Thor: The Dark World

That is a worthy poster right there.

"There was darkness."

Hello everyone, welcome back! It's a new week, full of NEW MOVIES. Today I'm going to talk about Thor: The Dark world, a movie that I had to see alone because APPARENTLY EVERYONE IS TOO COOL FOR ME. That's not important though, what IS important is that Thor: The Dark World is the sequel to the original Thor, which was released in 2011, and to a lesser extent also The Avengers (Thor and Loki having both been directly involved in the plot of that film), and following Thor (Chris Hemsworth, for hilariously bad films starring him see Red Dawn) as he attempts to win peace throughout the nine realms, while his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston, you know Loki) sits in a cell for trying to help Thanos conquer the Earth, and generally just being an unlikable dickbag. Despite his incarceration, Loki is waiting for the chance to take the throne of Asgard from Odin (Anthony Hopkins, of Hannibal Lecter fame) who seems to be over the hill, though still more than capable of vaporizing you with his super duper Odin Spear (Gungnir I guess). It seems like this moment is upon him when the Svartalfar, led by Malekith (a basically unrecognizable Christopher Eccleston, also in G.I. Joe, he was Destro). The scoop here is Malekith wanted to use this thing called the Aether to destroy the universe and return it to darkness, because that's how the Svartalfar like things. Malekith got his ass kicked by ODIN's dad though, so he ran away to hide until someone uncovered the Aether again, allowing him to return and do that whole universe destroying thing, during something called the convergence, when the nine realms align. Naturally, right around the time the convergence is approaching, Jane (Natalie Portman) stumbles right into the damned Aether (like literally she runs into it). In order to save her, because Thor wants to do that, he has to get the Aether out of her, then destroy it... somehow.

Devil

Going DOWN.

"Five strangers trapped. One of them is not what they seem."

Hello all and welcome, it's time to gather 'round and listen, as I tell a grim tale about a movie I watched, that ultimately I probably should not have. Do you ever occupy yourself with some other activity while watching a movie, only the second activity is the one you really focus on because the movie is so boring/crappy? For me sometimes I do it because if you're just watching a movie, by yourself, in a way that means that you are trapped alone with that movie until it ends. Sometimes I will decide I want to know about a movie I suspect will be complete garbage, but I'm just not brave enough to put myself alone in a room with it. So I set a secondary task, a handheld game or the internet or something ANYTHING, to be the third wheel to my date that I suspect is doomed from the start. In the spirit of that endeavor, I actually was doing TWO other things while I aired Devil, a film that was meant to kick off a series titled ever so humbly THE NIGHT CHRONICLES, dealing with the supernatural within urban society. That's right boys and girls, this is an M Night Shyamalan production (he didn't direct, but he did write it, so the fingerprints are still all over the murder weapon). I can't emphasize enough the sheer arrogance it must take to launch a series of movies, and name the series after yourself. Me personally, I wouldn't want my name on the Marquis over this movie, but that's because I like good things. Enough exposition though; what is Devil all about?

The Prestige

Careful you don't have your hand shot off.

"A Rivalry That Turned Deadly."

Hello everyone! It's a new week, and that means it's time for The Tagline, where I talk about a movie and state my opinions on it as if they were immutable facts that everyone needs to agree with! I won't be seeing Thor until later this week, so you might all be getting that one next Monday. In the meantime I strive as ever to sift through the backlog, and watch movies I feel would be good to talk about and possibly even be worth watching! To that end, today I will be talking about The Prestige, a movie about stage magicians, deadly tricks, getting your fingers shot off, and guys in mustaches. Also I think it might be about Christopher Nolan's desire to pit Marvel against DC, but I can't necessarily prove that. Starring A less ripped Hugh Jackman (aka The Wolverine) as stage performer Robert Angier, and Christian Bale (aka Batman) as first his colleague and later rival Alfred Borden (which to me just seems weird because everyone knows that Alfred is his butler and he's portrayed by Michael Caine, who also appears prominently in this movie). Things are generally okay between the two, with Angier being the more careful one, and the better performer, and Borden being the more daring one who is better at sleight of hand and illusion. Then Borden maybe ties a bad knot during a show and Angier's wife Julie (Piper Perabo with an English accent oo la la)drowns in a tank (like really really quickly, she drowns in less than two minutes somehow) After this act, Angier and Borden part ways, and attempt to start their own acts. Of course they are both pissed at each other, and so they attempt to sabotage each other's acts. What follows is a series of enterprises and disasters, and a lot of really gruesome injuries.

Ender's Game

Time to stare out some viewports.

"The future must be won."

Good evening all and welcome back to The Tagline! My apologies for the late review, but it's been... kind of a week. No doubt you have all languished in agony in the intervening hours, wondering what I was doing, and why I had not shared my ESSENTIAL opinions about film with you, on this, the designated day. WELL FEAR NO MORE I'm here now to talk about Ender's Game, based on the iconic science fiction novel of the same name, written by Orson Scott Card (Who has entertained the idea of adapting the book into a movie for some time, I'll get into that a little bit later. Ender's Game, for the uninitiated, is not about a game really, but it is about a boy who has a spectacularly stupid name (Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, ouch mom and dad) who is training to be a strategist. You see, it is the future, and a race of bioelectric charged space bugs tried in the past to colonize the Earth, but were repelled by the combined forces of the human race, and some guy named Rakasakam Robot or something stopped them by crashing his plane into their mothership. The bug aliens (The Formics they're called because they are flying ant-like) have retreated back to their home planet, but the Earth government, fearing their return, is determined to launch a preemptive strike to wipe them all out. At the outset of the movie Ender is seconded for training in battle school, by Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) who believes that Ender is the brilliant strategist they have been looking for.

Chronicle

They will later fight on the Space Needle.

"It's all fun and games until everybody gets hurt."

Hey all, it's time for more movies at The Tagline. Today I'll be reviewing a movie that falls under my list of "movies I swear I reviewed already but apparently I didn't because they are not in my archives." This is a phenomena that has led observers to believe there is a near parallel universe, where everything is the same except I reviewed some different movies. At any rate, when it was released in February of 2012, I went to go see Chronicle, a found footage style film that sucked way way less than Cloverfield (and not only because it was devoid of the legendary douchebag Hud). Starring Dane Dehaan as Andrew Witmer (who throws up on his long-time girlfriend and now wife Anna Wood during the film) Chronicle follows three high school dudes(Andrew, his cousin Matt, and Matt's friend Steve) who discover a mysterious hole in the ground, in the woods near a rave... in a barn or something. Descending into the hole, they find a mysterious pulsing blue stone, that turns red, causing them to drop in pain and get nosebleeds. Later they discover that they have gained telekinetic abilities from the rock, and things sort of grow from there. Steve is a very driven and popular student, and Matt is a pseudo-intellectual high school douche. Andrew in comparison is a maladjusted loner, with a mother dying from cancer and an alcoholic father, who has a fascination with power and predatory behavior. So you know, basically exactly the sort of person you'd NOT want to have telekinetic abilities, or any kind of super powers, or even a motorcycle permit. maybe this movie is different though, and he won't abuse his abilities?

Troll 2

Troll squared? What are you trying to tell me.

"Be afraid... be TWICE as afraid!"

It's Thursday, and you know what that means, I've returned to haunt you with more movie reviews! Now many of you are probably at least passing familiar with today's movie, as it has been made popular at least in meme form by the internet. In particular there is one clip that frequently surfaced for a while, catching an especially shitty moment. While it is a funny clip, and certainly representative of the movie, I feel that no short length of the film can really encompass in all its grandeur the sheer insane shitty-ness of this movie. From opening credits to close this movie is sucking at 100% capacity like an industrial vacuum cleaning up a basement flooded by a burst septic system. Before I really get into the heart of the matter, I wanted to note a few things about the movie. Firstly, while the company that produced it bought the rights to Troll the first (because it experienced very mild financial success, despite also being dross) this movie has no relation to that one at all. Second, there are no trolls at any point in the movie. There are only goblins. The movie even specifically refers to them AS goblins, so that's important too. Third, the movie was produced and directed by an entirely Italian crew, and none of them spoke English, except for a set or costume designer (I don't remember which) who interpreted. Fourth, the entire cast auditioned for parts as extras, but were then cast in leading roles. Most are incredibly ashamed of this film, so I will refrain from referring to them by anything but their character names. None of them went on to anything much better anyway, so mentioning their names would only serve to further their already considerable public humiliation. Speaking of, let's talk about the movie itself.

The Heat

This is kind of awesome.

"Good Cop, Mad Cop."

Hello friends, neighbors, and internet recluses! It's a new week, and that means more movies, straight from my basement, out to you on the www. Today I thought I'd talk about a movie that I'd heard was funny, but still didn't go to see, because it starred people I didn't like very much. That movie is The Heat, a buddy cop comedy (or not so buddy at the beginning I guess) starring Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock as a vulgar and violent beat cop named Mullins and a prim and proper FBI agent named Ashburn respectively (WOW THAT'S TOTALLY ORIGINAL RIGHT) who must team up for a variety of contrived reasons to fight drug guys and murder guys and other unsavory criminal types. For anyone who has lived for a time on the planet Earth, during an era where film exists, this plot probably sounds slightly less than original, and I'm not going to stand here in front of you and try to insist that THIS TIME things are different because they've CROSSED THE LINE. I'm not a voice over guy for movie commercials in the early 90s. Whenever you watch a movie like this (or like say 21 Jump Street) you are not watching because the originality of the premise is so fantastic. That can be true of a lot of movies though, certainly I wouldn't imagine that fans of romantic comedy watch the movies because they suspect that this time things will be different (though it would be funny if say the romantic conclusion was spoiled by an atomic apocalypse or something similar). The Heat managed to accomplish the best that basically any buddy cop comedy can hope, which is to be pretty consistently amusing and not painfully grating.