22 JUMP STREET Review- Jonesy's Take

22 JUMP STREET

Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller

Written by Michael Bacall

Starring: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube, Peter Storemare, Wyatt Russell, Amber Stevens, Jillian Bell and Nick Offerman.

Synopsis: Our favorite undercover cops are back in college trying to bust another drug ring.

Charming Potato Busts a Move in The 22 JUMP STREET Trailer!

A few months ago, a red band trailer of 22 JUMP STREET dropped, and we got to see our favorite undercover cops back in action as they go off to college. A new trailer is now online which shows us more gags, laughs, and meta humor that directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are experts at.

Check the trailer after the break!

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 Trailer Soars

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, more than any other movie in the DreamWorks roster, showed how terribly marketed their movie are. The year that the movie came out, Jonesy and I saw this movie so many times because of the amazing story, and the 3D was better than anything AVATAR was doing. Now, thanks to MTV News, we have a new full-length trailer. Check it out below.

The Red Band 22 JUMP STREET Trailer Is Going To College!

21 JUMP STREET was one of Jonesy and I's favorite movies of the recent memory. It's one of those types of movies that stays better with repeat viewings. Now, with the recent wrapping of principal shooting, the Sony Pictures YouTube page has revealed the new red-band trailer. Check it out below:

The New THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Trailer Is Nearly Perfect...Just Needs More DiCaprio Dancing

There was speculation that Scorsese's new film, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, was being pushed back to early 2014, which broke my heart. But, we now know that the film will be released on Christmas just in time for all of the Oscar race goodness. There's also a new trailer out, and even though the first trailer was pretty fantastic, this one somehow tops it.

Check it out after the break.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 Teaser Drops And Makes You Want A Dragon All Over Again

The first installment of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON took me completely by surprise. I wasn't expecting much from the previews, and ended up falling in love with the film. It now is my go-to feel good movie whenever I have a down day.

And now there's a sequel coming! This is so exciting. All the cast and the director are back which makes me very hopeful for the final product. Here's the synopsis:

The thrilling second chapter of the epic How To Train Your Dragon trilogy brings back the fantastical world of Hiccup and Toothless five years later. While Astrid, Snoutlout and the rest of the gang are challenging each other to dragon races (the island’s new favorite contact sport), the now inseparable pair journey through the skies, charting unmapped territories and exploring new worlds. When one of their adventures leads to the discovery of a secret ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider, the two friends find themselves at the center of a battle to protect the peace.

Check the trailer, thanks to Empire, after the break!

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Trailer Shows DiCaprio's Sweet Dance Moves

The title of this article is a little misleading, but DiCaprio does bust a move towards the end of this trailer. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET will be DiCaprio and Scorsese's 5th collaboration. DiCaprio will portray Jordan Belfort, a former wall street tycoon who made millions but eventually was indicted for fraud and money laundering.

Even though this could have easily ended up a more serious look at the evil people of wall street, the trailer suggests more of a dark comedy.


Check the trailer after the break

21 JUMP STREET Review- She Said

Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller

Written by Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill

Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, and Rob Riggle

Synopsis: A pair of police officers are sent back to go undercover to bust a drug ring at a high school.

Cyrus

Directed and Written by The Duplass Brothers

Starring: John C. Reily, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill

Synopsis: John meets Molly and begins a relationship much to the dislike of her son, Cyrus.

Cyrus- He said

Romantic comedies are ones those genres that make me groan continuously, and most of the time, they all hit the same beats at around the exact same time mark, and it gets rather tiresome. I honestly believe that one of the best ones from the last few years is (500) Days Of Summer and Ten Things I Hate About You; the former showed a different aspect and broke the mold, while the latter did the familiar formula in almost the best way it could. With Cyrus, the ever-hyped Duplass Brothers, directors of “mumblecore” hits like The Puffy Chair and Humpday, try to make their most mainstream effort of their career. Cyrus is the story of John, played by John C. Reilly, who has gone through a rough seven years since his divorce and is trying to get out in the game again. He meets the gorgeous Molly, played by Marissa Tomei, and the obligatory sparks fly. As the story progresses, John meets Molly’s son, Cyrus, played by Jonah Hill, as the epitome of a momma’s boy, who still lives at home and as we see, he feels threatened by John’s presence.




I had heard a ton of hype from both the Duplass Brothers and this movie from friends that had seen it, so my anticipation was very high. I admit I have not seen their former efforts, nor am I familiar to their style, so this might be a factor in me saying that while I enjoyed it, it was a bit over hyped and kind of disappointing. Let me say, there is nothing too terribly wrong with this movie, and it has a lot of really great points (mostly those relating to the actors). Out of the gate, Jonah Hill “wins” this movie; his acting here is so subtle and subdued that it solidifies his place as future dramatic actor. His Cyrus character says so much with just certain looks, the way he moves, and how he talks to people. The more and more I thought about, the more impressed I was. John C. Reilly was also quite fantastic although not nearly as impressive. Although, if he doesn’t stop playing sad dudes by the next movie he does, he’s going to start repeating himself Michael Cera-style. Since this was a fancy Dallas Film Society screening, we were able to see Mr. Jay Duplass, where he explained their loose style of shooting, and I feel this is a great asset of the film that lends a loose and organic feel to the movie. And the movie’s plot does take some unexpected turns from how I figured it would go if this were a bad rom-com.



Now, here’s the big problem with it, it can be a bit boring. I read up on the Duplass Brothers after seeing the movie, but have not had a chance to see their earlier work. I understand they like to straddle the line between uncomfortable and hilarious, and that’s never a problem in this movie, but instead there’s quite a few parts of this movie where it it’s truly slow. I kept on looking at Jonesy wondering if she thought the same. Since they use a few of the many beats that many rom-coms do, you can see what’s going to happen for a lot, but not all, of the movie, which adds to the boring parts. The other complaint, and I will not take credit this one to myself, from the amazing Gwen Reyes from NerdyPerv.com, she made the interesting point that Molly is a bit of a pushover, and she lets her fate being completely controlled by these two men, which she has what I believe are slightly messed up relationships with.



Overall, I didn’t find much to enjoy about this movie, as I feel that people seem to like the “idea” of the movie more than the movie itself. As an advocator of any and all talented people coming up through this rough Hollywood system, I want to like their efforts, but I think it’s just more hype than anything. The movie proved to be boring at way too many parts for me to recommend this to anyone, with the biggest highlight being Jonah Hill’s performance. As hype becomes a bigger and bigger factor in the movie world, I have to tell you don’t give in to it.

Cyrus- She said

Cyrus is a movie where the super awkward meets the super awkward. John C. Reily’s John is a mopey, still-not-over-his-ex-of-seven-years guy who has trouble getting a date (can’t imagine why). He meets Marisa Tomei’s Molly, who is a free-spirit, fun gal with a little secret-she has a college aged son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), who lives with her, and they have an awkwardly close relationship. John doesn’t seem to initially mind that Molly has a kid because hey, we all have baggage. But slowly he begins to see that their relationship isn’t exactly normal, and Cyrus is a sneaky, conniving, jealous son.


Molly and John seem to fit each other well. They’re both flawed in different ways, but they dig each other and may even love each other. But Cyrus doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like John and thinks John isn’t right for his mother. So, Cyrus doesn’t pull the whiney kid mode or even talks to his mom about his feelings…he’s sneaky in a very conniving and almost scary way. He’s smart, and he knows how to manipulate his mother.

So there’s the plot. Boy meets girl; they fall in love; girl’s son doesn’t like boy and tries to break them up. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. However, the Duplass brothers take a different approach to this scenario. They put their characters in some of the most awkward situations and use personal camera angles to make you feel like you’re in the situation too. There’s some amazing character work that the Duplass brothers created. The subtleties of the acting between Cyrus and John are eerily perfect. There is so much said in glances, unspoken beats, and smirks that only actors with real talent could pull off.

The problem I had with the movie is that overall it seemed really boring and has an awkward pace. Maybe the pacing is suppose to be the point because there’s not much of a plot, just one awkward situation after another. I’ve been using the word awkward a lot, but I think that’s what the Duplass brothers get off on putting their characters in those situations.

Overall, the movie is good, I guess. I wasn’t blown away, and I liked the little moments between the characters rather than the overall picture. I believed all the relationships, as messed up as most of them were, and I felt uncomfortable in the places where I was suppose to. It’s a fresh look on an old story; I’m just indifferent to the whole thing.

Get Him To The Greek

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Get Him To The Greek

Starring: Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Sean "P.Diddy" Combs, Elisabeth Moss, and Rose Byrne

Directed by: Nicholas Stoller

Written by: Nicholas Stoller/Jason Segel (characters)

Synopsis:

When record company employee Aaron Green gets the idea to have troubled rock star Aldous Snow play an anniversary show at the famous Greek Theater, he has to go get him from London to LA, which may be more trouble than he expects.

Get Him To The Greek- He Said

Get Him To The Greek is the latest in the many comedies produced by Judd Apatow and his ever expanding cast of friends/comedians.  This is not a widely advertised fact, but you can see hints of what makes his comedies great in here.  It’s the story of a record company lackey, Aaron Green (Hill), going to retrieve a relapsed junky and outrageous rock star, Aldous Snow (Brand), from England to play a show at the famous Greek Theater.  You can bet that hilarious hijinks will ensue throughout this movie.  The people that were at the screening, as well as myself, laughed throughout this whole movie, even if I didn’t quite get what the movie was trying to do.  It definitely was a good time at the movies, and I honestly would see it again if only because it’s one of the better movies out right now.

I went into this movie with mixed expectations; I was familiar with the Aldous Snow character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I knew this was a pseudo-sequel of sorts, with Jonah Hill playing a different character than from Forgetting.  This seemed a bit fishy to me, but once you get past this you can have a good time.  Aaron is a good counterpoint to Aldous but neither are extreme personas.  Aaron has some bad boy moments, and he can be outrageous, while Aldous’ big story arc has a lot to do with emotional growth.  I know it’s been done before, but the “bad boy with a good heart underneath” feels natural to Brand and he pulls it off well.  After having read, on AICN, an interview with his own drug and alcohol issues, it gave me a bit of chills, and I almost felt sorry for him having to relive those experiences.  Regardless, the chemistry between this dynamic duo is indeed the best part of this movie.  They fight, party, disagree but it all felt very organic in that way that Superbad did.  The songs that Infant Sorrow, Aldous’ band, play are hilarious in a Flight of The Conchords sort of way, there is a CD out by them with all of the songs played in the movie. 

And for all of the good that it has, I was still left confused as to what the point to the movie was.  Normally most of these raunchy types of comedies don’t really have anything in the form of a message.  But, given how many serious moments involving Aldous and Aaron, I can’t help but feel that Nicholas Stoller tried too hard to emulate Apatow and failed.  For example, there are moments where Aldous become contemplative and tries to repair various relationships and every time he does, it seems that the most outrageous and random things happen that take away from the emotion.  Like I said, if it hadn’t be for the fact that they try to be serious I wouldn’t have minded.  My other big complaint is Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ performance; you know I get it…he’s supposed to be a caricature of the eccentric music executive, but where I have seen actors tackle this same role, Combs’ performance was very one note, and ridiculously annoying by the end of the movie.  We get it; you want to make money and you need Aldous there at the Greek.  He felt like the weakest part of the movie when it came to characters.  Also there is an almost climatic “emotional” scene at the end with Aaron, Aldous and Daphne, Aaron’s girlfriend, that was supposed to be for laughs but honestly felt more uncomfortable in general, and this scene but it left a bad taste in my mouth. .  I will say that Russell Brand needs to get away from these roles; I fear he will start being typecasted even if he is good in the bad boy persona. 

Overall, I’d say you should go out there and check out the movie.  It’s not an opening night sort of movie but this will go great with a group of friends.  It is a funny and entertaining movie, with a few missteps, tonally speaking.  If you have seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it definitely feels like its spiritual sequel rather than a formal one.

Get Him To The Greek- She Said

One thing I never wanted to be was a rock star. The life seems very hectic: flying across the world to play at a show for three hours only to hop on a jet and fly back, radio interviews at all hours of the morning, TV interviews which require you to look and act coherent, recording new songs, learning new shows, and having a life somewhere in the mix. No, seems too insane for me. The only job that would seem worse is their assistant because not only do you have to keep up with the rock star, but you have to organize them and deal with their demands and mood swings.

In Get Him to the Greek, Aaron (played by Jonah Hill), gets a chance to prove himself to his music industry boss, Sergio (played by Sean Combs), by going to London and bringing back legendary rocker, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), to the States for a Today Show appearance and a show at the Greek in LA. Seems pretty simple, but Aaron has never really seen the rock star side of the music industry before, so let the fun begin!

Yes, the movie is as funny as the commercials advertise. In fact, I would say they keep some of the best parts out of the commercials, which is rare nowadays for comedies. Aaron gets thrown into this world with Aldous, and on their way to LA, pretty much anything and everything happens: sex, drugs, alcohol, more drugs, and more alcohol. Honestly, I’m not sure how their livers handle the binge. One of the best shots of the movie is when Aaron and Aldous are running out of a hotel in fear of their lives, and Aaron has a manic, terrified look on his face that he’s about to die, but Aldous has this almost excited, pleasurable look as if to say, “this happens everyday!”

This movie is odd because it’s half raunchy comedy and half mid-rocker-crisis-epiphany story? The second half of the movie deals with Aldous coming to the realization of how alone in the world he is. He has no real friends, except his mother, an estranged relationship with his dad, divorced, doesn’t see his kid that often, and relapsed into drugs and alcohol. He finds a somewhat friend in Aaron, but doesn’t know how to keep it because he’s destroyed almost every other relationship in his life up until now. Russell Brand, believe it or not, can actually act. I found him really endearing during this revelation. He makes Aldous an actual character instead of a stereotype.

Sean Combs as the outlandish record producer, Sergio, brings a great edge to the movie. He’s the black version of Cruise’s insanity that was Les Grossman. He brings amazing energy to the movie, including having a voice over of a text message that, I have a feeling, will become very popular among friends.

The only problem I have is, tonally, the movie seems all over the place. It felt a little like Apatow’s Funny People, where you weren’t sure if it was an all out comedy or drama-dy or drama. You know the movie is good, but you’re not sure what you were supposed to get out of it. You think it’s going to become sentimental, then Aaron has to shove heroine up his butt before they board a plane. Or there’s an insanely awkward moment between Aldous, Aaron, and Aaron’s girlfriend, and I won’t get into it, but you can probably guess what the moment is.

The movie is fun; go with friends and laugh, and don’t ever accept a “Jeffrey” from anyone…ever.