to be ruthless and brilliant or at least have some tricks up their sleeve. Boring robots or faceless villains need not apply. Let’s check out the franchise as a whole...

Die Hard: villain - Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), sidekick - Sgt. Al Powell
Die Hard 2: villain - group of rogue military mfers, sidekick - Sgt. Al Powell?
Die Hard with a Vengeance: villain - Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons), sidekick - Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson)
Live Free or Die Hard: villain - Thomas Gabriel(Timothy Olyphant), sidekick - Matt Farrell (Justin Long)

The original is one of the best actions ever, no question no need to explain. Die Hard 2 I haven’t seen in forever, but I remember hating it because the villains were so fucking weak sauce. Die Hard with a Vengeance is a near perfect sequel, connecting to the first movie (Hans and Simon are bros), adding new elements and characters (Simon on the offensive, the cat & mouse element plus the addition of Sam Jackson’s brilliant cab driver/sidekick Zeus) creating a movie that feels fresh, but still has a familiar taste. Live Free or Die Hard gets it 1/3 right - Justin Long is an annoying sidekick, but he and Willis have good chemistry surprisingly enough while Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Timothy Olyphant are fantastic as McClaine’s daughter and the TECH WHIZ VILLAIN, respectively. The action is pretty over the top in this one, but it’s fun. It’s nothing special and a distant third from the original and with a Vengeance, but it was surprisingly pretty damn good. A Good Day to Die Hard really shit the bed on this one. The mold is there, but they goofed up, using McClaine’s robot son and a bunch of cliche Russian gangsters. A waste of time and a shame to the Die Hard franchise.

So yeah, moral of the story is the key to making a good Die Hard film is to place John McClaine around a group of good actors and fun characters, add some explosions and tension and you’re set. A Good Day to Die Hard decided to use a John McClaine copycat as the sidekick in addition to generic Russian bad guys. Oh and explosions, I guess. Skip this.
Spoiler Alert: Yippie-ki-yay mother russia.
Grade: F-

 

[Palooza]

111. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Pihla Viitala, Thomas Mann, Derek Mears, Peter Stormare, ​

Director(s): Tommy Wirkola
Writer(s): Tommy Wirkola
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: January 25th
RT Score: 15% (19 fresh, 109 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: It’s like Hansel and Gretel, but now they’re badass murderers.
Comments:
Hansel. Gretel. Witch. Hunters.
Abraham. Lincoln. Vampire. Hunter.

Same movie. Same problems. Same lack of self-awareness. Same garbage.

Spoiler Alert: They defeat evil, probably forever; no chance this gets a sequel.
Grade: F-

 

[Palooza]

110. Oz the Great and Powerful
James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, Zach Braff, Bill Cobbs, Joey King, Tony Cox, Bruce Campbell​

Director(s): Sam Raimi
Writer(s): Mitchell Kapner, David Lindsay-Abaire
MPAA Rating: PG
Release Date: March 8th
RT Score: 59% (143 fresh, 99 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: The Rise of the Wizard of Oz
Comments:
What a fucking abomination. This is the prime argument for why we shouldn’t be further exploring the worlds of classics. Just a lazy piece of shit all around. Raimi’s big budget mental game is obviously all sorts of fucked up after Spider-man 3, ironically Franco is back in his cruise control Harry Osbourn mode, looks like he needed the paycheck to pay for one of his 10,000 projects he has going on. The female cast is fine. Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz could play these roles in their sleep and they pretty much do, but then there’s Mila Kunis. She’s very, very pretty, but she isn’t exactly the best actress, unless she is going down on Natalie Portman. I won’t even waste my time on Zach Braff’s character. Not only is this movie slow and boring as all hell, it’s over 2 hours long. That is not necessary.

Spoiler Alert: One witch is a manipulative murdering bitch, one witch is an innocent sweetie pie and another is tortured soul who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. CAN YOU GUESS WHO IS WHO? WHO CARES! RACHEL WEISZ, MICHELLE WILLIAMS, MILA KUNIS IN THAT ORDER!
Grade: F-

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Oz The Great and Powerful was so.so.sooooooo bad.

 

[NAHSTE]

:lol: at this fucking promotional still though ...

 

 

[Palooza]

109. Paranoia
Liam Hemsworth, Gary Oldman, Amber Heard, Harrison Ford, Lucas Till, Julian McMahon, Josh Holloway, Richard Dreyfuss​

Director(s): Robert Luketic
Writer(s): Jason Dean Hall, Barry L. Levy. Joseph Finder (based on his novel)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: August 16th
RT Score: 5% (4 fresh, 78 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: Thor’s brother (not Loki) is used a pawn in a decades-old power struggle between two old farts at rival companies.
Comments:
This is easily one of the most generic pieces of garbage to come out in a long time. The plot is extremely simple and I'm not sure if they don't try to be slick or clever or they failed so miserably at it I couldn't tell the difference. Either way, you see every beat coming ten miles away. There is little to no character development, things just happen and certain characters exist as plot devices. I was just about to start typing up a little of the plot and holy fuck I have no idea what anybody in this movie's character's name is. Everyone will be referred to by the actor's name because there are no characters, there are just actors kind of pretending to not be themselves. You know your movie stands no chance when even Gary Oldman isn't putting any effort into his character.

Going to go over the plot on this one, since I know NAHSTE NEEDS to know how this plays out, I would say spoiler alert but if you wanna see this then fuck you.

In the beginning, Liam Hemsworth proves his brilliance by stealing money from his company, I think? Something like that, the first 20 mins or so I was so enamored with the fact that Liam Hemsworth looks identical to his brother, but has less than half the charisma. Either way, he steals dinero from Gary Oldman's company, his employer, so he goes out on the town with his nerd buddies (Lucas Till) and they ball outrageous. Hemsworth meets Amber Heard and he is so fucking slick and a mackdaddy he pipes first night. He wakes up the next day all humble and chill like yo betch u makin bruckfist? She says nah, shoos him out. He gets napped or sumshit by Oldman and the guy from Nip/Tuck and they fire his friends and send him on his way somehow some way in stealth mode to Harrison Ford's team, infiltrating his business as he has something Gary Oldman, Ford's former protege, needs to get his struggling business back on its feet. In the meeting that Hemsworth needs to NAIL to get in good with the Ford people, it turns out Amber Heard is a fucking marketing wiz for the Ford squadron and he uses his charm and wit to buttfuck that meeting and he is hired. Some lame thrills, melodrama, the FBI and some lazy manipulating later and Hemsworth uses Heard to break into Ford's place and steal the shit Oldman needs. Ford stops him all like ha ha ha I've been on to you from the beginning you dumb fuck. For some reason instead of assfucking him there he says get Oldman I wanna meet. Oldman and Hemsworth meet, they decide the mole is the nice teacher from Matilda and the Nip/Tuck guy kills her I think. Yes, because it was necessary to have a mole when one of your employees just randomly decides to jump ship from the gutter to the top of the fucking food chain at your main competish. Ya, sure, brah. Not even Harrison Ford is that dumb. Whatever, carry on - The three LEADS meet and Ford is all slick like telling them to take the batteries out of their phones so nobody can hear NOTHIN. There's like 7 minutes left and during the final confrontation we hear the legendary shoulder/neck stepping/standing on shouting match, so glad the only tiny moment of tension in the film is in the trailer. Somehow it doesn't matter their phones are off and Sawyer from LOST shows up and arrests everyone, having heard IT ALL.

Spoiler Alert: See above.
Grade: F-

 

[Palooza]

108. Pawn Shop Chronicles
Paul Walker, Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Kevin Rankin, Vincent D’Onofrio, Norman Reedus, Chi McBride, Elijah Wood, DJ Qualls, Pell James, Lukas Haas, Ashlee Simpson, Thomas Jane​

Director(s): Wayne Kramer
Writer(s): Adam Miranovich
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: July 12th
RT Score: 12% (2 fresh, 15 rotten)
The Plot by Palooza: Multiple crime stories connect through a pawn shop in the south
Comments:
I don’t especially remember this movie, but I do remember that I came across it when making my 2013 list around this time last year. Pawn Shop Chronicles had an easy, crime and violence filled anthology story that I thought had potential for greatness in terms of how terrible it could be. Filled with has-beens and bum actors (most of which I didn’t care for - especially Matt fucking Dillon), Pawn Shop Chronicles was pretty terrible, I’m not sure if my expectations were met but this movie fucking SUCKS.

The movie is a series of different stories of people who pass through a pawn shop owned by Vincent D’Onofrio and Chi McBride. As far as I can remember it essentially revolves around 3 mostly fucked up stories - The first is of Matt Dillon and his new wife about to go on their honeymoon. The two of them enter the Pawn Shop for some reason and Dillon spots the engagement ring of his first wife who was kidnapped some years ago. He dumps this chick and goes on a mission to find his wife. This one is the most fucked up - Elijah Wood is essentially a generic creepy/weirdo/sexual deviant who has a bunch of women locked up in a Silo. Once Dillon kills Wood he tries to help the girls escape (he also finds his wife), but none of them will (especially his wife) because Elijah Wood has brainwashed them so well that they’ve created a hierarchy with the women, Dillon’s wife being at the top. I think they kill each other. The other two stories range from been there done that (Paul Walker, Devil from Justified and Lukas Haas are methheads who try to rob the pawn shop and then get mixed up in some shit because they are dumb fucks. They also probably die.) to OMG LOL BRENDAN FRASER AS AN ELVIS IMPERSONATOR! No clue what happens in this storyline but OMG LOL BRENDAN FRASER AS AN ELVIS IMPERSONATOR! So bad. Brendan Fraser is THE WORST.

It’s a pretty shitty, ridiculous movie that is worth nobody’s time except someone like me who loves shitty movies.

The only notes I have for this movie is “I think Paul Walker was actually trying to act in this.” Sorry, Paul, but your character is named Raw Dog, you should have known what you were getting into. Your much better movie is much higher on the list.

Spoiler Alert: People die. Mostly everyone I think.
Grade: F-