21 Jump Street

People used to write in your yearbook, Stay Cool.  What if cool changes?

For those of you who don't know, 21 Jump Street was a police program which sent cops impersonating teenagers undercover into high schools to solve crimes.  Like Jonah Hill, I agree that the police force needed to reprise this program.  The move begins with Johan Hill and Channing Tatum in high school.  One is the super cool guy and the other is the - I can't seem to find myself geek.  I'll let you figure out who played who.  They enroll into the police academy and develop a brotherly friendship.  Their debacle attempt at their first arrest gets them enlisted into a reprised police program, 21 Jump Street (enter theme music).

How does a 31 and 29 year old, playing twenty somethings blend into high school?  By assuming new identities and relying on high school knowledge.  Unfortunately a lot has changed in the past few years.  If you had to go back to high school where would you fit in?  When you went to high school did you wear one or two backpack straps?  How cool was your car?  Were the jocks cool and the nerds dorks?  What if you went back and the eco conscious, smart, peter pan costume wearing teen is the most popular guy in school?  

This is the funniest movie so far this year.  (It’s even funnier then American Reunion).  Jonah Hill and Chaatum Tatum make a kick ass comedy duo.  As my friend Anne says, Jonah Hill is a funny guy.  That he is.  He was co-writer on this film, and not only was it a good tribute to the TV show, but you will enjoy it even if you never watched the show.  Anne thought a lot of the lines were improvised during the shoot, which Channing has confirmed during TV interviews.  I can only imagine the outtakes from this film.  I mean, the scene where they had to finger each other’s mouth, you can’t just get that in one shot. 

Movies you should have seen by now

21 Jump Street:  If you are in the mood for comedy you must go see this movie.  Jonah Hill and Chaatum Tatum make an awesome comedy duo.   It does not matter if you watched the original TV series.  This is one funny movie.  

Hunger Games:  If you read the book you have already seen this movie.  If you haven’t then you might as well see what everyone is talking about.  You won’t be disappointed.

The Raid: Redemption:  Ok it isn’t out yet, but that’s no excuse.  If you are a guy and/or like kick-ass fight movies, you must see this movie. 

John Carter - Review

Based on a series of books written 100 years ago, John Carter is about a man living in the early 1900 who is transported to Mars.  With parallels to his time of fighting Indians in the Wild West, he finds himself fighting for a society's survival. When I told my friend Anne this, who didn’t go to see the movie with us, she asked, “If he’s from the 1900’s why is he wearing a loin cloth in the commercial?”

I will admit, I was confused when the movie started in the 1900’s on earth, because the awful commercials make the movie look like a sequel to 300 taking place on Mars.  As TJ said, "It was a lot better than expected." It was an enjoyable movie that kept my interest the entire time.  I do think the leading actress was over dramatic at times. This seemed to lessen as the movie went on.  The CGI effects looked similar to the style of Avatar with a Mars color scheme.  You will never know that it is Willem Dafoe who is playing the lead alien.  If you like big blockbuster type action movies, you will like this one. 

So how does he get into his loin cloth?  You will have to watch the movie to find out.  Believe me ladies, you will not mind watching him in this outfit throughout the rest of the movie.  I will tell you that the scene was actually funny.  There was a lot of humor written into the script.  When he was first transported to Mars, he didn’t just transform into the half naked war hero.  John Carter had to go through the unfamiliarity of walking on a new planet and then encountering alien life forms.  It’s not something you can just strip down for.

What's amazing to me is that someone had this idea of such a futuristic world 100 years ago.  Juan who was with us had read the books, and said a lot was added to the movie that wasn't originally written, but the same ideas are there.  This story was the spark for Sci-fi movies and stories as we know them today.  Apparently George Lucas originally wanted to make these books into a movie, he was told no, and so he went on and created Star Wars.  After seeing the movie, I really want to read the entire series.

Overall:  The movie gets 3 stars and Disney should find a new company to produce their trailers.

The Raid: Redemption

Now I should have realized that this was going to be an excessive, bloody fighting movie when Anne and I were the only girls in line for the movie with out a guy in their group.   What do you get when you take Jack Chan style fighting, an R rating, add in a lot of knives and blood:  The best choreographed fighting movie I've ever seen. 

All I knew prior to seeing the movie that it was about a SWAT team that is trapped inside a mob building.  Little did I know that it was set in Indonesia, had subtitles and is going to be the comeback for martial arts movies.  Not only were the fighting scenes amazing, but the use of timing and camera angles took you through an intense ride that I'm still calming down from.  It took what could have been a killing spree and made it into an art form.  As Anne said, "I'm going to see the sequel."

The director, who spoke after the movie, said he fell in love with Silat which is the martial art form used in the movie.  He wanted to show this fighting style to his friends and for some reason thought the best way would be to create a movie.  (Sometimes a YouTube video just won’t do).  Well he did it justice. 

I will bet any guy who sees this will like it.  I'm glad I did go to see it.  I will admit that I hid my eyes from time to time, for those who know me that is my normal reaction to violent scenes. By the end the movie had my full attention, because you had to see what was happening.  During one of the most intense fighting scenes Anne got up to go to the bathroom, she needed a timeout for a minute.  She came back and said, "the fight is still going on?"  It was like one of my crazy dreams where I'm trying to kill someone who's after me but they just don't die.  But as she said, we're ready for the sequel. 

Project X - Review

A house party induced riot that puts occupy Wall Street to shame.  My review of this movie - it was crazy. 

Three teenagers throw a party in order to become popular and get laid.  Full of nudity, alcohol, drugs and an actual plot line, this movie will have you laughing and in disbelief as everything just spirals out of control.   Filmed in the same documentary style as Chronicle, it gives the movie a modern, unique feel.  What started as a birthday film for a friend turned into documented evidence for a court case.

When I was in high school, having a party when your parents were away was kept quiet.  We didn't have Facebook or Craigslist.  Email was as high tech as it got.  Every measure was taken so parents would never find out.  Times have changed, that or teenagers are not as smart as they used to be if they think that adults can't use Facebook.  If I was a parent of a teenager, and was planning weekend away, I would be checking his or her social media pages regularly.  If parents don’t already do this, they should.  It’s not that hard, make up a fake profile and befriend your child.  Well that’s the end of today’s stalking lesson.

Damn, I'm getting old (something I said would never happen).    Throughout the movie I was thinking, kids these days are just out of control.  Do teenagers watching this movie share my view?  Probably not, they were just taking notes.   I am probably on the same level as the neighbor who was in his early 30's who looked like he used to party prior to having his baby.  The one who came over around 11 to ask them to keep it down, which resulted in him getting tased and then punching a kid in the face.  As I said before... Crazy.

Overall this movie was surprisingly funny and I would recommend seeing it.  It had great timing, the unknown actors did a great job, and I bet we see a few of those kids in upcoming movies.  Project X will shock you, make you laugh and make you check to see if you have enough home owners insurance.